Providing your customers the ability to engage with your brand via social media creates a number of advantages for both parties. Today’s connected consumers are always pleased when they can access information, give feedback, and provide advocacy for a brand in an online and social setting. Businesses benefit from this as social media engagement is the perfect forum for generating actionable insights.

In the effort to build an online following, you are also learning more about your customers. By creating engaging content as well as visual material, you’ll be able to start narrowing down the tastes, as well as demographic information, of your online customer base. Providing this visual customer service can tell you what your customers “like,” allows them a forum to tell you what they think of your business, and provides heaps of other data that can then be turned into actionable information.

One of the most powerful tools offered by taking customer service online and into a visual medium, is the opportunity to extend the brand-customer interaction beyond the brick and mortar experience.  Use social media to offer promotions, specials, and different methods of engagement than would be offered in person. This tends to react favorably with customer sentiment, which you can get a gauge off and then use as actionable insight for predictive action.

The true jackpot with visual customer service however is advocacy. Never before has it been so easy to share your thoughts, be them positive or negative, with a large group of people than now in the current online social climate. Customers not only being loyal but also advocating your product should be a goal to strive toward when designing social media marketing strategies. Make sharable content and learn to fit your customers’ needs along the way.

Take a look at “Visual Customer Service in the Social Age” for a great run through of the different platforms that brands are using to engage with their customers online. There are some great ideas for simple strategies that could provide your business with valuable data.

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