How connected are you?

Why offering customer service on social media is important for connecting with customers

Social media users grew by 328m between October 2018 and October 2019. Over a quarter (28%) of consumers have used social media to communicate with a company in the last year.

Just two items of data quoted by social media insights company Maybe with help from smartinsights.com.

More than 30% of consumers reckon it is a convenient method of contacting retailers and brands, while 23% believe it is a good way to get 24-hour service.

Answering a customer complaint can increase customer advocacy by as much as 25%, meaning that responding to complaints can help create loyal customers.

However, each social media platform – the main ones being Facebook, Twitter and Instagram – has certain traits that make it unique. This means their customers use them in different ways with each having distinctive usage data, and the smart retailer will make use of all three.

Facebook

Brands on average receive 39 messages per 1,000 fans on facebook per month
49% of users ‘like’ a Facebook page to support a favourite brand
More than 50m small businesses currently use Facebook Pages to connect with their customers
Facebook and Twitter are 48% more accurate and 44% faster at delivering customer service responses than email
Every day, there are 260m new conversations launched over Facebook Messenger

Twitter

77% of Twitter users feel more positive about a brand when their Tweet has been replied to
78% of people who complain to a brand via Twitter expect a response within an hour
The last two years have seen a 2.5x increase in customer service conversations on Twitter
Companies using Twitter for customer service see a 19% lift in customer satisfaction
76% of consumers are likely to recommend the brand following friendly service

Instagram

Top brands receive an average of 216 comments on Instagram
47% of millennials use the Instagram messaging app
One-third of Instagram users have purchased through the platform on mobile
More than half of Instagram’s users have discovered new products while on the platform, and they’ve been open to learning more and even purchasing

What’s a #hashtag?

Love ‘em or hate ‘em, the Marmite of social media is here to stay. Hashtags pervade our screentime and some people even speak in them. And old folk are confused by them.

Twitter hashtags (which can also be used on Instagram, Pinterest and Facebook) are words with the # sign in front of them. For the uninitiated, you create a hashtag by placing the icon in front of a word or before two words that don’t have a space between them. Like this: #AnExample.

You can use hashtags to enhance search results and to highlight keywords important to your niche, services or products. They help you to expand your online reach by attracting people searching for the hashtags in your tweets.

You can create one for your store, e.g. #greathealthystuff, but you need to make sure it hasn’t already been created by someone else. Or that it doesn’t signify something obscene.

Be careful not to overuse hashtags, just one or two per tweet. They improve the chance of someone discovering your tweets through Twitter’s search function. They can also increase the number of retweets as Twitter users narrow their search for information on specific topics by using hashtags.

Popular during the coronavirus pandemic, for example, would be #ImmuneSystem but not so much #naturaldefence as these might be used by the legal fraternity; #virusfighter will return a mix of immune support and antivirus software!

Here are some more common hashtags for our industry: #glutenfree, #localfood, #vegan, #healthyfood, #plantbased, #healthylifestyle, #crueltyfree, #organicfood, #organicskincare, #sustainable, #vegetarian, #healthyliving, and #ecofriendly.

Who’s not buying?

Did you know that 70% of online shoppers who add a product to their cart never complete the purchase?

This important factoid kicks off a detailed report for those who understand e-commerce checkout or who are commissioning an online store.

Apparently, cart abandonment is even more evident in the mobile setting, so if this is a concern to you, pop over to bit.ly/2T2WqYz and download ‘Mobile checkout optimisation: 10 ways to retain mobile shoppers in the checkout process’ by web research institute Baymard and Amazon Pay.

Or hand it to your IT specialist.

With thanks to...

Sources for this article: Social media insights company Maybe, Brandwatch, SmartInsights, Lyfe Marketing, Mobile Monkey, Online Marketing Institute, Baymard Institute/Amazon Pay, deliciousliving.com, social media strategist Frances Caballo.