If you want to really dig deep when it comes to online business owners and what the best of the best do, one of the most important factors for an online business is how you interact with customers and visitors on social media.
We happen to be in a world when an average gym enthusiast or second amendment rights supporter can simply start an Instagram account or Youtube channel, and a year later have over a million subscribers, simply due to them having amazing, viral content content.
So when you are starting a business, there is a huge level of importance attached to using social networking sites to demonstrate customer interaction and service. Here are some good ways that you can accomplish this.
Probably the single most important thing you can do is to be professional. Many times, we view social networking sites as a place that professionalism is not needed. Realistically though, professionalism is even more important here, as: (1) whatever you say or do is visible by everyone; and (2) things can go viral and possibly even put you out of business, should your behavior be bad enough. When you see a client being rude, it is important not to go with what is perhaps your gut instinct and “show them”. Rather, fix the problem, immediately.
You should also keep any complaints made about your business on social media public. If you have complaints and negative reviews on a product, etc, it is FAR better to keep them there and troubleshoot (and fix) them, rather than just deleting the post or comment and pretending like it never happened. When you remove complaints and such, it leads customers to believe you are being dishonest about what is going on with your business.
That brings us to another point. Don’t just answer the easy questions, answer the hard ones as well. This is because it is likely that the difficult questions are the ones that the most amount of people are curious about. Difficult questions are also the ones that if answered, will convince the most amount of people to buy or subscribe to your product. If you can address the questions that others back off of, you will show sincerity and responsibility to your social media followers.
Lastly, make sure you are both timely and consistent in responding to people on social media. If you respond to your clients once a month, they will quickly become disinterested in following you or your company. But if you are posting deals, coupon codes and engaging on a somewhat regular basis, you have a much better chance of gaining traction.
