Charlotte McCormac
Think you haven’t got time to respond to your followers on social media? Think again.
Your responses tell consumers whether they can trust your building products brand. If you don’t respond, consumers won’t trust you, and you’ll quickly lose business to your competitors.
Responding to your prospects on social media is as important as responding to their calls and emails. Ironically, not responding is actually a form of response. When you don’t respond, you ignore your followers.
You wouldn’t ignore them in the street, so why would you ignore them online? That just doesn’t make sense, yet so many companies feel that they ‘don’t have time.’
But surely responding to a message is just basic manners?
Read on to find out how you can respond to your followers to convert them into leads.
When someone comments on your post, it’s a sign that they love your content. And if they love this content, hopefully they’ll love the next piece, and the piece after that. This is the same for all social media channels, whether you’re using Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, YouTube, Instagram… the list goes on.
Ever heard that saying about having two ears and one mouth, and to use them accordingly? This is true for social media. Don’t just reply to your followers. Listen to the conversations that your audience and building product competitors are having on social media.
Eavesdrop to find out what kind of posts are generating the most engagement with your audience. Which styles will be the most effective for your construction materials company?
Once you’ve evaluated the effectiveness of your competitors’ responses to their followers, you’ll be able to use these techniques to respond to your own followers successfully.
Ask Questions
If someone expresses admiration for your post, don’t simply thank them in a conversation-closing reply, respond with an open-ended question. Get them talking.
If they think your building product is a great idea, ask them what colour they like it in best. Engage with them – but not in a scripted way. Be spontaneous and create natural conversation.
If you’re stuck for questions to ask your followers when they comment on your posts, here are some ideas to generate conversation (and prospects!):
- Do you have any similar/relevant experiences?
- Have you tried any of the tips in the post?
- Do you agree with the ideas in the post?
Use these questions to build relationships with your followers. Refer to them by name in your reply to create a personalised tone that feels human and approachable.
Consistent Brand Voice
Although you want to sound human, you also need to maintain a consistent brand voice across all of your replies to followers so that you sound professional. Build an authoritative but amicable voice.
To achieve this, consider what brand messages you want to convey in your social media posts without having to communicate these directly.
You might want all your replies to be as helpful as possible. This is easy when a follower asks you a specific question, but you might be able to go further in some of your replies, offering followers more than they were expecting: extra advice about your building products, a free download, or demo.
Posting as many helpful replies as possible will get you noticed on social media. Facebook’s latest algorithm prioritises posts that have the most active interactions, ranking them higher than those with little interactions. These posts get even more visibility and reactions.
The construction product companies who own these posts have more conversations and generate more leads.
Timely Responses
When a follower comments on one of your posts, respond in a timely manner.
The average response time for a brand to reply on social media is 10 hours, yet the average user expects a response within 30 minutes. By complying to this, you build trust with your followers.
It can be difficult to respond to all posts about your company when 31% of tweets about companies don’t mention the company in question. How are you even supposed to know you’re being talked about?
To ensure you’re notified whenever your brand is discussed online, use tools such as Mention or Agora Pulse, which allow you to track all mentions across social media and blogs. Choose keywords that you would like to receive notifications for each time they are posted online and use these to respond to followers as frequently and helpfully as you can.
Generate Website Traffic
When a follower posts a question to your social media account, answer it as concisely as possible. This should be a basic answer that is easy to understand for everyone, as your post will be visible to the public.
If one person asks, others are probably wondering too (they’ll at least be interested when they scroll past your thread on their feed).
After you’ve provided a basic answer, link to a page on your website that best answers this question to generate web traffic to your site.
The Entertainment Factor
Don’t be afraid to have fun on social media. Your posts don’t need to all be serious.
When the context is right, inject a little humour into a reply. You’ll find that your followers find this memorable, even the ones that you’re not in direct conversation with, and they’ll come back when they too need your help with their construction projects.
But what if the follower’s social media post is negative?
Complaints
Respond to everything, even negative feedback.
If you make a mistake, admit it transparently. This way, you’ll build a human brand that other prospects aren’t afraid to approach. Use complaints as an opportunity to provide a positive experience for customers, re-shaping their view of your building products brand.
83% of consumers have had a negative experience with social media marketing, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t overcome this by providing them with a positive experience that will change their mind and make them want to work with or buy from your building products company again.
Don’t just post a generic: ‘we’re sorry to hear this’ comment. Instead, actually identify the complainant’s issue and express concern to overcome the issue.
Use the complaint to get to know the customer’s challenges and work with them to provide the best service you can for their individual needs.
Don’t take any angry comments personally. Customers aren’t annoyed with you as a person, so don’t feel threatened or insulted by keyboard warriors. Instead, acknowledge their complaint publicly on social media, and then discuss how you can overcome their issue privately, on a one-to-one basis.
Once you’ve responded to a complaint on social media, don’t assume that you’ve solved the issue. Ensure that you follow up the complaint and check whether there’s anything else you can do for the complainant. Turn their negative experience into a positive one.
However, most of your follower comments should be positive, from all those that you inspire with your building products and services, even if they’re not on board as customers yet.
Conclusion
Now that we've covered how to respond to your social media followers, from asking your followers questions as well as answering theirs, to linking to your website in your responses, to adding a sprinkle of humour, it's time to work these strategies in your own social media presence. Let us know how these techniques work for you.
How Insynth Can Help You
Not only can Insynth implement a strong social media strategy for you and help you to connect with your followers, we will also track your social media analytics to monitor the effects that the techniques discussed in this blog post have on your social media presence.
Insynth’s social media service is designed to provide you with complete control over your brand image and messaging across social media platforms. We will work with you to tailor a personalised social media presence, advising you in terms of:
- Social consultancy: developing your personalised social media strategy based on your marketing goals.
- Managing your brand: securing engaging usernames and profiles that match your campaigns to highlight your brand image.
- Social tone and nature: finding the right voice and style for your brand’s social media presence.
- Social media monitoring: Highlighting customers’ positive feedback across your social media channels and involving you in conversations.
- Social PPC: Implementing social ads to develop your social media presence.
- Social PR: Networking on social media platforms to expand your range of contacts, prospects and clients.
- Creative Discussion: Creating fast, reactive updates to spark conversations and visibility online.
- Reporting and Analytics: Analysing data to review the effectiveness of your social media strategy and activity on each platform, to inform future activities.
- Cross Channel Promotion: Ensuring that your messages reach audiences across all social media and marketing channels to expand your reach.
Click the banner below to find out more about how Insynth can help you succeed with social media from just £250 per month.
References
Roblysupport.com
Mention.com
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About Insynth
As the only HubSpot certified agency to major on construction marketing, we bring together construction marketing strategy, digital strategy, website design, SEO, content marketing, email marketing, sales automation, marketing automation and HubSpot CRM implementation to produce successful campaigns and great results for our clients.