There is value in developing great business connections on social media. Whether you live in Halifax, Dartmouth, Truro, Amherst or Toronto, relationships play a great role in business success. Social media does not change this fact. Social media is meant to enhance what you are already doing.
Friendships can start from social media. Trefor Munn-Venn and myself pictured here.
Once you start to get a feel for what resonates with your customers and your community, it does not stop there. You only just begun. As a small business that depends on referrals, you have to get some word of mouth, or world of mouth, happening for you. Content marketing, using content to attract your customers, serves a purpose of getting some eye balls on your business and what you have to offer. But I believe that is still not enough. A business that uses social media for marketing must go beyond social media.
As I use social media more and more every day, I am beginning to believe that a great business is not arrived at by content marketing alone. A great business builds great relationships with their customers. Content marketing may attract customers, but it will not keep them. A healthy relationship will help move connections and relationships forward to a place where opportunity can arise. Where am I going with this? Social media is important to business. But it’s not the total package. Social media is only one tool in your business tool box.
It’s the conversations that you have with your customers and your community that will be most memorable ones in their minds. These conversations will create the greatest impact for your business. As much as possible, I would like some of these conversations to be face to face. What you need to do as a business is to figure out who you should be having conversations with. Remember, this should happen on and off of social media. No please don’t get me wrong. I am all for building a healthy social media account. But I am not for “excluding relationship building” in your social media efforts.
Social media is great for generating leads and making new connections. But if you don’t take those leads and new connections, and move them forward, I believe your social media efforts will all be in vain. Great businesses develop great relationships with their customers. The bigger the business is, the harder this will be though. But they still have to give their customer that feel good connection. Sooner or later, as a bigger business, your staff will end up face-to-face with your customer. Making them feel like a vital part of the organization is more than helpful, it’s important for building referrals. Walmart figured that out when they added a greeter at the front of the store.
Well you say that your are an online businesses and that’s different! Please let me remind you of Zappos.com. They sell shoes online. But they do more than that. They create a rock-solid customer experience by over delivering on great customer service. All of their customer touch points impact their customers with the Zappos.com experience. Just because you sell online, doesn’t mean that you avoid connecting with your customers.
I remember the Zappos.com story that went like this…. a guy’s wife that died that had bought shoes from Zappos.com. She had not had a chance to try them on yet. The guy had to send the shoes back? It had been quite a while since he was busy getting the funeral done and getting things set right. He called Zappos.com and explained his story and asked if he could send the shoes back. Zappos.com took those shoes back…. and they sent him flowers to express their grief. Zappos.com did not need to do that; but they touched the customer in a powerful way. Online businesses have power to go beyond the Internet if they want to.
So at the end of the day, what are we to do? Are we to consider every customer touch point is an opportunity to develop something greater? Should we see every customer touch point as a chance to build a relationship and potentially create someone who will one day refer our business to someone else? As a business, we want to create raving fans of our business. This will only happen when we build great connections and relationships around our business.
Social media can play a roll in the process of finding and building relationships. But social media s not an end it itself. It’s only one of the tools in your business tool box. Use it for sure, but don’t limit yourself to using it alone. Understand that there is great value in meeting face to face when possible. When a customer walks into your place of business, it’s time to create a great experience for your customer. Now I know we cannot please everyone all the time. But I know that if we don’t try, we will not create and experience for that customer that they will talk about to their friends.
I experienced this at the Apple Store in Halifax. I walked in their and was overwhelmed by their wonderful customer service. I often tell others to go into the store just to experience the difference a business can make with their customer. Social media brought me into the store. But the Apple staff had me at “Hello”. What a great experience.
So what is our walk-a-way for today? Relationships matter. They need to be worked on. Some of my best customer experiences were with stores that made me feel like I was with friends. They took me through the Know, Like and Trust process. To this day, I enjoy visiting their stores. What will you create for your customers?
