Blog

Customer service is a hot topic among businesses that use social media to connect with their target audience. Whenever you make a connection, you open your company up for both positive and negative responses.

While positive reviews and comments can boost your reputation, bad comments can quickly destroy it. By quickly responding to bad comments online, companies can turn a negative review into a positive one.

Unfortunately, monitoring several social media accounts can be too much for some businesses to handle. While multi channel help desk software can help you manage your networks, you may need to pick and choose what the best venues for customer service are for your business. Use this guide to learn more about social networks and decide which ones you should be investing your time in.

Facebook

Facebook is by far the largest social network in the United States. In fact, nearly a third of the population has a Facebook profile that they use to keep in touch with brands they like. This means that no matter what your industry is, you can get a decent amount of followers using Facebook. The only downside is that this is likely where you will get the most comments and reviews from your customers.

While it isn’t mandatory for every company to have a Facebook, it is very common to at least build a page for your brand and monitor it. Facebook is by far the easiest social network to market yourself on and is a great starting point for any business.

If you are planning on using a large social network like Facebook for customer service, you should invest in help desk software. This software can help you gather all of your inquiries in one place and send them straight to your customer service department. This improves your response time and makes it easier to meet the demands of your customers.

Twitter

Twitter is a unique social network that invented the use of hashtags. Most social networks limit your post visibility to those who are already following you. Instead, this social network is very open, with all responses and tags being public.  While this can be a great way to gain exposure, it also means that damage control on Twitter is a lot harder.

Building a Twitter profile and writing regular tweets is also very common in the business world and a great way to make a personal connection with your target audience. Because of its large user base, you can expect to get plenty of responses from your followers.

Keep in mind that people can jump into a Twitter conversation at any given time. That means the people complaining about your product aren’t necessarily saying anything to you directly. You need to monitor Twitter for mentions of your brand if you want to respond to complaints in a timely fashion. You also need to respond to everyone in the conversation, making customer service on Twitter very time-consuming.

Much like Facebook, response time is the key to success when dealing with a customer service inquiry. Use software that allows you to gather all of your Facebook and Twitter inquiries in one place to save time.

Pinterest and Instagram

Photo sharing social networks are a great place to show off the products and features of your brand. Unfortunatly, most people do not use these networks for customer service purposes. They are more of a way to get your product out there. While people will occasionally make customer complaints and inquries on Pinterest or Instagram, it usually won’t require as much of your attention as Facebook or Twitter will.

Instead of focusing on customer service on photo sharing social networks, use them for damage control. If you are getting a slew of complaints on other social networks, make changes and take a photo or video showing how you have improved. If the photo is very attractive, people will share and like it, helping you spread the word quickly.

Niche Social Media Networks

Some niches have small social networks that allow you to connect with your target audience. While they are small in size compared to Facebook or Twitter, they can be one of your most effective sources for traffic. If you have to choose how to spend your social media time, invest in niche networks that allow you to advertise your brand.

While investing in a small social network can be beneficial, you can’t ignore larger networks. Use customer service software to help you gather your inquiries in one place for fast, easy responding. Some social networks will even offer email notifications. Set these up so that you know when someone makes a comment on each network. This will allow you to quickly respond without having to spend a lot of time online.

How Many Social Networks Should Your Business Be On?

There is no perfect number of social networks a company should participate in. For most, the answer is three or four, with Facebook and Twitter being the first two. It all depends on how big your marketing and customer service department is and how much you think they can handle.

Investing in cloud-based help desk software can allow you to invest in several different networks. This helps you reach out to more people without sacrificing the quality of your service. Social media holds a lot of power and it can make or break a company. Learn more about how social media can be used for customer service by contacting us today.