Chester Hull, Prosound
Chester Hull is a Caller Experience Expert at Prosound, and an intense proponent of helping companies provide outstanding experiences in all realms of customer interaction. He writes the Prosound Blog at www.prosoundusa.com/blog and you can connect by following Chester at facebook.com/chesterhull or twitter.com/chesterhull.
“How should I use social media to reach the right people?”
“How will I know if social media is ‘working’ for me?”
“I’m too busy to be a social media expert.”
I hear these a lot, especially from business people. It seems that so many businesses hesitate jumping in to the social media pool because they are afraid they will ‘fail’ or somehow not do it right (whatever those things mean!).
Return on Investment?
But rather than only measuring the return on your investment in time dedicated to social media for your business, here’s a another way to consider the value of social media. Especially if you are a business serving other businesses.
Provide Value
We follow all our clients on whatever social media platform they use. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn. And we use that to help us provide extra value to our clients. For example: Today I noticed that one of our clients, the Charlottesville Albemarle Airport was conducting it’s Live Fire Training and Triennial Disaster Drill. I emailed the Deputy Executive Director and Director of Marketing to ask if we could help by providing an overhead announcement message that would educate passengers and visitors of the training. This would provide interest and information, as well as keeping people from panicking when they saw 200 participants from all the local emergency service agencies converging on the south end of the airport! The need to create an realistic environment includes the use of role players, real equipment, and actual emergency techniques. That could get pretty intense! And for those who would be unaware, could provide a storm of questions that the airport staff would have to answer from worried passengers! A regular announcement throughout the day would go a long ways to informing and calming passengers’ concerns.
Sale! Sale! Sale!
We’ve had similar opportunities as clients promote sales, events, promotions, or new releases. Believe me, your clients don’t always remember to share the details with you directly. But you can use social media to help keep you in the loop!
Relevant Help
Following clients allows businesses to be proactive about reaching out to clients that may be overwhelmed by all the planning and execution of an event or promotion! Instead of waiting (and hoping!) they remember to ask for your help, you will be able to offer relevant, timely help right when they may need it most. Securing your place as not just a service provider, but a true business partner…a company they can depend on to help them deliver outstanding service!
Value depends on what you measure
If you only think of social media as you speaking to your audience, you will be missing out on the value of listening to your clients and prospects. Social media isn’t just about what return you can get out of it. It’s also about finding out what you can do to add value to your clients, make their lives easier, or help them in some way.. Done well, and done right, they’ll thank you for it!