Using Social Media for Customer Service

Using Social Media for Customer Service

by | Apr 12, 2019 | Blog

Using Social Media for Customer Service

in light of many big brands leaving social media, we look into why they should maybe stay

 

There is no denying that social media has changed the way we interact with businesses online a great deal. So why are so many leading brands running away? 

Gone are the days when we would tolerate delayed responses to any complaints or queries. We are now (for the most part) ruthlessly impatient people with short attention spans and the power to quite publically throw our toys out of the pram if we are unhappy. What this means for businesses is that it is more important than ever to recognize both the potential and challenges that this offers.

With Lush announcing this week that it is removing some of its channels from social media, now is the perfect time to debate the pros and cons of using social media for customer service.

Reaching your customers through social media

With more and more time being spent on social media, it is fast becoming one of the key platforms for finding out about new businesses. Sharing, reviewing and interacting with products and posts on social media can have real sway when it comes to influencing purchasing choices. In fact, consumers are 71% more likely to make a purchase based on social media referrals. Perhaps more impressive is the fact that when companies engage and respond to customer messages on social media, those customers end up spending 20% to 40% more with the company.

In order to make sure that you are reaching these customers and that they are having a positive experience with your company, it is important to think about the path that they follow when interacting with your business and ensuring each touch point is a good one.

This begins with making sure there are links on your social pages to your website and that there are clear avenues for people to contact you if they have any questions or concerns. When these have been voiced it is important that a response is forthcoming. As mentioned before, generally speaking, patience is not a strong point in today’s online world with 42% of consumers expecting a response on social media within 60 minutes.

 

The challenges of social media

This leads us to the two main challenges of reaching customers through social media:

  1. It can be time-consuming
  2. Interactions aren’t always positive

Replying to multitudes of comments, replies and complaints on social media can be a full-time job and unlike the more closed-door nature of conventional complaint management over the phone, on social media, it is there for the world to see.

Building an online community does take a lot of time and effort and combined with the decline in organic reach on social media, can be difficult to fully implement with many businesses.

Done right, social media can provide an unbeatable platform for humanising your business and creating brand advocates. At its worst, social media can be a hub of negativity directing more eyes to the bad sides of your business.

Eighty-nine per cent of consumers began doing business with a competitor following a poor customer experience. If that statistic doesn’t get you thinking about how good your customer service system is, I don’t know what will.

 

How to navigate the tricky world of customer interactions on social media

Though it is not without its challenges, we are firm believers that businesses should be part of the conversation on social media. When big brands such as Whetherspoons take their profiles offline it only opens the door for other businesses to take their place.

With this in mind, here are a few tips to help you build an online community whilst avoiding the potential pitfalls that other businesses sometimes fall into.

Social Media Customer Service Wetherspoons

Social Media Customer Service Wetherspoons

Remember that people are always watching

One thing to remember with messaging or interacting with people online is that it is, or can easily be made public. Encourage people to private message so you can get more details about their case and keep potentially harmful comments out of the public eye.

Additional note: Even direct messages can be screenshotted so don’t think that makes you ‘safe’. Paranoid yet?

 

Don’t be a robot

If you want to stand any chance of being noticed on social media you have to stand out. One of the best ways to do this is to inject a bit of personality and authenticity into your accounts. I may sound like a broken record but Innocent is a great example of this. Their comment sections are filled with humorous, personalised messages and act as their own method of encouraging people to engage with posts.  

 

Have a system to respond to notifications quickly

Make sure that you have notifications turned on on your social media platforms so you are quickly notified if people leave a comment or message you. If the sheer volume of responses becomes hard to manage then it is time to get some help or splash out on a tool like Sprout Social which has a smart inbox to make it easier to respond to any important messages.

Sprout Social Social Media Customer Service

Sprout Social Social Media Customer Service

Promote your advocates

Positive feedback is invaluable when it comes to promoting your business. Think back to when you last bought something online. Reviews from members of the public can be much more persuasive than what a company says about itself.

With this in mind, creating a system to encourage and promote feedback is important not only in showing off your business, but also showing your customers that you appreciate their feedback.

At the end of the day, if you are doing good work on and offline, people are likely to be talking about your brand. By being an active part on social media you can be a part of that conversation when it is happening. This allows you to help shape customer impressions of your business, increasing visibility and brand loyalty along the way.

If you aren’t doing all of these things, someone else surely will.

 

Want to find out more about social media, including dealing with customer complaints online? Check out our Social Media Strategy course, led by me, Ben Hawkes. Over and out!

 

Ben Hawkes

Ben Hawkes

Digital Creative

Follow us on social media for blog updates and more kick-ass learning content to grow your digital skills!

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How To Add Pixels To Your Website (Facebook, LinkedIn & Google)

How To Add Pixels To Your Website (Facebook, LinkedIn & Google)

How To Add Pixels To Your Website From Facebook, Google & LinkedIn making what seems crazy complicated, nice and easy!How To Add Pixels To Your Website From Facebook, Google & LinkedIn making what seems crazy complicated, nice and easy!Adding tracking pixels...

Making The Most of LinkedIn For Business

Making The Most of LinkedIn For Business

by | Apr 7, 2019 | Blog

Making The Most of LinkedIn For Business

the worlds professional social media platform and what you, as a business, can do on it

LinkedIn is one of the largest professional networks around, and with a growing user based of businesses and individuals aroudn the world, there is plenty to get excited about.

Whether you are new to the platform or simply looking for some tips and tricks to help make sure you are getting the most of it, we are here to help.

Differentiating between businesses and people

On Facebook, pages and people are distinctly separate – and business pages don’t directly rely on a company’s employees or business partners. At least not to the degree that they do on LinkedIn.

Some of the strongest LinkedIn pages I have seen are ones where the entire workforce act as ambassadors for the business; promoting their own work, alongside information that interests them from within the business itself.

On LinkedIn, there really is much more power given to individual profiles when compared with business profiles – and this is something owners of those pages should take note of.

Create a culture of sharing…

The award for most wishy-washy title goes too…

Following on from the previous point, if you want to create a culture where your employees share updates on their page and help to advocate your business for you, the best way is to educate and motivate them.

Keeping your staff trained on how to use their own LinkedIn is a mutually beneficial practice. It helps them to improve their own public profile, whilst providing them with tools to share your business news and updates with a wider audience.

Our advice is to host a training course to teach staff about the platform; one that hopefully energises and motivates them to use it, whilst making sure that this it is not a job requirement.

Update your profile regularly

This is a fairly self-explanatory one, so we won’t spend much time on it. If you want to be bigger on LinkedIn, make sure you put in the leg work and post regularly.

The recommended amount to post isn’t set in stone, but we would recommend at least 3 posts per week – with more time spent engaging/sharing commenting on other user’s and businesses’ posts.

Become a thought leader

An area where LinkedIn stands out is being one of the best platforms for thought leadership.

At the end of the day, people buy people, and LinkedIn is all about providing a place where people can sell themselves (Not like that. Don’t make it weird).

The best ways of raising your profile as a thought leader on the platform is to create engaging content that shows your knowledge and experience. LinkedIn articles, infographics, photos from interesting locations and interviews or collaborative pieces with other influential people are just a few of the routes you could follow to build authority.

Disclaimer: being a thought leader doesn’t mean being a know it all or a show off. No one likes a show-off, Karen.

LinkedIn ads

Honest talk now. LinkedIn ad manager used to be an absolute pile of crap.

Thankfully, after several updates, including a few in the last couple of months, LinkedIn advertising has become a much more user-friendly endeavour. If you haven’t used ads on the profile before, there hasn’t been a better time.

With the most comprehensive business professional targeting available, it should be an absolute go-to when you want to target people in certain roles/industries/company sizes etc.

Tailor posts for the platform

If you already have a pretty comprehensive Facebook and Twitter business profile and want to include LinkedIn, please don’t just roll the same strategy out.

LinkedIn is a beast unto itself and treating it the same as Facebook will be to your (and your followers) detriment.

The best way to think about LinkedIn, particularly for businesses, is as a networking event. There is a certain etiquette at networking events:

  • Don’t harass people
  • Don’t be self-interested
  • Don’t eat all the canapes

There may be fewer canapes on LinkedIn, but the fundamentals are the same. Keep it authentic, focus on the people and achievements of your business, and make an effort to get to know the people around you.

LinkedIn groups

This part of LinkedIn has commonly been abused by people’s self-interests, but there are good LinkedIn groups out there! The best thing about groups on LinkedIn is that there is usually a huge variety for almost every industry.

Try joining one with a relatively small but active audience, and actually engage with the people in it. Rather than being the person at a networking event that gives business cards to people without even saying hello, try to be the person who gets to know the others in the room and actually forms a meaningful connection.

Extra hint: Another plus of joining a group is that it allows you to add people to your network who aren’t 2nd or 3rd connections. You’re welcome.

Paid account types

Besides the typical free LinkedIn account, there are a number of paid options available.

LinkedIn premium

LinkedIn premium works the same as the free version but gives you more visibility and information. Instead of capping the number of people who visited your page, you can get much more insight into who is viewing your profile and what they searched for.

You also get access to InMails which are a nifty emailing tool which lets you message people outside of your network. You only get a few of these per month depending on your profile level so make sure you use these wisely and not just to tell Borris Johnson he is a wanker.

Sales Navigator

The other main account type for LinkedIn is Sales Navigator. This is a tool which sits almost separately to LinkedIn, and gives you a variety of options which make it easier to find and capture new leads. You can save and track people as leads, access comprehensive searching options to find new contacts, and you also get more InMails.

It can be a little pricey, and there are options to add more people and create a business team account, but it’s certainly something to look at if you are serious about creating leads on LinkedIn.

Want to know more?

Whetted your appetite and want to know more about LinkedIn? Giant Campus offers a comprehensive course to selling yourself on LinkedIn, which you can check out here. In the meantime, join our network on LinkedIn and let us know any tips we missed!

Ben Hawkes

Ben Hawkes

Digital Creative

Follow us on social media for blog updates and more kick-ass learning content to grow your digital skills!

Learn New Digital Marketing Skills
How To Add Pixels To Your Website (Facebook, LinkedIn & Google)

How To Add Pixels To Your Website (Facebook, LinkedIn & Google)

How To Add Pixels To Your Website From Facebook, Google & LinkedIn making what seems crazy complicated, nice and easy!How To Add Pixels To Your Website From Facebook, Google & LinkedIn making what seems crazy complicated, nice and easy!Adding tracking pixels...

The 30th Anniversary of the World Wide Web

The 30th Anniversary of the World Wide Web

by | Mar 15, 2019 | Blog

The 30th Anniversary of the World Wide Web

the internet is and oldy, but a goody, right?

This week, the world wide web we have all come to love and hate in equal measure turned the big 30.

Wow, 30 years eh? Instead of moving out of its mum’s basement, getting a job and settling down, it’s been constantly evolving and changing almost all areas of our life.

From changing how we communicate with each other, to helping us quickly settle arguments with a few taps on a phone screen, we here at Giant Campus thought it would only be right to take a look back over those 30 years to see just how much has changed. For better and for worse…

Communication across the nation

If there’s one thing the internet changed more than anything, it’s how we communicate with one another.

Gone are the days of picking up a phone (or god forbid) meeting someone in person. Now with the internet and social media, we can simply comment on each other’s posts and have a quick chat with the promise of “we should meet up sometime!” – even though you secretly both know you never will.

There is an argument to be made that the world wide web has encouraged us to devalue face to face conversations, but it’s not all doom and gloom. For families and friends who live in different cities or even countries, the internet has provided an easy way for people to keep in touch that isn’t going to end up costing them the world in phone bills.

And on the topic of communication, it’s opened up entirely new avenues for businesses to communicate with their customers. With social media, PPC advertising, not to mention email and content marketing, businesses now have a multitude of additional options to explore to help get people interested in their brand and buying their products/services.

 

“Hang on, let me Google it”

The world wide web has a lot of information. Like a lot of it. There are over 1.5 billion websites to explore, which according to Google, equates to over 60 trillion web pages. It’s easy to take it for granted these days, but the unique ability to access practically limitless information is perhaps one of, if not the biggest change to come out of the world wide web.

Of course, with so much information out there, it can be difficult to separate the good, the bad, and the just plain weird. That’s why search engine optimisation (SEO) is so important. With the right knowledge, you can ensure search engines know your site is great, meaning they rank higher in search results.

 

Jobs jobs and more jobs

When we think of what the internet has done in terms of jobs, it’s easy to blame it for the death of the high street. Yes, it’s true, the internet has made purchasing things so easy that physical shops are struggling to keep up, with no signs of it slowing down.

But while it has limited jobs in that respect, it’s also opened up a whole new world of job opportunities that simply didn’t exist beforehand. The rising popularity internet required whole new hosts of trained people to build sites, fix them, and help draw people to them in the first place (that’s us btw!).

Yes without the internet, the whole idea of digital marketing simply would not exist, so thank you internet for allowing all of us here at Giant Campus to have our job in the first place. Here’s to another 30 years.

We may be the digital marketing experts, but we’re eager to share our knowledge with those that want to learn more. Check out our other exciting blogs, or browse our range of digital marketing courses.

 

Ben Hawkes

Ben Hawkes

Digital Creative

Follow us on social media for blog updates and more kick-ass learning content to grow your digital skills!
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How To Add Pixels To Your Website (Facebook, LinkedIn & Google)

How To Add Pixels To Your Website (Facebook, LinkedIn & Google)

How To Add Pixels To Your Website From Facebook, Google & LinkedIn making what seems crazy complicated, nice and easy!How To Add Pixels To Your Website From Facebook, Google & LinkedIn making what seems crazy complicated, nice and easy!Adding tracking pixels...

Zero to hero: how to set up Facebook & Instagram ads

Zero to hero: how to set up Facebook & Instagram ads

by | Aug 22, 2018 | Blog

How To Set Up Facebook & Instagram Ads

from zero to hero – a beginners guide to Facebook and Instagram adverts

Intimidated by the hundreds of buttons and fiddly bits that appear when you go to set up and run a Facebook/Instagram ad?

Time to read through our GIANT guide to advertising through Facebook and become a pro…

If you’re here, then you probably are ok with the fact you’ve gotta spend a little to make a lot. But, if you’re not sure why paid advertising is good, let us break it down…

There are numerous benefits of running a paid campaign, especially with the hydra of decreasing organic results being such a looming threat. With just a small paid budget it is much easier to improve your return on investment, increase conversions and goal competitions and there are plenty of options when it comes to what you promote and where.

In today’s guide/blog/lesson, whatever you want to call it, we will be walking you through the whole process of setting up and running your own social ads on Facebook, as well as some tips and tricks to help.  

It’s business time

There are two main ways to run your ads, through your Facebook page or through a Business Manager account. We will run through both here but basically, running ads through your page is probably the easier option, but Business Manager gives you much more options when it comes to tracking, different ad types, and analytics. Not to mention the fact you can also use it to run ads on Facebook and Instagram at the same time. Click the tabs below to explore the two in more detail. 

Once you’ve got those set up and decided which one you’d like to advertise through, it’s time to get going.

Pick your objectives

One of the main things to decide before you get any ads running is what you hope to achieve by running them. Whether you want to increase conversions on your website or increase the reach of your posts, these will require different approaches that should be factored into your ad creation.

Thankfully Facebook makes this whole step much more straightforward.

– First, head to your business manager
– Click the three lines in the top left corner and choose Ad Manager
– Select your chosen ad account
– Click Create
– You will then be greeted with this lovely selection:

– After choosing, scroll down, name your campaign and click continue
– This will create your ad campaign. The next step is to make your ad set which requires you to choose your audience, where you want it shared and how much you want to pay.

Pick your audience

Choosing your audience is one of the most important parts of your ad creation. Too specific and you will limit the number of people you reach, too broad and you might minimise the number of relevant people your ad reaches.

Hopefully, you have a good idea who you want to reach with your ads but here are some tips to help.

  • Don’t ignore the Connections box. This gives you some interesting audience specifications such as choosing people who have responded to an event, friends of people who like your page. Alternatively, you can choose to exclude these audiences instead.
  • As you add more demographics, interests, and behaviours Facebook will make more suggestions for similar groups you should target.
  • If you aren’t sure about which audience will have better results or want to target very different ad types, you can always create multiple ads or run an A/B testing on your ads.
  • Look into setting up Lookalike and custom audiences for EVEN MORE audience options.

As you input your audience requirements you will notice that the gauge on the right side starts to jump around more than a House of Pain on a trampoline. Ideally, you want the pointer as close to the centre of the gauge as possible.

Under the graph you will see the estimated number of people you can expect to reach with your ad. As Facebook are quick to point out, this is an estimation and should be used as a guide only.

 

Placements

Now you have chosen who you want to see your ad, it is time to choose where they see it.

Though Facebook automatically ticks the ‘Automatic Placements’ box, we would recommend editing your placements (or at least having a look at where your ads are going!).

Manual placements allow for you to narrow your audiences by device type, for example, you can show your new iPhone announcement video to iOS users only if you want. Afterall, what says exclusivity more than anything Apple.

You can also choose to exclude categories, such as stopping your ad appearing on places that have Mature, Gambling or Dating related content for example.

Set your budget

Another benefit of running ads on Facebook over other platforms such as LinkedIn is that ads are actually pretty cheap.

Whether your budget is £50 or £5000, you can set your daily budget or lifetime budget, set your ad live and see great results.

For those new to social ads we would recommend starting small and scaling up your budget as your results do.

Creating the ad!

So now you have done all that it is time to create the ads themselves!

Time for more options. Yaaaaaaaay. Let’s go back to bullet points to make this quicker…

  • First off, choose to either create an ad or use one of the preexisting posts on your page (this will then ask you to pick the post you want).
  • Select your Facebook account where you want the ad to run
  • Select your Instagram account where you want the ad to run (if it isn’t here, there is a handy instruction above the box to help).
  • Choose your ad type:

  • Upload images or videos, depending on the ad you chose.
  • Choose accompanying text on the post.
  • Add links to your site if needed (UTM this and you will win extra brownie points).
  • Add a call to action and overlay if you want one.
  • CONFIRM YOUR AD

It’s alive! Facebook will now check your ad to make sure it adheres to their ad policies but it should be set live within very little time.

There are a number of other options and complexities we didn’t cover off here, such as how to use Pixel tracking, but that is a subject for another blog. Needless to say, as you get more ads live, looking into extra features is recommended.

Tips for ad creation!

And you are done!

Congratulations. Assuming your ad did not contain gambling babies with guns, your ad will be live in the world. You can monitor the results of your ad in the Ad Manager tab and make any adjustments to any part of your ad as it is going on.

If you have any further questions, pop us an email on questions@giantcampus.co.uk.

Click here to read this blog and learn how to increase views on your Facebook video content! 

Ben Hawkes

Ben Hawkes

Digital Creative Lead

Follow us on social media for blog updates and more kick-ass learning content to grow your digital skills!
Learn New Digital Marketing Skills
How To Add Pixels To Your Website (Facebook, LinkedIn & Google)

How To Add Pixels To Your Website (Facebook, LinkedIn & Google)

How To Add Pixels To Your Website From Facebook, Google & LinkedIn making what seems crazy complicated, nice and easy!How To Add Pixels To Your Website From Facebook, Google & LinkedIn making what seems crazy complicated, nice and easy!Adding tracking pixels...

Optimising video content for Facebook

Optimising video content for Facebook

by | Jul 27, 2018 | Blog

Optimising Video Content For Facebook

if you want the engagement, you’ve got to optimise!

Video content is becoming more and more popular as the years go by, and no matter what platform you favour, video cotnent is taking over. It’s not longer just the remit of sites like YouTube; now all major social media platforms allow people and brands to upload and share native video content – reaching their adueinces from right within their timelines..

But just because you can share video on Facebook, doesn’t mean that you get to just chuck your standard YouTube edit on there and Bob’s your uncle – the views start rolling in. As nice as that would be, if you want to see success when it comes to video content on Facebook then there are some steps you need to follow in order to optimise it properly.

Keep it short

Facebook conducted a study a little while ago which found that up to 47% of a video’s value should be provided in the first 3 seconds, and 74% in the first 10. This is because people need to be drawn in – and mega long feature-length videos aren’t what people are looking for on social media sites. Although the maximum length for a Facebook video is two hours, the recommended sweet spot is two minutes or less – with some experts saying five minutes should be your absolute maximum.

Top tip: Start strong – put key facts or selling points at the beginning to catch people’s eye.

Think thumbnails

Although a lot of video on Facebook auto plays, this feature can be switched off – which means that if your thumbnail doesn’t look amazing people are going to scroll straight past. Make sure you pull them into your content with striking, compelling visuals, but also make sure that it accurately tells someone what they’re going to get if they watch.

Top tip: Colour and text can be your friend when it comes to thumbnails, but don’t overdo it. Make sure it’s just enough to create interest, without being so cluttered that people run for cover.

Catchy captions are your friend

Context is king of all things, and it’s important to remember that when it comes to Facebook video. Text can help to ensure that your video is easy to understand, whether people have sound on or not, which is why using it to your advantage in titles, captions or even subtitles can make a big difference. One study found that adding captions to your videos can increase engagement by 12% or more, so it’s worth having a play around next time you upload.

Top tip: Remember to use punchy, scannable language – if you’re trying to stop someone scrolling, try to use power words to grab their attention (E.g Free, Awesome, Learn, New)

Make it native

You might be used to uploading videos to YouTube and then embedding them wherever you need them, but when it comes to Facebook you need to go native. Embedding video instead of uploading natively can cut your video’s organic reach from 13.2% to 7.9% according to eMarketer – not something you want to happen. Facebook’s algorithm favours native video content, and you want to be on the good side of the algorithm to see success. Plus, only native videos autoplay in feeds, helping them get more coverage.

Top tip: Upload different cuts of your video to different platforms and cross-promote, to give audiences a reason to visit different places. For example, you could use a native Facebook video to preview a longer-form cut uploaded to YouTube.

While it’s hard to imagine Facebook replacing YouTube when it comes to video content, the social platform is securing a strong position when it comes to video marketing – so neglect it at your peril. Follow these four handy tips and your Facebook videos will be the talk of the digital town in no time.

Interested in learning how to make some awesome creative content to share? Check out our Creative Content Workshop or pop us an email at hello@giantcampus.co.uk to find out more.

Ben Hawkes

Ben Hawkes

Digital Creative Lead

Follow us on social media for blog updates and more kick-ass learning content to grow your digital skills!
Learn New Digital Marketing Skills
How To Add Pixels To Your Website (Facebook, LinkedIn & Google)

How To Add Pixels To Your Website (Facebook, LinkedIn & Google)

How To Add Pixels To Your Website From Facebook, Google & LinkedIn making what seems crazy complicated, nice and easy!How To Add Pixels To Your Website From Facebook, Google & LinkedIn making what seems crazy complicated, nice and easy!Adding tracking pixels...