If you're a social media manager or marketer looking for practical tips on how to respond to social media comments in 2021, you've come to the right place.
If your business has a social media presence (which it should, unless you've just arrived from the 18th-century in a time machine), you're bound to receive comments from followers and potential customers. When you do it right, your responses and the customer service you provide will go a long way towards sustaining lifelong customers.
We recently looked at how we can best post comments on social media. In this article, we look at the importance of answering all comments on social media with the best tips for getting it right.
Let's start…
Why is it so important to respond to comments on social media?
Responding to comments on social media should be an important element of your social media strategy.
Interacting with your audience through comments on social media is an effective way to connect with your target audience. By providing great customer service through comments on social media, you not only retain existing customers, but also win new ones.
Therefore, let's take a look at the best tips for successfully replying to comments on social media.
Strive for a good understanding
When responding to comments on social media, you should always appear personal and approachable. You want to use comments as an opportunity to bond with your customers. By presenting your company as friendly and helpful, people will immediately feel a connection with you and your products and/or services.
When answering customers, always use their names and try to answer their questions accurately. If you follow pre-written guidelines, adjust them for each individual situation. Adding emojis, GIFs and other fun extras on social media also help you bond with any commenter.
Present a professional facade
It is important that your comments on social media always have a professional appearance. This does not mean that your comments should lose their personal touch, but they should be consistent and retain the voice of your company on all social media channels.
Create a commentary strategy on social media so that everyone in your company clearly knows how to respond to customers. Make sure to specify the expected style and tone of customer service. Prepare official answers and templates for different situations or scenarios, so whatever the comment on social media is, the answer will always reflect the personality of your company.
The main goal here is to ensure a human touch and to follow the guidelines of the predefined responses. The last thing you want is for your social help desk to be seen as robotic.
Respond quickly
Show your interest in the thoughts and concerns of your commenters by responding quickly to comments. Fast replies are not only appreciated, they are now also expected from you, 42% of consumers now expect a reply to their comment on social media within 60 minutes.
Fast answers also make your customers feel valued. Pre-written responses can be helpful here, but always remember to personalize them so that they don't read like responses from a robot.
In some cases, you may not be sure how to answer more specific questions. This does not mean that you still cannot respond on time. Just confirm the comment and let the person know you're working on it. The answer itself is not that important, make sure the customer knows they have been heard.
No problem is too small
Nobody likes to be ignored and a lack of response tells customers they are not important. This can cause frustration which in turn can turn into customer dissatisfaction and cause problems later on.
Unanswered comments will also give your business a reputation for poor customer service. Research showed that 81% of consumers would not recommend a company to a friend if they did not get a reply from them on social media. Whatever the comment, no matter how small, always reply with a response.
Damage control
Be proactive and respond to all comments, especially the bad ones. Negative comments are inevitable, but responding quickly to each comment can help keep most issues from escalating.
Again, it's good to have a clear strategy for dealing with negative comments. Depending on the situation, you may want to send a link, so people can access further customer support, go to private messages, or try to help directly with the issue with a quick and comprehensive response.
Stand out from the competition
Companies should use social media as a two-way communication channel. However, this is often not the case as many organizations don't bother dealing with their social followers. By constantly being present and engaging with your audience through comments on social media, you quickly distinguish your company from the rest.
Respond to all comments in a simple, faster manner
As you already know or will soon discover, comments on social media come hard and fast.
The best way to stay informed is a social media management inbox. First, there is the convenience of having a single overview of your incoming comments on all social media channels. In addition to that, numerous functions are now available to speed up and simplify the process of replying to comments. These include bulk actions and response templates.
As mentioned above, a poorly dissected or thoughtless response can have inordinate consequences. This makes an approval flow and audit trail valuable for larger organizations.
Final thoughts on how to respond to comments on social media
As you can see, responding to comments on social media is easy once you get the hang of it. The importance of responding to comments cannot be underestimated. So if you are promoting your business on social media, it is time to take control of your social interactions.
See here some tips on how to grow your SME on social media!
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