What do Social Customer Care and Marketing have in common?

Actively and carefully engaging consumers on social media is becoming the easiest way of getting customers

There are different meanings and purposes for the areas of Marketing, and they are defined by the need, business plan, and purpose of each company. Despite this heterogeneity, there is one vital role in common: To assist in the obtaining of customers. Whether a B2B or B2C, in retail, or a in financial institution, the actions created within the sphere of marketing will always focus on reaching new customers.

To make this happen, every business invests in some strategy or set of strategies, such as public relations, press relations, outdoors point-of-sale strategies (POS), commercials on television, in social media, support events of social responsibility, and so on. The list is extensive and can be shuffled around multiple times to create unique campaigns.

A bit far off from this world is Social Customer Care or Social Network Relations, which is little more than handling questions, requests, and complaints of prospects and customers within Social channels. In this case, the objectives typically focus on Customer Loyalty Marketing and crisis management.

So it seems that marketing has no direct relationship with Social Customer Care, right? Well, the fact is that companies are discovering that these areas have much more in common than they first thought.

The power of word of mouth on social media

The famous word of mouth has always had a strong power of influence over people. When a friend shares poor experiences of a brand with you, you take in this information and think twice before doing business with it again. It also happens when the news that’s heard is positive.

The big thing here is that, in social media, word of mouth extends much farther and can reach countless numbers of people. Before, the only information you’d get would be poor service purely from those closest to you, for example. Today, when this friend shares your experience on their profile, it reaches their digital network of contacts, and even contacts of the company complained about when the message is published on the actual company profile.

What impact does this have on business?

Many surveys are showing that the way businesses deal with the messages received on your profiles affect the potential perception of a new customer. Second Nielsen, 83% of people believe that the most reliable source for brand recommendations are friends and family.

An extensive study by Wunderman, called Wantedness, also reinforces this idea. Among the results: 79% of consumers revealed that brands need to actually demonstrate that they understand and care about them before the consumers think about making a purchase, and 74% think that brands can do this by providing high-quality of Customer Service.

I.e., marketing actions can even impact the consumer, but consumers can change their opinions quickly if they find complaints that are poorly met or not answered on the official company pages on social media. Thus, Social Customer Care can no longer only be focused on answering questions, and now plays an important role in the obtaining of new customers.

Social Customer Care is the new marketing

In this scenario, companies must begin to take into consideration that customer relations- often left aside — are strategic and yet another marketing tool to build an audience. It may be the most important one in the age of Social Media.

Offering custom experiences through Social Customer Care wins over customers who are dissatisfied and doubtful, so that they have positive information to share about your company, ensuring a buzz that is conducive to your brand. New customers will also feel like they can interact with the brand and that they are closer to it.

And anyone who thinks that hiding negative feedback is the best alternative has got it wrong. Quickly engaging a consumer who is dissatisfied in a transparent, proactive, and friendly manner, is a way to not only help your current customer, it is also a way to show non-customers how much the company cares about them.

In a market that is increasingly connected and in which consumers are fully empowered, Social Customer Care should not be overlooked, and should become one of the priorities of companies and marketing areas. Ultimately, this is the easiest, cheapest, and truest way to obtain customers. It’s no wonder that so many people already consider Social Customer Care to be the new brand Marketing.