Social Media Interaction Best Practices

Social Media Interaction & Response Guide Best Practices

As your social media following grows, your various platforms will generate leads. The engaging and valuable content you share online will pique their interest, prompting them to learn more about your products and services. Social media communication differs from oral communication because you can’t gauge clients’ emotions through their voices. It also differs from email communication, as it’s typically more formal and less direct. A staggering 82% of adults in the United States admit to consulting online customer reviews before making their initial purchase, with 40% stating that they always or almost always rely on reviews when buying products online. This highlights the significant role that reviews play in shaping consumer decisions. Here are some key tips to remember when engaging with customers publicly or privately on social media:

Utilizing the Proper Tone on Social Media: 

In the digital era, the age-old adage “the customer is always right” holds truer than ever. A single unsatisfactory Direct Message (DM) can go viral and damage a company’s reputation irreparably. Once something is posted online, it becomes nearly impossible to remove it completely. Even if you delete a post, there’s no telling how many people have screenshotted, copied, and shared it, ready to use it against you in the future. To mitigate these risks, keeping social media interactions concise and swiftly transitioning conversations away from the public eye is crucial.

Do’s and Don’ts when engaging with Social Media:

Do’s:

It’s crucial to consistently follow up with your customers to ensure you have effectively addressed their questions or concerns. This demonstrates your commitment to retaining them as valued customers and your genuine concern for their needs. Moreover, it conveys your genuine interest in engaging with them and fostering meaningful interactions.

Prepare a template for various scenarios to enhance response time while investigating issues. Having a pre-determined response for predictable problems like late arrivals, damaged items, or incorrect shipments allows you to acknowledge the customer promptly and gain additional time to find a resolution. This approach ensures efficient communication while ensuring that the problem is addressed effectively.

Empathy is crucial. We’ve all experienced poor service at some point, so it’s important to understand how a customer might feel. When customers come to complain, they often share the backstory of why the product they ordered is important and how its delay or defects have affected them. If you encounter a customer like this, try putting yourself in their shoes and consider what you would want to hear to feel better about the situation.

Don’ts:

It is crucial to always respect a customer, particularly if they have repeatedly attempted to contact you. Ignoring them may only motivate them to share negative reviews about your business, which could discourage potential clients. If multiple customers find themselves in similar situations and unite, it could harm your online reputation.

It is important to avoid becoming emotional or overly prideful when dealing with customers. While it is true that customers can sometimes be misinformed or even wrong, it is crucial to remember that a business relies on satisfied customers to thrive. Just one dissatisfied customer has the potential to tarnish the reputation of the entire business. Therefore, setting aside personal pride or anger and genuinely addressing a customer’s frustrations is essential. This is particularly important when engaging with customers publicly, outside of direct messages.

It is advisable to refrain from directly contradicting or engaging in back-and-forth customer exchanges, particularly on public platforms like social media. Engaging in such interactions often leads to a negative perception of the brand, even if the brand is technically correct. Customers tend to side with each other, especially if they have had similar experiences. Mistakes are bound to happen; they are an inherent part of life. Occasionally, customers may accuse you of actions beyond your control. This is why it is crucial to maintain detailed records and documentation to present to customers in case they need clarification. With this evidence, if a customer attempts to damage your reputation, you can publicly share the facts to demonstrate the honesty and integrity of your business. While an angry customer may persist in arguing, they will ultimately lose a battle against reason and logic.

Why the AD Leaf?

We specialize in developing comprehensive social media strategies that boost your online visibility and drive traffic to your website. Our dedicated team collaborates with you to identify your target audience and create engaging content tailored to their interests. We also assist in monitoring and responding to customer feedback, ensuring meaningful engagement with your audience.

Our Social Media Marketing Services are flexible and scalable, catering to businesses of all sizes and budgets. Whether you’re just starting or aiming to elevate your social media presence, we’re here to help you succeed. Don’t hesitate! Get in touch with The AD Leaf ® today to discover more about our social media marketing services and how we can propel your online business growth. Call us at 321-255-0900 or visit our website to schedule an appointment.

SEO Specialists

Understanding Google’s SMITH Algorithm

Google’s Latest SMITH Algorithm – What We Know So Far

SEO SpecialistsThe infamous ALGORITHM. An algorithm is just a set of rules that a program or calculation follows. But when someone says “THE Algorithm”, it’s the Google algorithm most people think of. The latest update is the SMITH Algorithm. Google’s search algorithm is a mysterious set of rules that decide which sites to display on the coveted first page of Google’s search results. This algorithm is always changing. But the more we learn about it, the more effectively we can use it to our advantage. Here’s what we know so far about the latest SMITH algorithm.

What is the goal of Google’s algorithm?

In essence, as far as anyone can tell, Google’s goal for search is to provide the most relevant content possible. In a perfect world, this relevance would be judged by humans themselves. However, with billions of websites online, this would be an impossible task. Search algorithms are designed to leverage real human interaction and draw conclusions about the relevance of a site by analyzing different metrics. Based on these metrics and other factors, the algorithm calculates what would be the most relevant pages for a given search term or keyword. The exact, specific details of this calculation are only held by Google. We only know what information they reveal and what we can interpret on our own through testing and experimentation.

What algorithm does Google use?

Google doesn’t say exactly what they are using and how they are using it, but they do give us hints. If we knew exactly what it was, we may be able to “beat the system” and outrank the competition. Unfortunately, once everyone caught onto this, they’d all be doing it. The whole point of organic search results would be compromised; it would just be a race to the top. Google is constantly evolving their algorithms to understand language and web content in a more and more human way and deliver search results that people actually want to see.

What DO we know?

The latest update to Google’s algorithm is called SMITH. We don’t know a whole lot about it so far, but it seems like it is picking up where BERT left off. The last update was called BERT and it was not so much an algorithm itself as it was an ingredient or tool to the existing algorithm. The purpose of BERT was to increase “natural language understanding”. This means that instead of relying on specific keywords, Google’s algorithm can actually interpret the meaning and intent of the words.

So, if lingo or wordplay is used, the algorithm could detect their meaning and serve up search results that apply to the meaning of a keyword, not just the actual text. For content writers, this is great news. If Google is able to understand clever and more subtle language use, you won’t have to go out of your way to “please the algorithm” with your content. You can write more naturally and have more fun with your language without worrying about Google’s judgment as much.

The SMITH algorithm

SMITH takes the next step in understanding language. BERT increased the understanding of individual words, but SMITH can interpret entires passages. Basically, if BERT was for words, SMITH is for sentences. This opens up huge possibilities and takes the understanding gained by BERT to the next level. This means that SMITH will excel at interpreting long documents when compared to BERT. The longer the document, the more SMITH outperforms.

While Google has not officially announced that it is using SMITH, it makes sense they would add it to BERT to help understand large pages online. Until that time, we can only speculate. But if SMITH is beating BERT in testing, it would be surprising if Google didn’t add it to their algorithm. This could mean a big leap in Google’s ability to understand the content. If your website writes great content already, this could be good news for you. If your content is weak, however, you might want to consider improving.

 

SMITH algorithmThe AD Leaf Marketing Firm has a team of SEO experts who stay on top of Google’s algorithm. If your business’ website is struggling to get traffic, contact us to find out how we can help you!