HERE IS WHY IT IS SO IMPORTANT TO ENGAGE WITH YOUR CUSTOMERS ON SOCIAL MEDIA

Posting content onto your social platforms is probably one of the biggest 'must-haves' in this day and age, especially if you are a digital marketing agency.

By commenting, sharing and even liking something helps boost your engagement which helps create an online presence, but when you are a small business, there is power to engage with your customers. By engaging with your customers, or fans if you'd like, is what puts the word 'social' into social media and makes it less 'robotic' for everyone.

You will quickly find that engaging with your fans is what makes your business stronger. So why is it so important to engage with your customers?

Well, let's start by saying that it builds a customer relationship. A solid customer relationship goes a long way. Have you ever wondered why brand awareness is so important? Brand awareness is exactly what you want at the end of the day, which creates a better customer relationship, and with the advent of social media, it is way easier than ever to create this kind of customer connection as well as awareness towards your brand.

When a customer comments on a post, whether it is good or bad, you always want to respond in gratitude. You do not have to overcomplicate it if it is positive, a simple "thank you so much!" can go a long way. And, if it is negative, at the end of the day, you still want to acknowledge them. Pretty much like you would in real life!

While engagements can lead to exposure for your business's social platforms, you should always prioritise your customer's experience before yours. Engagement can make you look good and can open up all those opportunities for your audience to grow, but you should be subtle and make sure your customer comes first.

Secondly, it helps grow your brand which will grow your reach. So engaging might do wonders for your social accounts and it can also make you seem like a master at customer experience, but it also does wonders for your social media presence.

Algorithms on social media are designed to respond to all kinds of engagement and can assist in pushing your content to the top of whatever feed it appears on. That is why it is so important to not let your customers' comment go unacknowledged.

Engagement helps boost your reach in such a way that you almost want to beat yourself up for not doing it sooner. As Instagram states “[t]he orders of photos and videos in your feed [is] based on the likelihood you’ll be interested in the content, your relationship with the person posting and the timeliness of the post,” which is it unfair if you do not know what you are doing...

Lastly, it is always good to remember that what goes around, comes around... so be polite when you engage with your customers. Getting into the practice of engaging with people on social media comes as easily as remembering your please and thank you's when you are in a face-to-face conversation.

Always be ready to listen to customer's concerns which might require a certain kind of composure and attitude that being polite brings. Social media engagement is not rocket science, and unless you are particularly averse to using social media, it won't be too much of a challenge.

Always remember that engagement is a win-win situation, your customers are recognised, your business becomes loved as well as recognised and that leads to building a better customer relationship which will set your business's success in stone.