Social media, so you ignore your customers?

This article comes from an anonymous content contributor from Http://www.aliyun.com/zixun/aggregation/13666.html ">socialbeta, translated from'll social media make Ignore your customers, the author is vice president of marketing, Lion Brand Yarn Company.

Last week, a Twitter friend of mine, Christopher Penn, asked me a good question on Twitter: Do you often chat with your customers on Twitter? I answered him very quickly, almost without a moment. "When your company is in the development of new products, or need to recruit, or design a website, this time you certainly need to talk with your customers, no doubt." In fact, everyone is doing it. The statistics on social media tell us the truth very clearly.

On Facebook blogs and Twitter, more and more customers are commenting on your products and services, and you can see this kind of thing almost all the time, so giving these reviewers appropriate feedback is becoming an obligation for the business. Imagine if someone in these commentators is your friend or someone you know, you should not be afraid to pick up the phone or not to return the email, unless you don't want to have anything to do with the person.

Because of the social media, 11545.html "> We have access to international brands like Jet Blue and people from big companies, and also the opportunity to talk to celebrities." Recently, I was at the airport preparing to fly from Santiago to New York, in the restaurant line to buy food, I found that the person standing in front of me is Deepal CHOPRA, I read a lot of his books, and saw his TV show, I was his fans! We talked a little bit. After I got back to my place, I was happy to say to my tweet, "@DeepakChopra glad to see you at the airport," before long he greeted me on Twitter and said, "It's nice to meet you, too." "Because I said I was going to New York when I was talking, so he told me on Twitter that he was going to open Center in New York September 21." It makes me so excited!

Back home, I told my son about it, he knew Twitter, but it didn't work, and after listening to what I said, he said, "is that all you know about the conversation?" "Indeed!" said the man. That's one of the reasons I'm so excited. Because the people I adore openly talk to me, which is much better than phone or email conversations, because everyone knows that an idol celebrity is talking to me.

I've also had a lot of exciting things like this on twiter, including talking directly to Chris Brogan and Gary Vagnerchnck on Twitter. On another occasion, I left a comment on Mitch Joel's blog, and he specifically replied that I had a great comment! I think I will never forget any of the words they said to me, because they are a great psychological inspiration to me.

As a user of social media, it is really exciting to have the opportunity to talk to people in the company or brand they admire, and sometimes people will unconsciously look forward to their comments and expect to be answered. As I once commented on Jet Blue's experience with its more enjoyable products, I did not ask or complain, but simply praised the sentence. Of course, they will not respond to a compliment. Even though I have a little expectation in mind, maybe it is possible to think like this.

In social media, people have increased their chances of responding to a person or comment that they have mentioned, and this has created a certain expectation of the response. For example, I wanted Overstock.com to point out a problem, but there was no response, and one time I asked Nike questions and they didn't give me any answers. Although later they emailed me and asked me to take part in a purchase survey. However, their impression in my mind is due to the lack of good interaction with me to discount.

What is your company's image in social media? When your company is challenged on its behalf, will you ignore it and try to evade the problem? When your customers have praised you in social media, will you laugh, as if it never happened? When you receive a question from a customer, or if a customer offers you help, will you give them a timely response?

Do you, like many brands, wonder how to listen to the customer negatively or give the customer the response they need? If your company has thousands of fans on Facebook, there are a number of subscribers on the official blog, there are countless listeners to the radio, Twitter is a number of fans, to maintain and so many people in the timely interaction and good communication is not easy, it takes a lot of energy and time. Many brands see social media now in a great situation, apart immediately piled in, trying to increase their number of fans (various ads, coupons, events, competitions), we are not ready enough, do not know how to deal with their relationship between fans.

The number of fans on Twitter or Facebook is far less important than the way you interact with them. Increasing the number of fans will only make their fans more and more expectations, and the company also burdened with the increasingly difficult burden. Just as individuals have friends on social networks, they don't mean real friends. Similarly, brand fans are not synonymous with real customers.