The importance and role of social media for a sustainable environment
Recycle – Reduce – Refuse – Repair – Recover – Re-gift – Re-share – Repurpose – Regenerate – Refurbish – Re-think … and dare I add the 12th R of waste reduction rules …. Repeat!
I wish we could go back to pre 90’s when “one-time use” and “disposable” items barely existed in the consumer economy, and we considered ourselves eco-friendly and mindful of our environment by default.
In a global society increasingly virtual (not ideal but not necessarily a bad thing either for many reasons), the populist idea that social media has to be demonised at all costs should be redimensioned, put into perspective and seen for its unique qualities: bridging gaps coming from geographical and physical distances, social statuses, language barriers, age differences and time constraints.
What I’ve come to appreciate in the past year or so is the level of interest and participation from thousands of users in social groups promoting recycling initiatives and activities, enticing others in a “give and take” form of expression concerning unwanted goods. I cannot begin to imagine the mountains of waste collected at bring in sites if these communities had not started existing years back. Each and every person making unwanted items available to other persons/families/charities are part of this loop called Circular Economy, extending the life cycle of goods to their maximum limit, and possibly beyond. I see furniture, clothing, building materials, white goods, plants, children’s equipment, car parts … whatever you can imagine being offered on a complimentary basis, not just for good riddance but also for a number of other valid reasons:
1. space – square meters come at a high price and making space in homes and offices is so important via decluttering of items accumulated over the years and no longer holding a functional, aesthetic or sentimental value. On the other hand, there are young home owners and families living in bare homes who would appreciate what for us is not essential or important any more, even more so if we’re downsizing.
2. upgrading – what was good and affordable 10 or 20 years ago may be outdated for a person, but it doesn’t mean it can’t make someone else happy, especially if starting life now.
3. Lack of knowledge – each person has their own appreciation for items, while others might not be knowledgable about historical or material values.
4. No manuality – a broken washing machine or table might be in the hands of an owner who does not have the skills and tools to fix it, whereas a new owner would restore or repair it without any additional costs, for himself or to resell it. This also minimises the use of raw materials, essential to safeguard our natural resources in a sustainable manner and contributing to less harmful emissions.
5. Sense of altruism – especially at a certain age we may realise that possessions may actually be more of a burden than a richness and find a sense of relief, freedom and satisfaction in giving away personal items which are deemed of secondary importance.
Another important role assumed by social media is the area dedicated to second hand sales like Marketplace and Second Hand Sales groups (in Facebook), where all kinds of goods are bought and sold at realistically cheap prices when compared to store-bought. Giving items a second or third life in their life cycle is truly an act of kindness, not just a financial transaction.
These practices have a direct impact on the repair industry which we all know is becoming increasingly costly and illogical. Imagine shifting from consumerism to anti-consumerism, bringing back to life and giving value to small-scale professionals like cobblers, seamstresses, technicians, woodworkers, artists and tradespeople – able to fix shoes, clothes, domestic appliances, furniture, decor and anything under the sun which can be mended, at the right price as opposed to buying new.
Kudos to all those who do not turn a blind eye on the paramount importance of protecting our environment by being ecologically proactive, generous, open-minded and humble enough to rethink the value of all that surrounds us, which ultimately reflects on a collective effort to make prosperous and greener this planet we call HOME.
Written for The Sunday Times of Malta by Alison Casha (Founder at Socialogy™) one of the first marketers with a 20 year strong career and practical experience who believes in social media as one of the most important marketing/customer care channels for any business giving importance to customer satisfaction and real time engagement.
Socialogy™, “The Art of Social Marketing” provides cost-effective and sustainable social media marketing to SME’s and marketing agencies at a European level. Whatever the job, Socialogy™ will always show maximum respect towards our planet.
socialogy.eu
With more than 20 years of experience and definitely in their adulthood, it’s time for social media platforms to get their adult badge and play a pivotal role in shaping our generations for a better world.
It was an early morning of Tuesday 19th December 2023 when I woke up to a supposedly normal day of work, only to find my Facebook account unavailable. I thought “ok, it must be one of those downtimes across the globe”. But no, it was just me. I couldn’t access my profile nor Messenger and a shiver ran down my spine. I tried resetting my password, believing I was temporarily blocked or tentatively hacked, but again, all attempts failed miserably. In total panic mode I quickly browsed through a million Help pages by Meta, but none led to real time support. How could it be?
Cutting a long story short for your benefit (and also mine), I regained access on 11th January 2024 for what had to be the longest 24 days of my life, thanks to my two lawyers who took matters seriously and legally with Meta. Solely depending on social media platforms to perform in my job I must say I dealt with it pretty well despite numerous crises and panic attacks.
Why did I start with this ghastly memory? Simply because never in my professional life did I feel more impotent and at a loss, a situation completely out of my hands and spiralling so quickly that I didn’t even count the amount of business lost during the most important time of the year for clients I represent. What’s even worse and unacceptable (because mistakes and problems do happen) is that Meta is not equipped with a Customer Support Service, and it’s scary. Scary that the planet’s giant in social communications does not have a proper support system in place for its customers, the ones who contribute to the success and stock market of the leader of all virtual communities. If for 90% of social media users it’s all about touch-basing with distant relatives, school friends and colleagues, for the rest (like myself) it’s their main source of livelihood, so let’s not minimise the importance of such platforms. There were moments I was in total darkness, without psychological support I would have struggled, I’m honest.
You might be curious to know why I had been shut out of Facebook without parole. Basically I was indirectly, coldly and abruptly accused of contributing to fraud business on Meta’s platforms, a blasphemy! I, who take business so seriously, who cannot even stand the idea of a tiny spelling mistake or grammatical error let alone fraud anyone financially or by means of impersonation. The difficult part was being told to “forget about my 16 years of historical data and start a new account”, mind-boggling how a company would allow that if I was truly considered and accused of being a fraudster. Even the most ferocious killers have a legal right to defend themselves in court, I felt I was being treated even worse. But let’s put that aside because it’s not the core of this article – the non-existent support is. I guess everyone agrees that after 20 years of presence, experience (and profits), Meta can afford a solid team of support specialists in each country, able to assist the desperate, honest, innocent beings, no?
And this takes us back to the core of this argument – the need for such platforms to grow up and provide verified virtual identities to all its users, free of charge – something which all governments should be imposing in their own country. At the moment, one needs to pay a monthly subscription to have “Meta-verified” profiles, i.e. going through a verification process by means of an official document like ID/passport. Why should the transparent profiles be contributing to a growing virtual network made up of fake names and accounts, putting them at a high risk of being insulted and scammed gratuitously?
Here’s why verifications are crucial?
Without verification of profiles, we are bound to see an increase in cyber-bullying, online harassments, virtual hate, threats, malicious AI and senseless discussions because users abuse of a system by hiding behind fake profiles and accounts to hide their identity/fake business, because they wouldn’t be able to do so with their own name and surname.
Yes it’s true, if you’re harassed or threatened online and report it to the police, eventually that person will be tracked down, but let’s be honest, what’s the need for all that red tape and waste of precious national resources if we can prevent such detrimental behaviour?
It would be much simpler to verify each and every user for the benefit of the entire society. Just like we all need to present our ID card or passport when requesting services wherever we go, it’s about time we did the same in the virtual world, where business and pleasure are mixing more and more every year that passes, and we need more truth than artificiality.
With verifications in place:
– users would think twice before insulting, offending, threatening, bullying, harassing other users
– Cybercrime units would concentrate their efforts on more important cases
– No minor would be able to access the adult world without the verification process of one of their parents.
– Platforms would be able to have more sustainable support teams to assist their users
– There would be a drop in fake profiles/businesses trying to scam others
– A cleaner online society where individuals and businesses can come together, reflecting the REAL society rather than impersonating and frauding. Socials need to be demonised and appreciated for their positive potential, but they need to play their part too, it’s about time that they bear their responsibilities rather than shrug them off and allowed to play with people’s lives, literally.
The European Parliament should be discussing this at international level with the policy makers, because it needs to protect its citizens before it’s too late.
Written for The Sunday Times of Malta by Alison Casha (Founder at Socialogy™) one of the first marketers with a 20 year strong career and practical experience who believes in social media as one of the most important marketing/customer care channels for any business giving importance to customer satisfaction and real time engagement.
Socialogy™, “The Art of Social Marketing” provides cost-effective and sustainable social media marketing to SME’s and marketing agencies at a European level. Whatever the job, Socialogy™ will always show maximum respect towards our planet.
Socialogy went radio today! Our Chief Socialogist Alison Casha was invited as guest on Eduka…Link to speak about the importance of language in everyday social media.
Everyone can help in educating others on the correct use of grammar, whichever language we write in. This is a subject which is much at heart to Alison, who endeavours to respect languages despite the changes being brought about by the fast virtual world of social media, especially by the youngest generations.
The programme aired at 1930hrs of 16th August 2022 on Radju Malta. Special thanks to Kenneth Vella for the opportunity.
Summer is in full swing but it’s always the season to spring clean your online presence
Imagine one afternoon you decide to sit down in your favourite armchair to read an interesting book which has been waiting for a long time and along the pages you come across weird, wrong words. Wouldn’t you feel undecided whether to laugh or cry, thinking you wasted money on a book which carries all those mistakes and lose all your trust in the author? How credible would the author or publisher be to you? Would you finish reading it?
Likewise I feel the same when sifting through social media content. An ocean of grammatical and spelling mistakes which sadly and wrongly is becoming acceptable in the virtual world. It is ok I guess that social media has created a new modern vocabulary but it does not give anyone the license to abandon rules of even simple basic spelling, let alone applying good, correct grammar (which are easily avoidable thanks to the spellchecker tools which are part and parcel of every communication tool nowadays)
Tradition has it that when a business seeks new human resources for its workforce, the bar is raised very high for skills, education, experience and character. Which is all great and that’s how it should be.
The problem seems to emerge when a business seeks to take its brand online, especially on platforms like those of social media. It is apparent that the standards fall quickly, in the majority of cases it’s taken as lightly as engaging a member of staff to “play” with the company’s social media accounts as if it were their own personal profile.
Companies need to understand that social media is an equal communication channel to a call centre, a customer office, a website presence, a physical shop. It is an extension of your brand; a reflection of the image you wish to portray. If these physical and virtual locations are not manned professionally, the business will not grow and its reputation will be tarnished. Same with business pages on social media – unless managed by professionals who spend the majority of their time studying digital marketing and have expertise in the digital world it can have catastrophic effects.
What hurts me most as a specialist with a particular interest in proof reading and content creation to manage business accounts is coming across grammatical errors which are a clear sign of the superficiality or incapacity of the person entrusted to the keyboard. If the brand is not sensitive enough to communicate to me in a high level with attention to correct language, what should I think of the overall attitude of this brand to customer service and communication?
Brand reputation
As we emerge from a pandemic in a race against time to save our lives and our livelihood, online media takes a leap of faith to shape our present and future consumer behaviours. The problem is created in this rush to catch up with time lost, finances gone and a craze to get hold of what went by, forgetting the reputation possibly built on long years of service.
We cannot allow the fast world of social media to damage our brand. It’s all about credibility.
Etiquette
Being innovative and modern in a digital world does not exclude old-school techniques and etiquette. Do your research, be open to public opinion, take your time to build content, share content at the right time rather than just scheduling it to make your life easier (I’ve seen so many posts going up at the wrong time, in terms of clashing with contrasting world news for example). But most of all, mean what you write and write it down well. Give up on automations, they’re a thing of the (recent) past.
Social media is great to show the human side of a business, but always keeping in mind the respect you owe to your vast audience. So personal opinions by the content writers should remain personal, even when engaging with users.
Influence
Companies extending their presence to digital media have a responsibility to shape us and future generations. Not just with their products or services but especially with the content they create and generate, potentially influencing hundreds and thousands of followers. Let’s all do our part to respect languages and keep them alive and in good shape.
Trust the right person with the experience necessary to handle your social media presence.
PS: And by the way, did I say how annoying restaurant menus are when they’re full of typos?!
Written for The Sunday Times of Malta by Alison Casha (Founder at Socialogy™) one of the first marketers with a 20 year strong career and practical experience who believes in social media as one of the most important marketing/customer care channels for any business giving importance to customer satisfaction and real time engagement.
Socialogy™, “The Art of Social Marketing” provides cost-effective and sustainable social media marketing to SME’s and marketing agencies at a European level. Whatever the job, Socialogy™ will always show maximum respect towards our planet.
Socialogy™ was present at last night’s Ceremony in Malta
On Tuesday 14 June, World Blood Donor Day was being celebrated all over the world with the slogan “Donating blood is an act of solidarity. Join the effort and save lives” to draw attention to the roles that voluntary blood donations play in saving lives and enhancing solidarity within communities. Mexico was chosen as representative country to celebrate the event on a global level.
In Malta, a prestigious ceremony was held under the patronage of the President of Malta at his official summer residence – the historical Verdala Palace in Buskett, built in 1586 by Grand Master Hugues Loubenx de Verdalle. During the evening attended by distinguished guests, regular blood donors were honoured whilst recipients of blood donations shared their experiences.
At the end of the ceremony all guests were invited to a small gathering, where they shared experiences and socialised.
Alison Casha, founder of Socialogy™ was invited to attend in her voluntary support role as social media consultant to the National Blood Transfusion Services – Malta (NBTS). Alison has been supporting the NBTS for the past 12 years, and in the last 2 as part of the brand’s Corporate Social Responsibility programme. As a blood donor herself, Alison believes that donating blood is an act of kindness towards society and her professional support towards the non-profit organisation is an extension of her efforts to attract more donors and grow this message of love wide and across the small Island of Malta.
Socialogy™ behind YUE’s winning entry in the 2022 Malta Healthcare Awards
Congratulations to our client YUE Healthier Living for winning this year’s title of Best Gym & Physical Fitness Centre in Malta as well as that of Best Facilities & Estate Management.
Mr Fabian Vella, the man behind the YUE concept collected the 2 prestigious awards and thanked all stakeholders for being part of this success. The awards, organised by Dynamic Events Malta were held at the Intercontinental Hotel Malta on Friday 22 April 2022 and recognised the efforts of local businesses in the healthcare industry.
Socialogy™ is proud to have played an active role in this achievement, having been chosen by YUE to create the ideal content for the participation form in a clear, concise and factual way, submitting all necessary support documentation to back it up and elevating the honours to the next level through PR and communication activities.
About Good Copy/Content Writing
Copywriting comes easy when you represent a brand you believe in and most importantly has all the right reasons to be recognised for its efforts. Yet there are various rules to follow when submitting an award nomination if you want to aim for a win!
Storytelling – staying true to the values and vision of the brand in addressing the reasons for which you should be recognised, but most of all being direct in answering the question why you should be worthy of the award. Keeping the story short and interesting will ensure it is not boring for the judges.
Proof – backing up your story with facts and figures through honest testimonies and referrals from customers and business parters which reflect the stakeholders’ perspective, not just your own point of view. Proving your own success through reviews, photos/videos and historical data makes all the difference in making your brand’s claims credible and substantiating what you’re saying.
USPs – highlighting the strengths and opportunities of your business in relation to the award title, making your submission unique and stand out from the rest. This is what will ultimately convince the judging panel that the award is well deserved.
Style – keeping the submission clean, clear and concise in a structured manner thanks to point-form sentences, spaced paragraphs, good grammar and content fluidity. Proofreading is a must, especially by external, unbiased professionals.
And finally, good luck in your submission and may the best one win. Ours did!
If you are looking for a copy or content writer for your PR activities, improved web content or digital marketing,Socialogy™, “The Art of Social Marketing” provides cost-effective and sustainable social media marketing to SME’s and marketing agencies at a European level. Whatever the job, Socialogy™ will always show maximum respect towards our planet.
Socialogy™ – ‘The Art of Social Marketing’ is today celebrating its first year of operations. Founded on June 20, 2020, the Socialogy™ brand was born as the world slowly emerged from the first phase of a global pandemic that caught many businesses off-guard. The brand is designed to provide cost-effective and sustainable online media marketing to SMEs and marketing agencies in Malta and at a European level, helping them adapt to a new reality of surviving through a professional online presence.
The idea behind Socialogy™ goes beyond the basic functions of simple contracted marketing activities. The idea is to become an extension to a company’s operations in providing an additional communication channel to its existing ones for seamless customer service, sales and engagement.
With the boom of social media in the last decade it became evident how the importance of this online channel should not just be part of a company’s communications strategy but is today the most effective, efficient and reliable bridge to understand, engage with customers and minimise the service gap in a fast-moving and dynamic environment. Giving importance to customer satisfaction and real time engagement is the key to a successful communication channel driven by equally dynamic businesses.
While large organisations have the luxury of relying on their in-house resources and the expertise of agencies to grow their marketing activities, SMEs may not have the right knowledge nor the finances to sustain such activities, and this is where Socialogy™ steps in – an added value to any small business operation with big ideas for effective online marketing, creating tailor-made campaigns and activities respecting brand values, targets and finances.
Thanks to a network of preferred partners, services also extend to web development, media buying and specialised consultancy in several industries including retail, tourism and hospitality.
Bespoke services for SMEs
Guiding small and medium businesses set up and grow their presence online, especially on social media with practical and green solutions, in line with any business model and size, and it need not cost you the earth.
Value support to marketing agencies
Cost-effective and round the clock services including copywriting, creative ideas, implementation of advertising campaigns and engagement with followers.
Cost-effective consultancy services
Helping businesses understand social media trends to enhance business sales and strengthen online customer relations through practical experience.
Socialogy™ was founded by Alison Casha, an experienced marketer who was one of the first in Malta to focus on social media marketing. Well-known for her customer service relations in the local market, Alison brings a wealth of marketing and communications expertise with her 25 years of hands on experience with some of the largest local organisations and having studied at the Chartered Institute of Marketing.
Whatever the job, Socialogy™ will always show maximum respect towards our planet, this is why it focuses on online marketing as opposed to traditional media which contribute towards a less green environment.
How social media helps bridge gaps between hotels and guests
Imagine you are a guest who has just arrived at the hotel and not finding anyone to greet you – it’s bad. Now imagine how worse it would be for a guest to enter an establishment, press the call bell and be ignored. This is exactly how people feel when they contact a business on social media and do not get any form of acknowledgment or feedback.
Basically, the virtual world is no different than your actual hotel lobby or reception area. The idea that social media is an informal and casual way of building online relationships is flawed and short-sighted. It should be taken more seriously by any business or organisation, to each their own (platform). Just like a receptionist, a hotel manager, a housekeeper, a marketer behind the facade of your social media pages is equally responsible for the success of your hotel, no matter how many stars you claim to have. It’s no different than any customer service channel, not less worthy than a phone or an email.
Social media has evolved so fast when compared to any digital form of communication that there is really no excuse for service gaps any longer. Hotels have a multitude of channels at their disposal and intrinsically cost-free, with Tripadvisor® and booking.com possibly being the strongest and most influential platforms in the hospitality industry and widely accepted and used by the travelling public. Not only because it puts similar businesses in the same basket of online shopping but more importantly because it gives voice to the customer and serves as benchmark for both sides of the story: selling and buying. It creates a balance which is usually only broken by fake and illicit feedback.
Without forgetting Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIN, all very important social tools too, the Reviews section on booking platforms and social pages is without any doubt the most feared by managers of guest relations. And this is where mistakes are mostly done – not engaging the right person to handle online feedback, be it positive or negative. Even though guest relations specialists may do an excellent job on the floor, it does not necessarily mean that they can deliver the same level of service online. It takes the know-how of a seasoned marketer to engage with customers, black on white.
How to use social media to your hotel’s advantage:
Engage & Build : all social media channels are well built to allow engagement with partners and end customers. Twitter, Instagram and Facebook all have direct messaging systems which lend well to building relationships through private conversations which can be integrated into your CRM system. The marketers engaged to reply to messaging/comments/reviews are key to success stories – actually replying to a message and not letting it go unnoticed, remembering a repeat customer, anticipating the needs/requests based on historical data, taking the chats onto a personal level and following the guest’s mindset. The common but most essential factor here is timing: engaging with delays could actually mean losing a customer.
Listen & React: be bold, don’t be afraid to reply to reviews, no matter how negative they can be! Actually reviews should be encouraged as they are an opportunity to engage with guests beyond their stay, an “aftersales service” in the hospitality industry. Take the opportunity to listen, turn negatives into positives, accept criticism and realise that your business could always do better thanks to your guests’ own contributions. Take time to acknowledge the good comments and react to negative experiences by turning them into new opportunities. We are all human who make mistakes, it’s how we react to them that distinguishes us from our competitors. Social media platforms like Tripadvisor and booking.com are the perfect windows for this, and you would not only be impressing your own guests but also attracting millions of potential customers who come across your online presence via these platforms and assess you for your way of dealing with problems and coming up with resolutions.
Add Value & Reward: showcasing your hotel through your own social media pages resonates into shared experiences by the guests themselves, the best modern form of word-of-mouth advertising. Give more reasons to book through your online media – offer value added forms of retention by means of discounts, cross promotions with close-by businesses and own suppliers, creating apps for loyal customers and pushing digital offers/rewards which can be redeemed through an action on social media (example, sharing a story and tagging your page or place). Make your guests proud to represent your business and give them reason to do it.
Innovate & Save: one of the best ways (if not the best) to demonstrate innovation today is to go green. What is your business doing to reduce waste, plastic, energy, overhead costs and contribute to the planet’s wellbeing? Online media can surely help replace paper thanks to digital
communication mixed with smart phone technology. Think paperless brochures/receipts, virtual key rooms, WhatsApp/social messaging and apps to enhance the customer journey and offer peace of mind but respecting the environment at the same time.
Inspire & Attract: social media is your window onto the world. Inspire followers with high-quality photography/videography without falsifying your image – stay true to your brand values and keep your identity realistic.
This will help you keep your followers and grow to reach out to new unexplored markets and target niches. Follow the ethos of your business to attract like-minded people on social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram for leisure customers and Twitter/LinkedIN (for business customers). Followers will easily turn into customers if they understand that you share the same X factor.
Ultimately social media can be the “fil rouge” of a guest’s journey from the research phase right through to the memories of the stay, a tangible way of joining all the dots of a guest experience and not just a means to an end. Being social online is the equivalent of smiling whilst welcoming your guests – make the best of it!
Written for Horeca Malta Magazine by Alison Casha (Founder at Socialogy™) one of the first marketers with a 20 year strong career and practical experience to believe in social media as one of the most important marketing/customer care channels for any business which believes in the importance of customer satisfaction and real time engagement.Socialogy™, “The Art of Social Marketing” provides cost-effective and sustainable social media marketing to SME’s and marketing agencies at a European level. Whatever the job, Socialogy™ will always show maximum respect towards our planet.socialogy.eu
Just like Shakespeare’s Hamlet introductory words, I often ask this question when it comes to customer service, and please don’t misunderstand me, I am no t one of those who believes the customer is always right. Neither a business though.
God knows how many Facebook messages and comments I made on company pages, without ever being acknowledged, let alone answered. Sometimes I wonder if the business is simply playing hard to get in a bid to increase the desire for its services, or worse still a careless attitude towards an underestimated customer service channel.
In fact rather than care, many companies tend to scare their customers away on social media, no matter how customer-centric they advocate to be in their marketing messages. The general mistakes which businesses commit on their own social pages are pretty common:
One-way communication: businesses tend to promote their products/services with regular posts, but then fail to engage with their followers, whether via public comments or in private messages. Communication is two-way, otherwise it would be called a digital monologue.
Delayed response time: social platforms are live means of information, there is no room for delayed engagement. It’s off-putting to show an interest in something as a customer and not receiving the same (supposedly more) level of interest from the seller part.
Ignoring followers: if you first attract users to follow your pages and then just ignore their comments, messages or worst still complaints, it’s not sexy at all. There is a high probability that users will start de-following you and giving you bad publicity, and that means marketing funds going down the drain translating into loss of revenues.
Disconnected employees: it’s useless having a great sales team and a poorly-informed employee replying to social media enquiries. Just like it doesn’t make sense to have customer service or social media experts handling customer engagement to then having this backed up by a very poor support system for sales/after sales. The teams need to be in synch homogeneously so that the customer does not feel being ping ponged between one department and another.
Rejecting complaints and negative reviews: I have been raised to see the silver lining in every cloud, and apply the same creed to bad feedback. If it is true that you can never make everyone happy, I do believe it is always possible to reach a compromise without necessarily breaking rules, discriminating between customers or going against fine print T&Cs. It’s all in the way we approach our customers and show them that we value their custom that we will make a difference.
So here are some tips to help you improve on your customer service skills without any added costs:
Customer engagement: show your social audiences that you care. If you upload a post at 5pm or on a weekend (especially if scheduled in advance which I don’t always agree with), it’s pretty useless if your social media specialist is out of the office at that time.
Response time: with social media being a communication platform that is so fast and volatile, almost perishable and intangible, customers who ask questions expect an immediate reply: if you can’t handle that, at least try changing the publishing time to be available for support. If this is not possible then make sure your opening hours are clearly updated and add an automated reply to private messages to keep the expectations of the customer at bay while your social customer service is closed/offline.
Acknowledging enquiries/comments/feedback: what can be more annoying than sending a message, seeing it has been read by the business and never receiving a reply back! Social media is to be treated just like any other customer care channel, if not more. In the future it will become more important than ever, so we need to gear up and get going in treating it as an opportunity to engage and to market.
Teamwork: give your salespersons (with best communication skills) some basic training in customer social engagement and incentivise them to handle their own enquiries and turn them into opportunities, whether sales related, or support-wise. You can always have a moderator to oversee the communication.
Dealing with complaints: if there is a negative public review or private feedback, there is no reason to fear being exposed for your own threats and weaknesses. Instead, use it as a chance to turn it into opportunities and strengths. An intelligent customer will know if you’re being honest and outgoing in your approach, which will be a point in your favour already. Being respectful and open to criticism and admitting mistakes is not a sign of weakness but of maturity, you should actually thank your customers for giving you free advice to better your service! If the customer is being unreasonable and an agreement cannot be reached, you might have to let them go, but do try to offer them a completely different and separate incentive to win them over competition. From experience I can confirm that is it only the odd one in amino that stubbornly refuses a resolution.
Finally a customer is a human being so the most important rule is to treat them as a person, not a number. Try addressing your customer by first name (informal is acceptable on social media), and not by “dear client or dear madam” (and I’m like “hey I have a name!” Sorry but I can’t stand such outdated and impersonal introductions in any form of customer communication).
Ultimately businesses should always make sure to treat customers the way they would want to be treated and going beyond their expectations. Social media gives us the chance to go beyond the cursory and traditional customer care and create the wow factor which generates a high level of satisfaction, often unexpected. When you do this in the public domain the positive direct and indirect returns you get are high. It is the best form of successful customer care I can think of, but just in case you can’t handle it as yet, just call it Customer Service because “care” is a huge word.
Written for The Sunday Times of Malta by Alison Casha (Founder at Socialogy™) one of the first marketers with a 20 year strong career and practical experience to believe in social media as one of the most important marketing/customer care channels for any business which believes in the importance of customer satisfaction and real time engagement.
Socialogy™, “The Art of Social Marketing” provides cost-effective and sustainable social media marketing to SME’s and marketing agencies at a European level. Whatever the job, Socialogy™ will always show maximum respect towards our planet.
In a world becoming increasingly fast and impatient, the importance of visuals is taking on a new meaning.
During the forced slow-down of the recent coronavirus pandemic, we all had to tone down the fast-paced lifestyle which had been gaining momentum with each passing year. Some of us took the opportunity to find time to read, to do spring cleaning, to cook, to invest in family time – all simple activities that have over time become less popular due to careers, engagements and socialising. For a short while they may have been appreciated, maybe reluctantly, but the minute the measures were eased, everyone rushed to go back to the speedy way of living like there’s no tomorrow.
All this ties in to the subject of this article. We barely have time to read long letters or articles let alone detailed social posts. Social media has evolved too. In these past 16 years since the inception of the social media revolution, I have seen with bare eyes the shift from text content to visual stimulation. Whichever online provider you look at, you’ll see it. Online newspapers attract readers with big photos accompanied by short and catchy titles. Facebook rejects visuals with more than 20% text occupancy for cleaner campaigns moving away from the traditional hard selling techniques. We have seen the explosion of Instagram, a social platform that is based solely on the impact of photography. Websites are now mostly built with full screen imagery and just enough content to deliver the message.
Why? Exactly because no one has time or patience to read paragraphs upon paragraphs of information, unless it’s a book maybe and I’m not saying that’s a healthy behaviour. We’re all increasing our multi-tasking skills and usually access social platforms from hand held devices whilst engaged in other activities like waiting for an appointment, watching TV, standing in a queue, sunbathing, travelling or even at table in restaurants (this is actually a bad habit and should be highly discouraged!), making our concentration very limited. So here are a few good reasons why it’s important for businesses to invest in good photography/videography material for a high quality media library:
1. images replace words. Just like the need of a good content-writer, images need to be excellent quality so amateurish photos/illustrations are just not good enough to leave an impact.
2. visuals represent your business just like articles. If the images you post are low-quality, it is assumed that your business is on the same level. You wouldn’t want to pass on such a message, right?
3. The human brain is attracted more to colour and designs than text, it’s quite simple. The impact remains imprinted in your mind which processes the message behind an image.
4. Like love, visuals speak a universal language! If you have a multi-national audience to speak to, visuals do not need expensive and extensive translations, at most they might need adaptations and short phrase translations.
5. No matter how imaginative your content-writer is, no words can describe a product or service as good as an image/video of it. This is why a good quality professional photo/video is needed, be it in terms of resolution, perspective and content. Furthermore, such visuals can also be used to complement online campaigns with other traditional marketing channels like billboard advertising, newspaper ads, brochures … there is no need to recreate campaigns if the core visual is already excellent quality.
In all this let’s not forget the basics of visual content:
– whether you choose a professional photographer/videographer to take photos/videos which will represent your business online, or be it a social media user who tags your brand with photos of your product or service, make sure the quality is high enough to generate immediate attention for positive engagement and attract new potential followers hopefully turning them into customers. I also encourage more use of videos, no matter how short and/or detailed depending on the use, and with today’s technologies the costs have decreased considerably. It is estimated that people remember 20% of what they hear, 30% of what they see, but 70% of what they hear and see.
– engage a professional digital designer to adapt your visuals with superimposed logos/titles/prices or create illustrations but always keep in mind that less is more. You can always link visuals from a social media account to a landing page on your website to provide more information. This benefits your website traffic anyway, which should remain the core objective of your sales & marketing activities.
– make sure you have a web developer who is up to date with technology, devices and social media. All 3 need to speak well together to engage with customers, users and followers. It is useless having wow photography on a poor performing or outdated website, and vice versa. Today’s websites need to adapt to a multitude of user devices in terms of sizes and versions, the professional term is “responsiveness”.
Taking all the above into consideration it may be perceived as expensive and unnecessary however statistics and historical data prove that the return on investment is worthwhile. Don’t let last minute, rushed decisions or an ill-conceived and short-sighted urge to save on the cost of eye-catching content make your online presence look shabby and cheap.
Written for The Sunday Times of Malta by Alison Casha (Founder at Socialogy™) one of the first marketers with a 20 year strong career and practical experience to believe in social media as one of the most important marketing/customer care channels for any business which believes in the importance of customer satisfaction and real time engagement.
Socialogy™, “The Art of Social Marketing” provides cost-effective and sustainable social media marketing to SME’s and marketing agencies at a European level. Whatever the job, Socialogy™ will always show maximum respect towards our planet.
