All Business is Personal

We always hear the phrase, “It’s business, it’s nothing personal.” The truth is that business is personal. We work hard to gain customers and we work hard to make them regulars and loyal to our brand. For a business to be successful, we need to build networks and reach out to customers that share the same interests. We look for channels where we can efficiently find customers that will help us grow with their feedback and suggestions - customers that will stay with us and help build a community around our brand.

Social media sites are considered hot channels for building communities around brands. It is also a place where we can market our business that’s why almost every business is jumping in on the craze. You will read a lot about how effective social media is when it comes to spreading brand awareness and making sales. However, it takes a lot of planning and execution to reap the benefits of taking your business into the online world. If you already have social media accounts, take the time to ask yourself how your site is helping your business. Do you have a good relationship with your customers? Did you gain customers; more importantly are they your friends now? Answering these questions can help you strengthen your brand in the online world.

Here are some tips on how you can build a community around your brand:

Take note of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) – how is your social media site working for you? Are you engaging your customers with your posts? Have they given you feedback on your products and services? If you have a social media site that is not helping you gain anything, it’s time you reinvent the way you are handling it. Set goals and metrics, and measure your improvements from time to time. Your social media site is the place where you can build relationships with people who share the same interests. You have to give them something engaging, something they can participate in. Post content that is helpful to your customers and at the same time is related to your business. Tracking KPIs will help you gain a good following and a credible site, one where consumers readily participate.

Go for quality over quantity – making friends on your social media site does not mean that you have to befriend everyone. As you pay attention to what’s happening on your social media site, you will notice those who really care about your brand. They will comment and give you ideas on how you can improve a product or service. These are the ones you can pour your energy into because they get you and they want to help you. Once there’s trust and credibility, you will earn more customers through word of mouth.

Be social before selling – in social media, an effective approach to get people to join your community is to make friends. Find common ground and engage them in conversation. Earn their trust and respect before you introduce them to some of your products and services. It is said that first time visitors of a site are never potential buyers unless you have something that will engage their attention.

Listen to your customers – as part of being social, it is important that you pay attention to your potential, existing, and ex-customers. There’s so much that we can learn from listening, and when customers are engaged in a topic that you posted on your site and they start airing ideas about it, you get views that will help your business to be more successful. If you pay attention, you will also know when there is a problem, and then you can respond and solve it.

Use emoticons - customers might not respond to your posts on Twitter or Facebook when they feel that your posts are not open to comments, like when they sound too formal because you want to make your voice more credible. There are things you can do to change the tone of your post without making it sound less credible. You can use the smiley face emoticon or an exclamation point when necessary. The way to engage your customers is to let them now that it’s okay to comment on your posts.

Keep your cool – because you cannot please everyone, there are those who will make your blood pressure shoot up a bit. When you encounter them, never lose your cool because you don’t want to go viral online and gain a reputation that will damage your brand. When things go bad around your site due to customers arguing with other customers, you have to be the mediator and help them settle down. This way they never lose their respect for you because of the way you handled the situation.

If your social media site is not helping your business, don’t give up on it. Instead, change the way you are handling your site. Make it more fun and build a community that is engaging and helpful. Let it be a community with consumers helping other consumers out. Just don’t forget to measure your improvements and how your efforts are converting to sales.