What Facebook Monitoring can tell you about your customers

Facebook has 2.01 billion monthly active users around the world as of Q2 2017.

According to a Pew Research national survey, 79% of adult internet users have used Facebook.

You can’t be on every social network, but with an average of over 1.2 billion active users per day, you better be sure that Facebook Moderation is a part of your social media strategy.

Facebook Monitoring can answer the 5 W’s

WHO are your customers?

What percentage of associates are men versus women? What are the age groupings of your connections? Facebook makes it easy to gather crucial demographics about your customers. Detailed demographic information is available from the Insights tab of your Facebook page and is invaluable intelligence to help your marketing team build more targeted campaigns.

What are your customers saying to each other and to their friends?

Getting a group of loyal customers together to discuss your brand and products openly can be a challenge, not to mention expensive. When people follow your brand on Facebook, they are essentially giving you the thumbs up and inviting you to connect with them. Tapping into your followers to ask their opinions on logos, brand look changes, products, and more, is not only valuable to you and available to you instantly, but your loyal customers will appreciate having the opportunity to be heard. Monitoring their responses to the changes in your products and services is feedback your marketing team needs to hear.

A great example of this kind of social listening in action is the case of Arby’s “Meat Mountain” campaign. Customers used social media to comment on a “Meat Mountain” campaign poster showing all different meats other than roast beef. Their customers mistakenly assumed this was a new sandwich and through social media expressed their desire to try it. As a result of social listening, Arby’s realized they had customer demand and created a new popular sandwich. “The next big thing” for you could also come from your customers on social media.

Click here to read the full story

Where are your connections from?

Domestic or foreign? East coast or Midwest? Do you know where your customers and prospects are from? Facebook insights can show you at a glance the number of people reached by city and country, as well as by language. Where consumers live affects their behavior based on a myriad of factors ranging from traditions, the type of food and drink they prefer, and even the climate they live it. All of these seemingly irrelevant elements have a major impact on how your brand is viewed in that geography.

Even within the United States, location can impact the type of advertisement or messaging that would be more favorably received. For example, urban and rural communities have different interests and opportunities. Learning where your Facebook connections are from, allows your marketing team to blend in the with the cultural norms of each community, increasing your likelihood of sales.

When did your customers have a good or bad experience?

Fact: News of bad customer service reaches more than twice as many ears as praise for a good service experience.(Source: White House Office of Consumer Affairs)

We all know people will tell their friends about poor customer service, and with social media they are telling hundreds, if not thousands at a time. Proper monitoring of your Facebook page for customer service issues and questions is critical and timeliness is crucial.

Customers may routinely ask questions on a company’s Facebook page, which could range from asking if there is parking in front of their store to how to return a faulty product. Besides answering posted questions, monitoring your followers’ discussions around your products and services gives you insights into the ‘temperature’ of your customer base at the time. Are they generally happy? Did they like the new product you released? Is there a lot of positive buzz or negative?

Knowing when your customers have a good or bad experience is key to taking advantage of your wins and minimizing your losses.

Why are your customers happy or unhappy?

Page stats, likes, views and shares are all valuable statistics to a point, but what is often overlooked is the narrative. What are your customers actually saying? Are they mentioning other companies or other brands they believe offer better services or products? What is the conversation they are sharing with their friends about YOU? Effective monitoring brings the conversations to the surface and, when you truly LISTEN to what your customers are saying, you can market to them accordingly.

And sometimes, a picture is worth a thousand words.

Use what you learn through Facebook Monitoring to improve your Customer Experience

Did you know that “67% of the buying process is complete before the buyer engages with the vendor” — Marketing Sherpa

Given this statistic, you can see how important it is to provide an awesome experience on your brands’ Facebook page. Positive interactions on your Facebook page can help prime your sales funnel, in addition to increasing customer satisfaction and building long-term loyalty.

Facebook Moderation is important.

From understanding the changing likes, needs, and trends of your target market to preventing social PR crisis’, Facebook monitoring when done correctly is a game changer. With the help of a professional monitoring game plan and skilled team you can turn this social community into one of your most valuable marketing assets.

Social media is happening in real-time. People are talking about products, brands, services and experiences right now as you read this. They may be talking about YOU.

Who? What? Where? When? Why?