The following are ways in which businesses can properly engage with their following when dealing with various types of customer service issues.

Monitor Your Pages and Respond Quickly

Customer service for social media does not follow the same hours as a traditional business. While businesses might have phone lines available for customer service from 9-5, people expect to be responded to much quicker on social media when they can reach out online at any hour. For this reason alone, you should have an individual or team monitoring your social media pages from the morning until late in the leaving. This way when someone reaches out with a question or issue, they can be helped immediately. You wouldn’t have someone wait hours on a phone for customer service so why should they have to wait on social media?

Engage With Negative Comments

A major mistake businesses make with social media is tuning out the negative comments just because they can. If businesses don’t want people to see what they have to say, they can quickly delete or hide the comment. This is understandable to do if people are using vulgar language and acting explosive, but when someone is upset and making a legitimate complaint about a product or service, it should be used as an opportunity to engage in damage control. Rather than just toss the complaint to the side, show your following and the customer that you truly care what they have to say and that you’d like to fix the situation in a reasonable way. This may just rebuild your relationship with the customer instead of losing them for not addressing the situation.

The Customer is Always Right…Even on Social

When a customer has an issue they are the only side who should be acting defensive. The customers are the ones with the problem and the company must accept responsibility for their problem, rather than try to deflect blame. Since social media customer service issues happen in front of an audience(on social platforms), the surefire way to lose credibility is to engage in a he said/she said Twitter war with a customer. Just listen to the complaint and concede defeat immediately. This is one case where there will always be victory in defeat.

Talk One on One in Direct Messages

Anytime a customer service issue or question on social is getting too personal, such as when contact information is required or the questions you need to ask are personal in nature, request that they direct message you to continue the conversation. It’ll make the customer more comfortable engaging in the conversation and prevent any damage that could incur if outsiders continue reading the conversation. It also shows other followers that the business engages in social media customer service and that they will take things to the next level (direct messages), when necessary.

Move the Conversation Off of Social When Applicable

Whether to make a sale or to resolve a serious issue, there will likely be a moment when you should move the social conversation to a phone call or in-person meeting. It could come right away in the conversation, after some back and forth, or never. Every situation is different and as someone involved with customer service you simply must read when the time is right. Once it is the right time to move the conversation off social, ask for their phone number, or when they would like to meet in-person, in a direct message. While customer service shouldn’t be overly aggressive, this is the opportune moment for the business to go on the offense and ensure further communication off of social media.

These are just a few suggestions for your brand to follow while engaging in social media customer service. Have any stories on how you’ve effectively interacted with customer questions or issues on Facebook, Twitter, etc? Leave them in the comments below!

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Run Contests!

There are two things (almost) all people love: winning and free stuff! Why not combine both? Contests are a great way to reach new customers AND keep customers coming back! One of the best examples is Calandra’s Bakery and Restaurants. Calandra’s holds multiple contests on their Facebook page that entice customers to visit their restaurants. One such contest is the “Ask & You Shall Receive” Giveaway. Fans are asked to follow a few simple instructions to be entered in the contest. The winner gets to choose from multiple prizes, such as a dinner for four, cooking dinner with a chef of their choosing, or having one of Calandra’s chefs go to their home and cook dinner!

(It also helps to have a fun graphic for your contest!)

Post Engaging Content!

While your followers will always love contests or discounts, they don’t want you to be selling all of the time. Stay away from posting every single menu item for two months in a row. Mix it up and have some fun! Post content that is engaging and people want to see. What types of ingredients do you use in your famous burrito? Highlight employees that customers will see around the restaurant. Share photos from catering events or company milestones. Create a connection between your offline and online presence. Your customers want to feel like they are part of your restaurant. This is how your restaurant becomes the “Regular Saturday Night” for some customers.

Respond to Your Customers!

Responding to comments or questions is an easy way to establish a relationship with your customers. It is also one of the most important things you can do for your business. Your customers want to be heard loud and clear! Even a simple retweet or “Thank You” can make your customers smile! Most comments are not responded to by companies on social media. Would you want the host or waitress in your restaurant to ignore customers there? Probably not. (Hopefully.) It’s the same for social media. Your customers want to be acknowledged and know that there is someone on the other side of that Twitter handle who is listening to them. If you would like to learn more about responding and some best practices, click here.

Show Off Your Food!

Has your mouth ever salivated while scrolling through your Instagram feed? Of course it has. Show your followers what your food actually looks like! Your fans want to see the meals they might be ordering and most importantly, tasting. Take advantage by posting some lesser known menu items or daily specials. When your followers can almost taste the melted cheese, smell the French fries, or hear that cannoli crunching, they will be running to you for their next meal. Grilled cheese anyone?

The above practices are just a few tips for how to connect with your customers through social media and keep them coming back for more, both in your restaurant and online. How has your restaurant connected with fans on social media? Share in the comments below!

The post 4 Ways to Keep Customers Coming Back to Your Restaurant with Social Media appeared first on Today's Business.

In today’s world, almost everyone lives on social media. For this reason, a successful social media campaign can truly take your brand to the next level. Stand out amongst your competitors by steering clear of these common mistakes that brands make on social media:

Not Interacting with Fans/Followers

Many of your followers sought your social media accounts because they admire your brand. For them, an interaction through social media will only strengthen the connection already established. For potential followers, seeing that your brand DOES interact with its fans generates trust, which in turn could result in them choosing your brand over others.

In today’s business world, social media also allows for customers to share their experiences with your brand, both positive and negative. Don’t let that scare you away. In fact, you’d be surprised at how often responding to a negative comment – rather than deleting it, hiding it, or even worse, ignoring it – can suddenly turn a negative experience into a positive one. One of the best social media practices your brand can adapt is preparing for the various types of comments you may receive, and having a protocol for responding to each accordingly.

Being on the “Defense” When it Comes to Certain Platforms

So, your brand is on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, but not Pinterest, Snapchat, Vine or Google+, among other platforms. Contrary to misbelief, ALL social networks are relevant and useful in their own way. Most brands wait to see how “successful” a social media platform will be. In reality, those brands are becoming irrelevant by not joining the force! The longer you’re on the defense when it comes to new platforms, the more opportunities you miss out on and the more saturated they become.

Irrelevant and/or Non-Shareable Content.

In order for followers to remain engaged with your accounts, your content should be just that – engaging. Aside from being relevant to your target markets, your content should have that “IT” factor that entices users to like, favorite, share, retweet, repin, +1, etc. What’s the “IT” factor you ask? Personalization.

Selling, Rather than Connecting

Think to your own personal life; don’t you hate when you’re being hit with a sales pitch EVERY time one of your favorite brands posts something on social media? Who wants to see that anymore? Sure you can increase sales through social media, and ultimately, that should be ONE of your goals, but the power of social media extends much further than that.

Wondering why your latest product post received a handful of likes and shares, while your ALS Ice Bucket Challenge video received several hundred? You guessed it – the personal and human aspect. Followers want to connect with your brand, not be pitched. Your content should be relatable, draw on emotion and give followers a reason to associate with your brand.

Inconsistent Branding

Creating a strong and consistent brand image is crucial for your brand awareness. Specifically, the following should match across ALL platforms:

1. Brand name

• A consistent “name” or handle will allow followers to find you across various platforms.

2. Brand voice

• While the TYPE of content you share across various platforms may vary, your brand voice should ALWAYS be the same (keep in mind that brand voice and tone are different).

3. Graphics

• All profile pictures, cover photos and backgrounds should match. Custom graphics should always be branded, and branded in the same manner. Check out these 8 brands that nail social media consistency.

As you can see, an effective social media campaign requires proper planning and execution. Begin by avoiding the abovementioned mistakes and your brand’s social media campaign will be off to a great start! Feel free to share your tips and thoughts by commenting below, and stay tuned for part two!

The post Mistakes Brands Make on Social Media appeared first on Today's Business.

Website Integration

Whenever possible, your social media pages should reflect the design of your website.

The easiest way to achieve consistency is to use the same avatar and color palette across every channel that you choose to engage.  The design of a social media page also needs to reflect its function.  Otherwise, you create a disconnect between the message you want to transmit and the one the customer is receiving.

For example, if you want to capture someone’s information, be sure to have an e-mail capture form or a Facebook Connect button somewhere on the page.

Set Goals and Guidelines

Setting one or two main goals for each of your feeds will help you avoid cluttering them with features, and instead keep your design clean and functional.

Social media opens a direct line of communication between brands and customers and sometimes this “no filter” environment can turn negative. When it does, don’t panic, follow a few simple steps before responding to ensure that you don’t amplify the negativity and make things worse.

First, be sure to evaluate the content of the post. What is the person actually saying? Is this something that can be remedied quickly with customer service or is someone just bashing your business?

Next, research the person that posted the comment. Are they a customer? Have they interacted with your team before?

Finally, use the gathered information and respond.  Responses will vary by business and by the channel but generally it is best to remain courteous and offer a discount or incentive to try and reengage that customer. A well-thought-out response to a negative comment can turn a disgruntled customer into an evangelist

As a business, you may be eager to join, or even lead, the social revolution. But before fully embracing social media in the workplace, organizations must have a management strategy in place or their social efforts will quickly turn into online anarchy.

Build a Team

When setting up an organizational structure many companies make the mistake of leaving all social media duties up to the PR and marketing departments, but this model is limiting. Social media should not be seen as just a marketing tool. It is a tool that virtually every division and level of an organization can use to their benefit.

Ideally, your organization should have a point person or team whose job it is to manage and direct the company’s social media efforts. If you’re unable to find someone with formal social media training, look to employees with strong interpersonal and communication skills whose own social feeds you find admirable.

Once your team is in place, it should assume responsibility for anything posted to your organization’s feeds.  By collaborating with all other levels of the organization internally, the social media team acts as a filter and a funnel, ensuring that your business presents a united front to its customers and prospects, while satisfying the needs of each department.

From the opposite end, the team makes sure that all user feedback gets to the right people: product suggestions go to the product team, customer complaints go to customer service, and so forth. When a strong management model is created early on, sales, marketing, customer service, public relations and internal communications can all become essential parts of the Social Strategy.

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But what if you’re new to social media or new to the world of direct response metrics and don’t have that data or experience? What should you do then?

Fear not. There’s a solution. It involves understanding the 3 categories of social media measurement as well as a simple formula that will help you calculate the ROI of your specific campaign.

The 3 Categories of Social Media Measurement

There are hundreds of different ways to measure social media, which makes it kind of difficult to wrap your mind around. To help with that, social media metrics can be broken down into three different categories.

• Quantitative Metrics: These are the metrics that are data-intensive and number-oriented. You can really get overloaded with different metrics here, so the trick is to pick the key metrics that most influence your business and not get bogged down with the rest. Those metrics might include unique visits, page views, followers, demographics, frequency, bounce rate, length of visit or just about any other metric that’s specifically data-oriented.
• Qualitative Metrics: These are the metrics that have an emotional component to them. For example, if 75% of the people who mention your product online call it “cheap” and only 25% call it “inexpensive,” that’s a qualitative metric that has an impact on your business. There are several companies that provide in-depth analysis of the qualitative metrics online. Some of these include RapLeaf, Nielsen and Adobe Online Marketing Suite.
• ROI Metrics: In the world of social media, all roads should lead to ROI. After all, during business hours, social media isn’t just about being social, is it? We’re doing it to make money. And if you track what percentage of people you converted from a prospect to a customer on your e-commerce site, or how many people you converted from a prospect to a client on your B2B website, then you’ll be able to measure the success of your social media campaign on an ROI basis.

Break Out Your Thinking Caps for Some Math

The most important formula in social media is your Customer Lifetime Value (CLV). In a very basic sense, Customer Lifetime Value is the amount of revenue a customer will bring to your company over the course of their lifetime with your brand.

So, for example, if you’re a lawn care company and you know that a typical customer spends $80 per month with you and that the average customer stays with your company for 3 years, then your Customer Lifetime Value would be $80 x 12 months x 3 years = $2,880.

Once you know your CLV, you can decide how much you’d like to invest to acquire a customer. This is called your Allowable Cost Per Sale. Many people use 10% of their CLV as a starting point for their Allowable Cost Per Sale. In the example above, your CLV is $2,880 and 10% of your CLV is $288, so your Allowable Cost Per Sale is that number: $288.

Putting Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) to Work

To keep things straightforward, let’s assume that the lawn care company relies exclusively on direct mail to acquire new customers. Since a typical response rate for a direct mail piece in the lawn care industry is 0.5%, and since it costs about $1.44 to create and send a direct mail piece, you know that you have to send out 200 direct mail pieces to acquire a new customer. Here’s how the math works out:

• Number of pieces sent: 200
• Cost for printing and postage: $1.44
• Total cost to send 200 pieces: $288
• Response rate: 0.5%
• Customers acquired: 200 pieces mailed x 0.5% response rate = 1 new customer

See how that works? For every $288 spent, the lawn care company gets 1 new customer.

Let’s take it a step further. If you’re a large, national lawn care company, you might spend $2.8 million on your annual direct mail campaign. By using the math above, you know that every year, you’ll gain about 10,000 new customers from your $2.8 million direct mail campaign. (Remember, you’ll also lose thousands of customers each year from ordinary churn, so let’s not all go out and start lawn care companies based on the math above.)

Now, let’s assume that your CFO (or your CEO or CMO) wants to test the validity of a social media campaign. In order to do the test, you might slice off 10% of your $2.8 million direct mail budget and use that for a social media campaign. If you know that your $2.8 million direct mail campaign generates 10,000 new customers, then you also know that 10% of that (or $280,000) should generate about 1,000 new customers via direct mail.

That’s the pivotal number: 1,000 customers. After all, now that you know the math around your direct mail campaign, you’ll understand that your social media campaign has to match that in order to be considered a success.

In other words, you have $288,000 to set up, launch and run a social media campaign that needs to generate 1,000 new customers per year.

What You’ll Need

You’ll need a Facebook Page –- no problem. You’ll want a Twitter page –- again, no problem. And you may want to create a series of videos for a YouTube channel –- a bit of work, but also not a big problem.

You’ll want a mobile application, since prospects and customers are beginning to expect them. And you’ll want to develop a monthly e-newsletter with lawn care tips to stay in front of prospects and new customers. (Yes, I consider e-mail marketing a social media tool.)

The most important part of the campaign, however, is a series of landing pages on your website designed to capture prospects and help convert them into paying customers. The landing pages will be designed specifically around the social media campaign, and they’ll need to have Google Analytics, Eloqua or Adobe Online Marketing Suite installed so that they can track traffic and conversions.

The key point is that all of your social media programs –- Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc. –- should drive people to the landing page on your website where you can convert them from tire kickers (prospects) to paying customers.

Looking at the program outlined above, it’s easy to see how quickly your $288,000 social media budget can get used up by Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, mobile applications, e-newsletters and landing pages on websites. All that said, it’s very realistic to assume that a campaign of that magnitude would generate 1,000 new customers each year. Better still, it may generate 1,100 new customers or even 1,200 new customers.

Remember, all you have to do is to generate 1,001 new customers in order to march into your CFO’s office and show them that social media can provide a positive return-on-investment.

See? Math isn’t that scary after all.

The Bottom Line

We’ve covered a lot of ground here: the three categories of social media measurement and the single most important formula in social media. But the bottom line is that, as businesspeople, we don’t use social media to be social, we use social media to grow our business. And if you use the program outlined above, you’ll be able to prove the value of social media on a campaign-specific, ROI basis.

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