Saturday, February 14, 2015

More Isn't Always Better: Business and Social Media

Whether you're a company or a consumer, it's hard to ignore the trend of businesses' whole-heartedly embracing the emergence and presence of social media. Commercials aired on television by businesses encourage customers to "Like" and follow them on Facebook and Twitter, to check them out on Instagram, and follow their Pinterest accounts. Website optimization, website speed optimization, and social media presence have become very important for businesses and marketing. By now, you can find accounts by companies on every form of social media site out there, and customers can be directed to company websites and more.


Maintain a presence. It's important to maintain company presence when it comes to social media sites because consumers are interacting and even purchasing more from companies exclusively because of their online presence. According to Adweek.com, 74 percent of consumers rely on social media to influence their purchasing decisions, and 81 percent are influenced by their friends' posts on Facebook when making decisions about their purchases. So a business can garner a positive result through their social media presence. It's just overdoing the presence that can be a problem. Being selective about social media can actually be a positive decision for a business. Limiting accounts to one or two mediums can often be more manageable for a business and even help a business aim for a certain audience or preferred medium.

Only be as sociable as you can manage. Major companies do have the resources to maintain social media accounts. They have the employees and the man power to maintain these accounts and constantly update their accounts with information, deals and alerts. Smaller companies may find themselves overwhelmed by creating and then trying to maintain too many accounts and trying to respond to customers' queries and concerns. Adweek.com says that 71 percent of consumers that receive a quick response from a company or brand online are likely to recommend that company to their friends and others. So responding to consumers can be a positive thing, but neglecting to respond to them in a timely manner or at all can actually drive away business. Trying to be everything to everyone on every social media account presents the risk of your company being bogged down and consumers not feeling heard, which impacts sales and consumer impressions.

Assign a watchdog to your presence. It's also important to remember and monitor the presence of a business online. Some companies like to engage in fun and light-hearted tweets and even engage with their customers. Fast-food chain Wendy's responds to problems that customers have online and tries to right them, which is a good step. However, it is also an open and viewable forum in which other consumers can view issues other customers had with the company and get turned off by them. It's also possible to make an error and tweet or post something that people may not like or find offensive, so it's imperative that business accounts are run by someone who is thoughtful and professional.

Don't annoy your followers. The problem may also be with the amount of content that is being put out instead of businesses simply being on social media sites. Users that are constantly seeing their feeds taken over by multiple posts on a site like Facebook or Tweets on Twitter may feel the need to undo their "likes" or unfollow an account to avoid the bombardment. Customers want to interact with businesses, but don't want to be constantly flooded with information, updates, posts, or messages from a company. Every customer is capable of experiencing this type of burn out when it comes to social media. When companies maintain their presence in a clear and capable way, website optimization of companies can be a positive force for business. Just avoid overextending presence on social media sites and you can avoid driving customers away and focus on maintaining their goodwill and business.

Contact Website Optimization to determine how far to take your social media presence.


Website Optimization
3134 SUNNYWOOD DR
ANN ARBOR, MI 48103
Phone: (877) 748-3678
Fax: (734) 661-1331
http://www.websiteoptimization.com/
https://plus.google.com/108123505155721216764/

No comments:

Post a Comment