How to Use Social Media to Engage With Your Clients
By Inspiring Interns
Itching to interact with your current clients and attract more business at the same time? Of course you are, the success of your business depends on it. So let’s talk social media.
It’s everywhere, the majority of people use it in some form or another on a daily basis and it’s a great starting point for attracting new clientele. But, with such a broad range of options, where do you start? What’s the best way of utilising this multifaceted tool to interact with your customers? Take a look at our tips, and you’ll be an expert in no time.
Choose appropriate platforms
With a number of options available, it can be easy to assume that the most effective way of communicating with your clients can be to engage with as many platforms as possible. Surely the best way of acquiring new clients is to approach them from every angle right? Wrong. Keep your focus on what’s relevant, and you’re far more likely to attract the attention of your intended audience.
Don’t waste time
In business, the old cliché is true and time really is money. You’ve only got a few seconds to grab people’s attention, and you need to make use of every last one of them. If you spend hours creating a blog post when your business is more suited to a primarily visual platform such as Instagram, you’re wasting your time. If you put all your effort into an Instagram photo when visual-only posts have no relation to your business, you waste more time. Keep it focused, keep it relevant, and use the time you save to further promote the platforms and posts that do matter.
Keep personal and professional accounts separate
Whilst that BuzzFeed quiz telling you what kind of shoe you are may be funny, and the video of the sneezing goat may be adorable, they have no place in the promotion of your company or brand. At best it looks irrelevant, at worst it looks like you’re far more interested in playing around on the internet than looking out for your client's needs. It works in the opposite way as well, whilst we can never take back anything we put on the internet, do you really want potential clientele perusing through your holiday snaps? Keep personal accounts on lockdown and only use your professional accounts for business. Not only will it encourage you to focus entirely on your work, but it’ll also limit the opportunity for potential embarrassment in the future.
Reply quickly
If a customer chooses to communicate with your company via social media, then it’s important to maintain an open dialogue and make sure that communication works both ways. If a customer asks you a question on a Monday and you don’t take time out to respond until the following Tuesday, all you’ve done is open up a window for them to look for another company to do business with.
One of the benefits of social media is its speed. An event can occur at 4:00 pm and by 4:02 pm it’ll be all over the internet. We’re not saying you have to be glued to your accounts 24 hours a day, but checking regularly for updates will ensure your customers get answers to their questions as soon as possible.
Create links between platforms
One of the beauties of social media is how easy it is to make links between platforms. How simple it can be to make a YouTube video and then promote it on Facebook and Twitter. This is a great tool to utilise when it comes to drawing audiences in from different mediums. Not everyone pays the same amount of attention to every platform, and so creating links is a good way of getting people to interact with your other accounts as well. Social media is not a solo phenomenon, and it’s important to make use of this.
If you’ve only ever used social media on a personal basis then transitioning into a business mindset can be a tad daunting, particularly if you’re unsure of where the personal/professional divide of your business begins and ends. But with a little time and effort, you’re sure to reap the benefits, strengthen relationships with current clients and attract new customers to your business
Jess Howard writes for Inspiring Interns, which specialises in sourcing candidates for internships and giving out graduate careers advice.
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