10 Feb Cutting the jargon
As the business environment becomes more and more noisy, finding a voice for your company can feel like an increasingly tough challenge. There are tweets to respond to, blog posts to read, Facebook pages to update, all before the working day has even begun.
With all this constant communication – how do businesses cut through the noise and connect with potential customers?
The marketing buzz word of the moment is “engagement” – businesses need to utilise the available platforms available to engage more with their clients create dialogue to build up trust and brand loyalty.
This is all well and good, but what do those jargon phrases like “engagement” and “loyalty” really mean, and how do we measure the results?
Firstly we need to appreciate the way in which businesses and consumers fundamentally communicate has changed. As consumers, we’re demanding companies to listen to us whether they like it or not. If we want an app for our iPhone, a human voice to speak to, or a customised product, we expect the company to develop in accordance with demand – and if it doesn’t, we will look elsewhere.
So when it comes to engagement; it’s not enough for businesses to just set up the relevant platforms, be it Twitter, Facebook or some other means, to allow customers to get in touch with them in more ways if they want to. True engagement across these platforms needs to be founded on the basic principles of good conversation; offering up relevant and interesting dialogue and then being there to listen and respond to what the other person (the consumer) has to say.
And the results are tangible. One of our clients, who has been on social networking sites for the last year, wondered what they could do to increase traffic to their Facebook page. We offered some advice on content they should be uploading, most of which boiled down to good communication. They needed to be communicating new products, designs and company news on a regular basis, as well as responding to those who joined in discussions or used the platform to ask questions.
As soon as they began updating their profile page regularly, their number of likes rocketed – within one month they had an additional 200 likes, and had driven 175 people to their website through their Facebook page (compared to an average of 4 in the previous months). Now these are results that cut through the jargon.
Not only are the benefits visible in terms of Facebook likes, website click-throughs and questions generated, it gives you further platforms through which you can drive your messages. Social media provides a great opportunity not only to engage with your consumers but to engage with your own brand. It allows you to realise what customers want to know and hear about creating a great opportunity to reassess your own product and services and rediscover what makes you great.
By getting your messages straight about, who, what, and why you are trying to engage people through social media, you can then apply the same straight-talking messages across advertising, marketing and PR platforms, to deliver a truly engaging, integrated campaign.