It was another of those days when my human, Steve, had this huge sheet of words in his hands with a big ‘T’ on the front. Apparently this is ‘The Daily Telegraph’ and he was reading an article by Chris Price called “You have to be social to sell”.
At first I thought that meant only friendly people could sell things (though, that probably helps..,).
But then Steve explained to me how Mr Price’s piece was about social media and how Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, Instagram and so on don’t just help you build an audience for your brand or product. Social media can also be a great way to engage with your audience and drive sales.
And that nowadays the way consumers research and purchase products is changing faster than any other time, and that means businesses need to change too.
The article explains how social media isn’t just where friends share experiences any more – it’s a place for brands to engage with their audience and sell directly to them. But if businesses allow customers to buy things via Twitter or Facebook, they need to make sure their customers can easily ‘click to buy’.
The stakes in social media are high. Lithium Research Group says 72% of customers complaining via Twitter expect the brand to respond within 1 hour. This may be onerous but social media also provides a speedy and effective customer service on-line.
Research by Nielsen shows that 59% of people using Twitter will ‘hashtag’ a brand and follow its every comment and re-tweet stories
IMRG UK’s consumer home delivery survey for 2014 revealed that 55% of on-line shoppers were influenced by social media posts about a company’s delivery or customer service reaction times.
Woof! That’s a lot of statistics. So here’s a few takeaways for you (which reminds me, when is that pizza delivery person due?)
Maizi’s Top 5 Social Media Tips
- Be prepared to listen to criticism and respond effectively and quickly. Do not delete negative comments
- Online or high street retailers should consider setting up a Twitter account dedicated to customer enquires
- Give your brand personality with industry articles and comments
- Make content “shoppable” Steve is always saying to me: “Make it easy for customers to do business with you”. You could have a quick link so that customers can buy direct via mobile devices
- Experiment with different social media platforms to spread the word about your product.
Maizi says
“This is interesting stuff, but I hope it doesn’t mean that Tony the Postie will stop calling by with my daily biscuit and just tweet me a video of those annoyingly “sweeeet” kittens (who turn out to be biscuits).
And it made me realise that Alisar can help your organisation, because to get more social media savvy means having the right people need to understand the changes on shopping trends.
A high performing team with a can-do attitude will embrace new ways of doing business. Alisar can help teams to react and respond positively and proactively to any criticism that arrives via social media.
Get in-touch and chat to my humans, Steve and Ann, about developing your organisation’s teams.”
Follow Maizi on Twitter
After our chat I decided to look into social media myself (between you and me Steve doesn’t know his hashtag from his elbow).
So now you can follow me @MaiziMutt for some canny canine tweets, plus you’ll be the first to find out when my new ‘woof posts’ go live, and all sorts of other interesting Alisar-related information.