According to a global survey conducted by Nielsen, four out of five consumers research products on the internet every week.
This just goes to show how important it is to ensure your business performs well in search engine rankings and is effectively utilising social media.
Sites such as Twitter and Facebook have long been noted for their potential in helping brands engage with a wide audience, but alternatives including LinkedIn, Pinterest and Google+ all appear to be becoming increasingly popular.
So how can you ensure you are not neglecting one potentially lucrative area in the quest to establish a strong presence elsewhere’ Well, an infographic from Vertical Measures suggests businesses treat their social media strategies as a tree – ensuring there are multiple strong roots.
Creating YouTube videos is a good way of demonstrating a product or service and there is the added benefit that these can often be embedded easily onto your site, meaning users do not need to leave in order to engage with the content.
The infographic shows the percentage of a video users are likely to view depending on its length, so it is vital you get the important information out in the early stages and try to keep the viewer interested and inclined to stick with it all the way through.
Social media is also the perfect platform for customer service, but it is a good idea to make sure you are aware what will be expected of you on the sites. Half of Facebook users and 80 per cent of those on Twitter expect to receive a response to a customer service enquiry in one day or less.
It is suggested users follow the “Three Traits of Customer Service” when dealing with questions or complaints on social media. These are to respond promptly (within five minutes where possible), answer in a precise manner and personalise your response if appropriate.
Dealing well with a consumer on Twitter can have significant benefits for your brand, particularly as 69
per cent of users follow business accounts on the back of recommendations from friends.
Social Media Infographic by Vertical Measures