Building a loyal customer base can ensure continued business and growing profits. It is often the most important step toward getting companies off the ground, or to the next level. You might be asking yourself how you can reach more potential customers or perhaps how you can spread the word about your companies amazing products and services. One answer might be to bridge social and enterprise platforms. Similarly, they both are open and on-demand for the user to take advantage of. The interpersonal power of social networks marry well with next generation technologies for the business world. The result is mainstreaming your company to reach millions of users.
Facebook is an excellent example of the potentials of using social networking as a strategy for customer relationship management (CRM). On many levels, Facebook can be a resourceful tool that can be utilized for the benefit of the company. This can be achieved by reaching customer service goals, building customer contacts, advertising, and much more.
Here are some more reasons why using Facebook builds your customer relationships:
- Free Profiling: Creating a profile on Facebook is free of cost. On your profile you can link to your business website, promote your business, and explain what you do. However, it is important to realize that profiles need to be tied to a person’s name, and not a business name.
- Contacting Customers: The entire idea of Facebook is to connect with people. Connections are made by sending and receiving friend requests, once accepted, your friends can view your profile and discover all that your business has to offer. Additionally, you are able to view your friends profile pages as well, including their friend list. Having access to more customers with like needs and financial statuses may bring about more business.
- Communication: All Facebook members have a “wall” where friends can post comments. This can be an easy and fun way to communicate. For example, let’s say that you went to a trade show last week, and you wanted to get in touch with another company that you met, but you didn’t get their contact information. This can be a simple way to get in touch with them and connect.
- Update Your Status: While most Facebook users are updating their profiles with basic daily routines, your business can promote events, share product information, offer discounts, and more. It is a quick way to let everyone on your friend list know the up and coming news about your company.
Join A Group: Within the Facebook social platform are groups discussing a large variety of topics. Companies can join groups that are related to what they offer, as well as search existing groups to find possible customers. Don’t forget that you can even create your own group! With all of these avenues available, it’s easy to surround your company with like minded people. In other words, here are many opportunities to connect with new friends. - Advertising: Through the advertisers link on Facebook, companies can promote business. One exciting feature is specifying a demographic target. With this feature, a business can see how many hits they had in a demographic. While there are others, this is one example of how advertising in Facebook can reach more markets.
- Polls: If your company is looking for quick information and customer opinions, implementing a poll may be the easiest way. It’s easy to create on on Facebook, and they are fun to take!
Customer relationship management systems can benefit from the many unique qualities that social networks, such as Facebook, can offer. The possibilites are endless, and the friends to be made are many. Connecting enterprise and social platforms is one way to integrate technology and reach the next generation of Web 2.0 users. In a business world where the customer mean everything, Facebook is an excellent resource for managing relationships.
