Important Reasons To Integrate Social Media With Omnichannel Strategy

The omnichannel strategy allows you to understand the entire customer journey. It ranges from brick-and-mortar to mobile app activities that happen every moment. It offers a complete ecosystem where every experience is fully integrated and connected. The experience can be leisurely and comfortable for customers irrespective of their time spent with the brand. With the proliferation of social media, the customer journey invariably treads over this touchpoint multiple times during buying and even after-sales.

Social media participation is a modern default for all businesses. Marketing via social media is an essential aspect for everyone. However, managing social media traffic is equally important as well. As a brand, you are bound to receive hundreds of messages every day from different people. Some of them are your existing customers, some are probable customers and some may be just intrigued by your business. Hence it is essential to segment these people as individuals and to record their journey with the brand.

Integrating your social-media touchpoints with omnichannel is bringing your every interaction under one umbrella. This improves your scope of reciprocity when engaging with a customer. Leaving social media out of your omnichannel plan is a wrong move. Social media has become a fundamental part of our lives. From understanding your user base to regularly communicating with them, social media is the active bridge between your business and your customers. 

According to a popular market study, out of all communication channels, social media holds at least a 24% usage rate. In other words, social media handles are witnessing a growing impact amongst all kinds of audiences.

 

1. Social Media Elevates Your Customer’s Experience: 

These days customers watch and follow most social handles of their favorite brands. Nobody has time for checking separate apps continuously, for separate brands. Instead, they just browse through the Facebook pages or Instagram stories and occasionally swipe through featured products. They notice other customers’ reactions as the reviews are real-time. All these little factors influence their purchasing decision. Eventually, if they favor a product, they can immediately converse through the chat option while discussing it with other customers. 

When the customer is reaching out, you don’t want to redirect them to your details or website. Instead, you should respond immediately, while recording their needs as a prerequisite for future interactions. Employ a social-media response team to monitor the specific touchpoint.

Integrating social media as part of youromnichannel strategy ensures that the agent or a customer rep can visualize the customer journey while responding to posts or DM. A stand-alone social listening tool will not provide the richness that an omnichannel contact center provides.

 

2. Social Media Triggers Virality:

Social media is a must-go-to place for happy and many times for not-so-happy customers. Monitoring social mentions is very important as it can indicate a trend and lead to posts or messages that can go viral.

For brands, it is critical to avoid negative posts, because as the number of negative posts goes up, the number of followers on your page is bound to go down. Moreover, you simply do not have the option of deleting negative posts because that will make you appear shady and untruthful.

An Omnichannel Integrated with social media can easily let customer reps understand the concern and proactively respond to such posts and let the irate customer get satisfied sooner. For example, the customer is annoyed by the quality of service or product she has received and grumbles about it on social media. The proactive customer rep can look at the post and reply over Direct Message or even make an outbound call if the social handle of the customer is integrated into the omnichannel.

 

3. Social Media Fosters Trust: 

Most millennial customers are hooked on social media. Whenever they hear about any new product or service, they look it up on social media. They want to read about people’s reactions to the product. People also look up the brand page to seek validation for the services they want to purchase. 

In other words, how you portray yourself on social media, including your posts and traffic, determines your brand’s legitimacy to a certain extent. To maintain a popular social image, it is necessary to keep track of all digital interactions and respond to them. If your responses are delayed, and your comment section looks shabby, then it can reflect poorly on your brand image. You can also employ different Chatbots to take over most recurring conversations. Once you provide a transparent atmosphere with a continuous presence across popular platforms, your customers become more loyal to your brand. Globally, 54% of people had a more favorable view of brands that responded to customer service questions or complaints on social media.

 

4. Social Media Helps In Expressing Your Values: 

We are no longer in a generation where brands can stay mute about social issues. Customers expect a social reaction to every major occurrence in the world. Major brands follow a bandwagon full of interactive posts to declare their worldview. This offers a corporate advantage, where similar-minded people will align with the brand’s moral values. It is a brilliant way to clarify what your brand or business stands for and how it brings value to the world. Integrating social media with various other communication channels using omnichannel contact center solution can help identify relevant social issues and address the same as a brand.

 

5. Social Media Offers Brand Awareness:

Most customers love showing off their favorite brands. Irrespective of what you sell or offer, if your product is recommendable then your customers will want to talk about their experience. This offers an exciting opportunity to build a community around your brand. Your customers become your brand influencers. Their shared experiences motivate others to seek interest in your brand. Following these communities closely and understanding popular customer concerns, can help in providing improved customer service. Customers can directly get answers to their questions while proceeding to complete a purchase. Social media plays an important role, especially for e-commerce businesses. 

It cannot be emphasized enough how crucial social media support is, in today’s competitive environment. And you cannot take advantage of social media unless you take an omnichannel approach. It just makes things effortless for your customers and your agents. When customers notice your efforts through your social handles, they are bound to stay for the quality of service. These customers will become your biggest brand advocates or “top fans” and will influence others to make similar purchases. The potential of social media is infinite if it is maneuvered wisely.