At Buffer, we think a lot about the future of social media.
It started as a way for friends to connect online, evolved into a broadcasting channel, and is now a place for brands to provide personalized, human experiences with their audience and customers.
Social media is as much about engagement with other people as it is about sharing content.
It’s why we call it “social” media.
Here are just a few reasons why social media engagement is a vital part of any social media marketing strategy.
1. Simply broadcasting content results in low reach and referral traffic
Over the last few years, organic reach (on Facebook in particular) has dropped so dramatically that some people have questioned the viability of organic posting at all.
In 2017, Buzzsumo analyzed 880 million Facebook posts and uncovered a sharp decline in engagements. This is linked to a perceived push by social media platforms to encourage brands to use advertising to boost their reach.
In 2018, Facebook also announced that they would change their post ranking algorithm to prioritize personal posts over brand page posts in the News Feed. A key part of the change is that they are using “meaningful engagement” as an important signal that a post should be prioritized.
In other words, posts with more active and thoughtful interactions will get more reach.
There’s a fascinating insight into why Facebook are taking this approach in this explainer video from their Newsfeed team.
“Interacting with people is associated with a greater sense of well-being… On the other hand, just scrolling through your Facebook feed, passively reading or watching without interacting with others, tends to make people feel worse.” – Facebook
2. People expect businesses to respond on social media, and fast
Twitter and Facebook have become the first places people go to for customer support, product enquiries or just to say thank you to businesses.
Back in 2013 it was estimated that 67% of consumers use Facebook and Twitter for customer service, and that was five years ago! With the rise of Facebook Messenger usage, that number is likely to have trended upwards as over 8 billion messages are exchanged between people and businesses on Messenger alone each month.
This report by Sprout Social also suggests that using social media is now the top choice for people seeking customer service.
The speed at which business respond is also important. According to research commissioned by Twitter in 2016, 71% of their users expect a response within an hour.
3. Social media engagement increases loyalty and generates word of mouth.
People love positive interactions with brands on social media. Here’s just one example of nice tweet someone shared about Buffer.
There’s also a ton of data that suggests that answering complaints on social media increases customer advocacy and reduces churn. For example, Jay Baer’s research found that answering a complaint on social media can increase customer advocacy by as much 25%.
On the flipside, in Sprout Social’s research they discovered that 30% of customers who are shunned by brands on social media are more likely to switch to a competitor.
What’s more – social media experiences are, by design, both public and easy to share. This creates a compounding impact on positive experiences, compared to say, an email exchange or phone call.
The Twitter exchange below is a neat example of how thoughtful and fun social engagement between a customer and brand can go viral. Aside from garnering hundreds of retweets, it got picked up by news outlets including Buzzfeed and the Mirror.
@TeaAndCopy Were there no other packs in the plaice, or was that the sole one on the shelf? Floundering for an explanation! David.
— Sainsbury’s (@sainsburys) January 10, 2014
@TeaAndCopy If I’m herring you right, you’re looking to eel our relationship. I’ll tell the store to find the shelf & fillet. David.
— Sainsbury’s (@sainsburys) January 10, 2014
.@sainsburys All these exchanges in a roe have been brill-iant, David. I’ll try to kipper a lid on it, but Gods hake, it’s been fin-tastic.
4. You can learn directly from customers and prospects
We use social media to learn from our customers and community about how we can improve their experience.
If you’re a Buffer customer, what would you most like to see us add or improve in the product?
— Joel Gascoigne (@joelgascoigne) December 16, 2017
Better collaboration tools for agencies that manage client accounts. Similar to what Mailchimp does. Would be nice for clients to get approval notifications as well.
— Brandon Kidd (@SmashBrando) December 16, 2017
The basic workflow as an agency is I have my own account to manage social but clients can grant me access to their account so I can manage social for them. If they decide to move on, they keep their account. They could grant me publish privileges (full access).
— Brandon Kidd (@SmashBrando) December 16, 2017
Amazing, thanks for the insights here. We have a full Drafts + Approvals workflow being built right now. I think this will help you a lot.
Do you sometimes have clients that hire you and want you to set up their whole account? Or are clients always good setting up themselves?
— Joel Gascoigne (@joelgascoigne) December 16, 2017
Having this direct line to customers enables us to build relationships, develop empathy and ultimately build a better product for our users.
Social Media Engagement Challenges and How to Overcome Them
Looking again at the Sprout Social study, apparently brands are only responding to 11 percent of messages on social media and are sharing a whopping 23 promotional messages for every response to their social audience.
If we extrapolate this into the makeup of total social media activity, the contrast is stark and pretty worrisome!
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