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You’d be hard-pressed to find a successful brand that doesn’t have a strong social media presence. To ensure that their message reaches as many prospective customers as possible, many prominent enterprises are active on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and other social media staples. However, creating engaging posts is only half of an effective social media strategy. The manner in which you interact with your followers is every bit as important as the quality of your posts. So when building your brand on social media, take care to avoid the following blunders.
Making Followers Wait Forever
Being able to instantly submit comments, queries and complaints to their favorite companies is among the main reasons many people access social media. That being the case, it’s in your best interest to provide satisfactory responses to feedback in a timely manner. This isn’t to say that you need to reply to every comment that’s left in response to one of your posts, but legitimate questions and complaints should all be responded to within several hours — provided, of course, they’re submitted during regular business hours.
If you want existing and prospective customers to feel a personal connection to your brand, you’ll need to show them that their feedback matters. Unsurprisingly, making people wait days for a reply is practically guaranteed to have the opposite effect. In the digital age, consumers have more options at their fingertips than ever before, and if your company is unable to provide the common courtesy of a timely reply, they should have no trouble finding a competitor who can. Should you accidentally allow a particular comment or question to fall through the cracks, take care to provide an apology when issuing your eventual response.
Offering Glib Responses
Many companies make the mistake of replying to comments and queries in an impolite manner. While not outright insulting, many of these responses exude sarcasm and/or curtness. Not only does this create the impression that a follower’s feedback doesn’t matter, it makes companies seem unapproachable and inadvertently discourages other followers from sharing their thoughts. Since building a solid rapport with prospective customers is the whole point of maintaining a social media presence, being rude is incredibly counterintuitive.
It should be noted, however, that not every company intends to be rude when crafting replies. Since online interaction lacks many of the subtleties of in-person interaction, it’s easy to give off the impression of offense when none is intended. In some cases, simply being too brief in your response can make it seem like you’re being dismissive. For example, if someone has a question about a complex topic like the most dependable hybrid cloud security solutions, a one-sentence reply is hardly sufficient.
As such, it’s important to be very careful when selecting the proper words and phrasing. For best results, respond to each query in a way that you’d appreciate having a question addressed. Even in the digital age, a little bit of politeness can go a long way, and showing your followers common courtesy is often an effective way to build brand loyalty.
Getting Into Arguments
When working to promote your brand on social media, being baited into an argument is one of the worst things you can do to yourself. The internet is full of people who thrive on creating conflict, and a sizable number of these individuals can be found on prominent social media outlets. If you suspect someone is trying to goad you into an argument, you’re probably right. When it comes to combative individuals on social media, you’re better off not engaging. Even if the other party is clearly the aggressor, taking their bait will only serve to make you look petty and immature to other followers. Should you receive comments that are outright threatening, take care to report them to the site’s security team instead of attempting to handle the problem yourself.
Maintaining an active presence on social media is an absolute must for modern-day brands. In the digital age, being absent from social media mainstays like Facebook and Twitter can be downright disastrous for companies that wish to reach an increasingly interconnected consumer base. While various social media practices and trends may elude certain businesses, the consumer interaction portion of the social media experience isn’t nearly as complicated. As is the case with real-life interactions, you’ll be expected to maintain an air of civility and abstain from being insulting or combative. Making an active effort to avoid the previously discussed blunders is sure to be a boon to your brand’s social media endeavors.
