Much like the lottery, you have to play to win with social media. Don’t take my word for it, new studies have come out showing what people expect from brands on social media sites. Social marketers constantly find themselves having to defend social media and prove its value. Well, thanks to these new data points, we have more ammunition to fight the good fight!
1. Get Social and be Active!
A study from Hubspot (they are awesome) showed that online consumers expect brands to be active on at least 3 social channels. That’s right; brands are expected to be accessible, active and social. Imagine that! A majority of those polled said that they expect to at least see a branded Facebook page and Twitter account. Half of respondents expected to engage with LinkedIn, Pinterest, YouTube and Google+ Pages.
2. Serve Your Communities.
It’s not enough to simply set up accounts and post cute pictures of kittens. People expect brands to provide value and serve their social communities! Parature released a very interesting study analyzing customer service via social media. There are a lot of great data points in the study, so let’s bullet them out:
· 35% of people have sought out customer service from a brand on social media
· 52% of people said that they had gave positive feedback to a brand on social media
· 59% of people said that the brand they gave positive or negative feedback to responded to them
· 51% of people who received customer service via social media said that their perception of the brand became more positive
In a separate customer service study, Edison Research found that social users expect brand to be on social media, provide customer service and do it in a timely manner! 42% of people expect a reply in under an hour, 25% in the same day and a demanding 9% want a reply in as little as 5 minutes. If you are going to be social, you had be ready to serve your communities!
