Did you know one in four users are following a corporation on social media from which they might make a purchase?
In today’s world, social media is more important than ever, and those who aren’t utilizing it are missing out. Beyond increasing sales and customer turnover rates, platforms like Twitter and Facebook also impact your brand’s social media reputation.
That little bird or the camera icon might look innocuous, but each has a huge effect on the perceptions about your company.
Curious to learn more? You’ll know all about it in this article.
The Importance of Your Social Media Reputation
It’s not about how many posts you create. It’s all about the interactions you have.
Here’s how Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and the other social media outlets are shaking up the business world.
Encouraging Relationships
When businesses use social media correctly, it’s about the customer, not the product. In approaching platforms this way, it encourages consumers to build a lasting relationship with a brand.
In its simplest form, social media offers a way to connect with audiences that were never possible before. Through social media, businesses can offer services, encourage customer stories and responses, respond to inquiries and communicate exciting new events.
You create a friendship with your customers. These relationships are based on three things: integrity, demonstrations of sincere care and congeniality.
Online, businesses should be:
- Trustworthy
- Dependable
- Supportive
- Considerate
- Fun
Social media allows businesses to hit each necessary element. If they do so successfully, they create a positive reputation that draws in other audiences.
Demonstrating Values
Your online reputation also demonstrates your values and humanizes your company. As Steve Farber, the founder of the Extreme Leadership Institute writes, “It helps people see your point of view easily, quickly, on platforms they’re already scrolling through anyway.”
Using social media to represent your company’s beliefs and values give users quick insights into what the business is all about, encouraging trust.
Relating to Audiences
Social media also impacts your brand by making it relatable. If your service or item doesn’t appeal to the consumers or make them feel like it was created with them in mind, you’ll be hard pressed to find customers.
Medtronic Diabetes asks customers to post photos of themselves living life to the fullest with an insulin pump or glucose monitor through the Facebook app. Such a simple and relatable method showcases what the company values and boosts their reputation.
Interacting with Customers
Online reputation marketing encourages customer interactions-and your reputation hinges on interactions.
Harvard Business Review writes, “Our research across hundreds of brands in dozens of categories shows that the most effective way to maximize customer value is to move beyond mere customer satisfaction and connect with customers at an emotional level-tapping into their fundamental motivations and fulfilling their deep, often unspoken emotional needs.”
Interaction makes your product relatable, but it also promotes feelings of satisfaction and personal fulfillment. Every interaction with the customer makes him or her feel valued and understood.
Encouraging customers to interact with your brand and social media site through contests, hashtags and more creates an emotional connection that creates positive connections to your brand.
Spreading the Word
Of course, the best thing social media offers is the ability for you and your happy customers to spread the word about your company. But how that word is spread and what customers say depends largely on your social media reputation.
Want to know what your reputation is and how your social media pages are impacting your brand? Get a free audit to find out!