How to Gather Fan Feedback on Social Media

When was the last time you phoned up a company to leave them feedback, or even just sent them an email? Can’t remember?1

Well, you’re not alone. Customers today are turning towards social media instead to let companies know exactly what they thought of their experience. According to a recent study carried out by Conversocial, 43% of customers expect social channels to be integrated with other customer service channels.

That means for online businesses today, it has never been more important to pay attention to what customers say on social media2 and to acknowledge their feedback. (highlight to tweet) Here’s how your business can gather that feedback using social media, and how you can use it to boost productivity, customer loyalty, and even sales.

Get Customer Feedback on Social Media

Before we dive into exactly how your business can gather customer feedback on social media, it’s important to understand why. One of the main reasons your business can benefit from gathering feedback using social media is because, quite simply, your customers are already talking about you.

As an online business, it’s your responsibility to ensure you find out exactly where these conversations are happening, so you can join in to either provide support or praise your most loyal fans. But not all of your customers will tweet or even message your brand directly when an issue arises.

This is why your business must develop a listening strategy to find out exactly the type of feedback your customers are leaving online and what they are saying when mentioning your company, so you can take the appropriate action.

Here are six ways your business can create an effective social media listening strategy in order to gather customer feedback.

1. Update Your Status

While this may sound obvious, posing a question to fans via a status update is one of the easiest and quickest ways your business can gather instant feedback on social media. Your fans are already following your business online, as they trust you and feel as if they are getting value from the content you post and share.

By asking them questions directly on social media, your business will be able to gather instant feedback from your community and discover exactly what they thought about your product, service, or even an event. Here’s how the casino Mohegan Sun used this approach to find out what fans thought about one of its recent events:

2. Create Feedback Forms and Surveys

Not all fans following your company on social media will be open to leaving public and detailed feedback via comments or replies. Some prefer to keep their opinions either low key or completely anonymous. That’s why creating a survey is your perfect solution for gathering customer feedback without spotlighting any customers in the process.

There are many free websites out there to choose from, but one of the easiest isSurvey Monkey, which offers a free version to get you started. Once you have created the survey, you can then share the unique link in any of these possible spots:

• Via a status update
• In the bio section on your social profiles
• In your responses to customers, along with a request for direct feedback

3. Monitor Comments

Your business does not always have to approach customers directly when asking for feedback. Sometimes your best resource to find out what your customers are saying about you is to simply monitor their engagement on your social channels. This means keeping an eye on three core factors when scanning your comments:

• Customer sentiment (Was their response positive, negative, or neutral?)
• Tone of voice (How have they portrayed their thoughts or personality?)
• Key issues (Were there any recurring themes that fans kept highlighting?)

Once you have gone over the comments using these three core guidelines, you will begin to notice the key areas in which your business is performing well, as well as areas where it could improve. It’s your job to then check these comments on a daily basis—especially during key campaigns—to gather a better understanding on how your marketing or messaging has been received.

Here’s a great example from the CEO of LinkedIn, Jeff Weiner, who listened to what was being said about LinkedIn by a user, dove in to respond, and alerted his product managers to take action.

4. Utilize Social Media Listening Tools

In a recent study carried out by We Are Social, it’s estimated that close to 1.7 billion people have active social media accounts. For an online business, this can seem pretty daunting when trying to keep up with the never-ending stream of conversations online. That’s why your business needs to utilize social media listening tools to help track the conversations that really matter.

Mention, as its name suggests, allows you to track where your company has been mentioned online. You can choose what items you would like the tool to track, be it a keyword, campaign hashtag, or even your company name. The tool will then alert you when those key terms have been used on social media or via blogs and websites.

This presents your business with the perfect opportunity to view exactly what others are saying about your business, and more importantly, to join in on the conversation. You can then monitor this feedback and respond to urgent matters without having to spent needless hours searching online. The free version of the tool offers 250 mentions a month, with paid plans offering additional features.

Another tool is Hootsuite, which allows your company to track key words, hashtags, and mentions. It also has the added benefit of being able to respond in real time and schedule content directly within the tool itself.

Sprout Social also provides powerful social listening, presented in a single feed. Its sleek dashboard offers content scheduling, keyword monitoring for Twitter, free reports for all account tiers, workflow management features, and even a “Discovery” feature that provides follow/unfollow suggestions.

These tools are perfect for ensuring your business provides great customer serviceas well as enabling you to keep up with customers who mention your company online. Remember: Make sure you continuously update the keywords you are searching for in line with recent campaigns or launches. Not all customers will include your brand name in their updates, so having keywords helps identify any missed conversations.

5. Use Social Analytics

Using analytics on social media is another great way for your business to get feedback on your fans’ key patterns of behavior. All social networks have this analytics feature built in, allowing your business to get a snapshot of its performance and deeper insights into what type of customer engages. Key metrics to track include:

• Engagement: How many interactions do your posts receive? What kinds of content do your fans engage with most frequently?
• Exposure: How many people are talking about your business? How many are reaching out directly?
• Influence: Where is your brand being talked about, and by whom? How can you capitalize on that influence?

By analyzing this data on a regular basis, your business can determine the top pieces of content your community engages with, as well as what topics and discussions spark the most conversation.

It’s important you review your social analytics on a weekly basis, at minimum, to help determine any key patterns of behavior and adjust what is and what isn’t working. This will ensure that all content and conversations created by your company are in line with customer expectations, and will therefore have a higher impact.

Lastly, when reviewing this data on a weekly basis, you want to keep in mind that no single strategy will work long term. Change the way you create and construct your content on a regular basis to see how this affects engagement and feedback.

6. Engage One-on-One

While it’s important to appreciate your social media community as a whole, you will always find those fans who show that extra passion and commitment towards your business. These are also known as your brand ambassadors—the fans that can’t wait to engage with your content and tell others about what a great job your company does.

It’s important to identify these brand ambassadors in your business because they are the ones who are going to give you the most detailed feedback to help improve your overall customer experience, as you have already built up a high level of trust with them.

Through your social channels, your company can engage with its brand ambassadors by sending a simple Direct Message, or DM. This takes the conversation out of the public domain. It allows you get specific and have a conversation with the fan on what they think about your business and overall experience.

To really help boost loyalty amongst your brand ambassadors, you can choose to reward them for this feedback via discounts, promotions, or even by spotlighting them on your social channels. This level of recognition will show your ambassadors that you value their input.

Here’s how I have used this technique to get direct feedback on a training series I put together:

When gathering feedback from your fans, it’s important to filter through the comments and data. Not all activity and comments from your fans will translate into new changes your business needs to take.

That’s why, when looking at social media insights and comments, you must identify the key trends in both behavior and conversations to help determine what your social media community really wants. Implementing these changes will then ensure your business has created an experience in line with customer demand and behavior.

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How would you like to log into Facebook each morning to see a vibrant, thriving business page?

And what if you could make new contacts daily, tapping into all that Facebook has to offer?

You can! It just takes commitment, planning, and a little know-how.

Because no matter what you’ve heard, Facebook is still a powerful marketing tool.

It can help you take your business marketing to the next level (IF you have a smart Facebook strategy in place).

Whether you need to make a few simple tweaks to your current page or perform a complete overhaul, these Facebook marketing techniques will help your page get seen.

5 Facebook Marketing Techniques to Get Your Page Seen

Tip 1: Build Out Your Bio

Just because you build a Facebook business page doesn’t mean people are going to flock to it. There are a few things you need to do to ensure people can find you and that when they do, that they want to follow you.

Your first step is to craft your bio. Create a 150 and 300 word bio for your short and long description. Here’s a great example from one of my favorite ladies (and pages), Sally Hogshead:

See how she speaks directly to the needs of her fans? Keep this in mind as you put yours together.

Here are a few ideas to get you started:

• Add in details about your skills, talents, awards, who your perfect audience is and how you help your clients or users.
• And don’t forget to sprinkle in keywords. These are the phrases that will help search engines and people know what you’re all about.
• Remember, this isn’t a time to be salesy or spammy. Think useful, helpful and informational/educational about you and your company.
• Add information that helps fans and potential customers take that next step with you. What do they need to know?
• Think about client needs and then position the content in your bio to meet those.

Tip 2: Write a Memorable Tagline

Your next step is to create a memorable Facebook tagline.

A tagline makes your company sticky. It brands your business and leaves an indelible mark in the mind of your fans.

Just think about how some of the most popular taglines have stuck with you throughout the years. Here’s a few of my favorites.

1. BMW    The ultimate driving machine
2. BOSE    Better sound through research
3. Bounty    The quicker picker-upper
4. Capital One    What’s in your wallet?
5. GLAD    Don’t get mad, Get GLAD
6. M&Ms    Melts in your mouth, not in your hands
7. Nike    Just do it

Each one of those taglines is easy to remember and simplistic in its mission.

So, how can you come up with a clear, memorable and actionable tagline for your business?

• Pick one that you will want to keep around for a while. Make it relevant to today, tomorrow and years ahead.
• Choose one that is easy to remember and will make people think of you every single time they hear it.
• Share the one thing you do better than anyone else in a succinct way.

Once you’ve nailed down your tagline, add it to your page.

• Short description box
• Long (extended description)
• Cover photo
• Logo/profile picture

Tip 3: Create a Branded Cover Photo

From your Facebook graphics to your logo, videos, and cover image – create a seamless look and feel that’s a direct representation of your company.

The best place to start? With your cover photo.

It’s one of the first things people will see and a perfect place to brand your business and tell your story.

But don’t just stop there. Use it to promote your products, share what’s happening within your business and talk about upcoming events.

Here’s a mix of industry related content to get your creative juices flowing!

Scalable Social Media

Brendon Burchard

Luna Vine Wine Bar

Jenns Trends

The Blog Squad

Now that you’re feeling inspired, make sure you change out that cover often.

Take action and head over to Relay – choose the Facebook cover template and create your own unique design.

Tip 4: Add a Call to Action to Your Page

Your next stop is the Call to Action button. Here you can direct fans to a product, service, your latest webinar or even a book.

Begin by brainstorming what that next step is you’d like your fans to take.

Now look at the 7 call to action buttons:

1. Book Now
2. Contact Us
3. Use App
4. Play Game
5. Shop Now
6. Sign Up
7. Watch Video

Once you know what they are and which one makes the most sense, it’s time to get one active on your page. Here are a few ideas on how to use them from social media strategist Peg Fitzpatrick.

• Book now *for consulting calls or intro appointments*
• Contact Us *for brick-and-mortar businesses to grab local customers*
• Shop Now *for any service company or to drive traffic to your Etsy business*
• Sign Up *to grow your essential email list (this should be your default!)*
• Watch Video *could be the gold-standard choice to tell your story*

You can see what they look like in action on Peg’s page:

Tip 5: Spice Up Your Page With Video

‘Spice’ up your Facebook Page by using video.

Make sure your videos are short, entertaining, and captivating. Your goal with a video should be to leave the person who just watched it feeling like you helped them.

You should also allow them to gain insight into you and your business.Let people get to know you!

Wondering what type of videos you should create?

• If you’re a blogger, think about the content you’ve already written. How can you repurpose that into new media?
• Share a useful tip, offer your advice, share words of wisdom or brighten your fans day by making them laugh.
• Talk about an upcoming event and what your fans would gain by attending or following along on your adventure.
• If you’re a local company, video the area, local events, holiday happenings or landmark/historical areas that connect your fans to your local business.

However you choose to use video, make a plan to incorporate it consistently. Your fans will love getting a glimpse into your day to day activities.

Look at how Unbounce is using them. Create a series out of your evergreen content and boom – you’ve repurposed old content, giving it a whole new life.

Final Thoughts

The tips above might feel easy to implement, only taking a few minutes to execute.

But while they might be simple, their impact can be significant.

Take the time today to put thought into each one and transform your Facebook page from blah and boring to branded and engaging.

Which tip will you take and implement today?

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8 Simple Tips to Optimize Your Facebook Business Page

Social media should be the main ingredient of any marketing strategy. While some marketing techniques may get a bit expensive, this one is free and may bring you big profits.

It’s vital to have your Facebook Business Page correctly optimized with some SEO best practices in order to maximize conversions. First of all, there is a correlation between a well-developed social presence and your search rankings and in the end, a Facebook Business Page becomes a “second home page” for your online business. Since there are many rumors about Facebook Business Page Optimization on the Web, let’s put this straight. Within this post, you will learn some essential rules that will leverage your Facebook page….

Let’s start with the optimization basics:

1. Choose the right name

When it comes to correct optimization, it is fundamental to find the right name for your Facebook Business Page because you choose it once and it is permanent. It’s key to remember that the first word of your Facebook page title is the most significant in the eyes of Google.

This is why stuffing your page title with generic keywords won’t work. Doing so might make it look spam-like and discourage people from getting engaged, let alone sharing your updates. You need a brandable name that represents your business and shows its personality. This is the real intent behind any Facebook Business Page.

2. Custom your vanity URL

Never settle for the dynamic URL which is automatically generated when you sign up. On Facebook, you can easily personalize your address and unify it with your brand name. Make it unique and easy to remember. If you match your Facebook vanity URL with the page’s title you are going to strengthen your brand recognition. Moreover, personalization will hugely improve the findability of your page both in Facebook search and in search engines.

3. Fill out your profile

Make sure that your avatar, cover photo, bio and profile info are complete and contain up-to-date information. A complete profile reveals your professional attitude and is a clear signal to your audience that you are engaged. Moreover, aim for consistency across all of your social media channels, and make sure that the main visuals match. Utilize a Facebook cover photo that is 851 x 315 px.

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Build your marketing personas and improve the communication with your targeted audience by using the appropriate voice and tone.

4. Pay special attention to the “About us” section

The truth is, your visitors want to know all of the details about your business: where your office is located, what service you offer, what your working hours are and so on. Therefore, provide them with complete information. The “About us” section is a good place to emphasize values and benefits your products or service may bring to the customers. Similarly to Meta Description, you need an apt description short enough [you get 155 characters] in order to be correctly displayed in the search engine snippet, both on desktop and mobile. Make sure that you choose an appropriate category:

• Local business or place
• Company, organization, or institution
• Brand or product
• Artist, band, or public figure
• Entertainment
• Cause or community

Complete your short description diligently and use accurate wording (including targeted keywords) to concisely characterize your business.

Pro-tip: Remember to add the link to your website or landing page within the short description because it strongly improves the findability of the particular offer or content page.

5. Sprinkle your business page with keywords strategically

Optimizing for keywords remains crucial, even when it comes to social media. Place your targeted ones in the most important, strategic parts of your page. Include them in the URL, page title and “About us” section because they will be visible on the front page and will appear in search results.

Remember that the name of your page corresponds with the title tag and your short description works as the meta description tag. However, make sure that you do not overuse keywords: stick to a top six and mention them naturally in the proper context.

6. Include the phone number and address in your Facebook page

The current Facebook design shows your business category, location, phone number and business hours straight away, on the front page. Therefore, make sure to fill out your street address, city, state, zip, and local phone number. Adding the address helps with indexing your brand for local search results and increases page following. Google simply pays more attention to pages that give specific contact information.

7. Optimize Facebook updates

The first 18 characters of each of your Facebook posts serve as the meta title and the meta description in SERPs. Therefore, anytime you are going to post on Facebook, share the content or upload a picture, and take advantage of the fact that you can add a description.

8. New features that you should implement

Facebook is constantly introducing new useful tools that are going to make running your business easier. To keep your page well-optimized, make sure that you keep an eye on any new features that emerge and implement them when available.

Call to action on Facebook

Worth mentioning are call to action buttons for Facebook Pages introduced in December 2014. Thanks to the call to action, people can easily interact with your business page. You can choose the suitable destination for your type of business and direct your followers to it. The full list includes 7 types of actions:

• Sign Up – mailing list or webinar sign up page, join the tool.
• Book Now – hotel or restaurant reservations
• Contact Us – contact form
• Use App
• Play Game
• Shop Now – e-commerce store
• Watch Video

Messenger for Business

Just recently, Facebook officially launched Messenger for Business to let users chat directly with the companies. Some U.S. businesses can already have a personal, real-time conversation with their customers.

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Payments via Facebook

Facebook launched a payments feature on its Messenger app available on mobile and desktop. Payments can be made with a debit card, and the best part is, Facebook won’t charge you for it.

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However, at the moment payments are only available for United States’ users and are limited to circles of friends. We hope that it will soon become accessible in other countries and useful for businesses, also.

Saved replies

Moreover, Facebook is currently testing a new feature called “Saved Replies” which is going to help business page owners speed up communication with templates. This will save you precious time from repetitive customers service inquiries. Saved Replies enables you to create a message and save it for later use. It will be accessible via the messaging interface within a particular message view. When the message pops up, the Saved Replies will appear on the left sidebar with the “Manage Replies” button at the bottom.

Saved Replies View

Prepare generic replies for all of your frequently asked questions and always personalize them before sending.
This functionality is targeted to small business including startups and e-commerce shops who are not using any helpdesk platforms like, for example, Zendesk.

Conclusion

Of course, the overarching objective of Facebook is to stimulate engagement and produce valuable and exciting content. Therefore, tailor your language to your audience, be personal and personable, and use fresh and simple wording. Executing these optimization tips will improve your Facebook Business Page visibility and user experience, both of which are crucial for your success.

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