How to Respond to Customers on Social Media

VP of Marketing Alicia Alongi explains how to use features of Facebook and Instagram to earn a “Very responsive” badge on your business’s page.

You know it’s important to connect with your consumers quickly and effectively on social media to grow your business, but your day is full of competing priorities. In this 2 minute video, we’ll show you how you can automate communication through your social pages but still maintain a personal and authentic approach to your customers. Learn about tools that can help and ways to enhance your social media communication strategy for your small business.

You have a gorgeous Facebook Page, but are you connecting with your audience from the first click with engaging tools? Facebook and Instagram are fantastic tools for directly chatting with your consumers. Be proactive with your social media presence and make instigating a conversation and quickly responding to your page viewers as efficient as possible.


Start by engaging your audience as soon as they show interest in your business. On Facebook, navigate to the messaging tab on your settings page and enable ‘Show a Greeting’. This will initiate a conversation with the viewer before they ever send you a message. Prompting them to interact with you further.

How to Respond to Customers on Social Media
Above: Enable “Show a greeting” on your Facebook page setting to start a conversation with your social media fans and followers.

To make quick-messaging seamless throughout the rest of your page, consider making your call-to-action button a visible & readily available shortcut to messaging your page. Any opportunity to engage your viewers in a direct conversation should be considered. You can even add a messaging focused call-to-action button to your Facebook & Instagram ads.


Now that there is a thoughtful pipeline for messages to flow through, make earning a Very Responsive to Messages Badge for your Facebook Page an absolute priority with both automated and manual responses. Go back to the messaging tab on your settings page and select ‘Set Up Automated Responses’. Page viewers will now receive a response as soon as they message your page. Giving you ample time to respond with a handcrafted reply. Instagram even has similar functionality!


How to Respond to Customers on Social Media
Above: Add a Call to Action (CTA) to your page for “Send Message” to facilitate easier access to communicate with your business’s page.

Remember, to obtain a Very Responsive to Messages Badge on Facebook, your page must achieve a response rate of 90% and a response time of 15 minutes over the last 7 days.


Now that your page is tailored to receiving and sending professional messages, you have the opportunity to go deeper. Third-party apps like ManyChat and Tidio will automatically respond to your audience and can even guide them through the entire Buyer’s Journey solely in the chat box. This will free up your time and make your messaging strategy nearly autonomous.


Interested in how you can elevate your marketing presence with tools dedicated to helping you reach your consumers on social media? Like, Subscribe and visit Thumbstopper.com.

Transcription

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Key Points:

 

  • Companies should understand the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) to ensure their websites are accessible.
  • Brands that concentrate on accessibility on social media demonstrate care for their customers and build a positive brand reputation.
  • Brands should always consider inclusive design, such as plain, straightforward language, in their social media posts.

 

 

Accessibility may not be a term you usually associate with the internet and social media. You might picture wheelchair ramps, directional signs in braille, or sign language interpreters at live performances. The landmark Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990 dictates the legal necessity of these and similar accommodations in public spaces. As we’ve come to rely on the internet for everything from entertainment to buying groceries, it’s become clear that the internet is now also a public space. It must be accessible to everyone. And like other applications of ADA, businesses that do not comply are liable for damages caused by inaccessibility.

 

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) are an international set of standards to provide instruction on meeting accessibility needs. It’s important for companies to understand how this applies to their websites, especially if they engage in e-commerce. In terms of social media, the requirements are less concrete. But prioritizing accessibility on your company’s social media is essential to your reputation, even if the legal requirements are uncertain. We’ll look at why it’s important to your customers, how it affects the perception of your brand, and how to make these changes efficiently.

Social Media for All

The cornerstone of accessibility is inclusive design: products or experiences that are accessible for everyone regardless of disability. The most important place where this shows up is on company websites where most users expect to also find links to the brand’s social media profiles. Unfortunately, the overwhelming majority of websites are not accessible, despite the fact that the application of ADA to the internet is over 20 years old. Making websites accessible is a complex process without the use of specialized software like Accessibe or EqualWeb.

Unlike websites, making sure your social media is accessible is a straightforward, ongoing process. Every social platform has been quick to release optional accessibility features. These features are important to many users even if they don’t rely on them to use social media.

Making your social presence accessible tells users that your brand cares about people, not just profits. It’s the same idea as the push for the representation of different body sizes in fashion or more expansive skin tone ranges in beauty products. Brands that meet the needs of underrepresented groups endear themselves to others as well. And while optimizing your brand website for accessibility might be a larger project you aren’t ready to tackle yet, starting with your social media pages is a great way to show customers that you’re listening to their concerns. 

 

Making Content Accessible

Shifting to accessible content means incorporating inclusive design into your creative process. The practice varies by type of media. For platforms that have graphics or videos with captions, it means not only adjusting each component but also being mindful of how they interact with each other.

For example, YouTube’s automatically generated closed captions and subtitles are often inaccurate. It's one of many examples where the caption generation software has issues picking up strong accents and mumbled words. This could be remedied with handcrafted video transcription services. If that’s not in the budget, the video creator could add their script or transcription to the video description.

None of the technology for accessibility is perfect yet. Teaching computers to digest complex information for human understanding is difficult, and the variations in disabilities further complicate it. The majority of adjustments creators need to make revolve around helping assistive technology better understand their content. Let’s look at how to make different kinds of content accessible. 

Text

  • Use plain language that’s easy to understand 
  • Avoid text in all caps
  • Capitalize the first letter of each word in a hashtag, like #SocialMediaMarketing, a practice called camel-case

Videos

  • Provide descriptive captions. Instead of just displaying the words people on-screen say, explain background noises and other sounds that are relevant to the scene.
  • Add your own subtitles or enable auto-subtitles on the video platform of your choice
  • Use captioning for live videos when possible

Graphics

Distribute Accessible Content

Many users find their new favorite brand through social media. When disabled people (who make up 26% of the population according to the CDC) can’t access your brand’s social posts, you miss the opportunity to connect with a demographic that’s eager to engage in online communities. On a hyper-local level, that kind of connection goes even further.

That’s why ThumbStopper exists to help brands distribute their social content to their retailer network. Retailers can connect with their local audience - with your accessible, branded content - in a more personal way. And since content goes to their page automatically once they sign up, retailers can effortlessly promote your brand online while focusing on running their business. 

Ready to see how ThumbStopper can help your brand improve its reach? Check out our brand reach calculator or book a demo.

 

 

accessibility
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