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 How to Retain and Engage on Social Media. 

In the world of social media for business, getting attention and maintaining attention is one of the most important aspects to master for your business. It’s easy to think of just gaining followers on your page but I believe the real test is keeping those followers in the long-term with engaging content that your audience finds valuable and informative. 

Methods for keeping up with customer retention 

A blog post by Media Genesis,(https://mediag.com/blog/long-term-followers-6-tips-to-help-you-attain-and-retain-users-on-social-media/) goes into different methods on how to keep engaging your audience. The first method is creating personalized and guinea interactions. This means that companies should make their followers feel seen and connected. Respond to questions with empathy and concern for their issue and provide real solutions to try to resolve the issue or answer any questions they may have. 

Next is engaging and re-engaging your audience, for your audience to see what you are posting. social platforms such as Facebook and Twitter will only show these posts to active users. Ensuring that you are interacting with customers’ direct messages, comments, and posts will increase the likelihood of having your content to be brought to the screens of your audience. 

All feedback should be encouraged from audiences. As reported by Vendasta, over 92% of customers read online reviews and make purchasing decisions based on these reviews. Companies should try to get some feedback from customers both positive and negative to show the good experiences and also the human side of a brand by helping to resolve the negative feedback. 

On social media managing relationships with customers is important such as sharing their success or congratulating them on an achievement. This would help build and manage a relationship with customers on a more personal level with your brand. 

Avoid big changes and try to be consistent with postings, brand voice, and response times. If any big changes were to come up such as rebranding or partnering with other companies make sure to communicate this news early to your audience. 

Offers are a great way to bring an audience to your business pages. These can be used to manage and retain an audience by having surprise giveaways or offers and even providing special perks for following social media pages and following a newsletter of a business such as discounts and exclusive offers. 

Content Marketing 

The last and more valuable option in my opinion is having a content marketing strategy in play. What is content marketing? Content marketing, according to The Content Marketing Institute, is a “strategic marketing approach focusing on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly-defined audience and ultimately to drive profitable customer action”.

 Neil Patel (https://neilpatel.com/what-is-content-marketing/#whycontentmarketing)  also adds that content marketing is great for a long-term strategy focused on maintaining a strong customer relationship between brand and consumer by providing consistently high-quality useful content.  A content marketing strategy is knowing what kind of content your audience finds engaging and relevant to their needs.

 This video explains how content marketing is important https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkskQD1Lt4A  by Jamal Meneide “content marketing is for users to seek out not to be forced into”. This quote by Jamal encompasses the real value of how marketing is approached these days through putting customers’ needs and issues first and organically providing helpful content and not just forcing an ad on an individual. 

Why is customer retention for the long term just as important?

 According to the HubSpot blog, “Here’s why Customer Retention is so Important for ROI, customer loyalty, and Growth”(https://blog.hubspot.com/service/customer-retention)  by Sophia Bernazzani, goes to say that good customer retention means how good is your company at gaining new customers and satisfying existing customers. Having good customer retention increases new customers to your brand and helps keep your existing customers. Meeting all of your customers in exchange boosts Return on investment ROI, and increases brand loyalty. 

Benefits 

Other benefits for customer retention are more convenient and cost-efficient to keep existing customers than constantly trying to gain new customers. According to the Hubspot blog, Just a 5% increase in customer retention can equal a 25 to 95% increase in company revenue. Counting customers of a brand are more likely to refer friends and family to a brand based on their positive experience which grows your audience and brand exposure. Affordability as stated by Hubspot is 6 to 7 times more expensive to get new customers than to keep an existing customer. Lately is loyalty, retained customers spend more and buy more often as they are aware of the brand and the value that it presents from the company and products. 

In conclusion 

Companies would find that it is in their own best interest to not only focus on gaining new customers on social media but to focus on keeping existing customers engaged and happy. By doing this your existing customers will help you to gain new customers from word of mouth referrals to friends and family. A strong content marketing strategy is key to having a good customer retention rate by providing valuable and useful content. 

Bernazzani, S. (2022, March 11). Here’s why customer retention is so important for roi, customer loyalty, and growth. HubSpot Blog. Retrieved May 17, 2022, from https://blog.hubspot.com/service/customer-retention  

Media Genesis. (2018, October 8). Tips to attract & retain social media followers: Media genesis ” media genesis. Media Genesis. Retrieved May 17, 2022, from https://mediag.com/blog/long-term-followers-6-tips-to-help-you-attain-and-retain-users-on-social-media 

Meneide, J. (2021, October 10). What everyone must know about content marketing? YouTube. Retrieved May 17, 2022, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkskQD1Lt4A Patel, N. (2021, June 18). Content marketing made simple: A step-by-step guide. Neil Patel. Retrieved May 17, 2022, from https://neilpatel.com/what-is-content-marketing/#whycontentmarketing