As overseas social media continues to develop, the value of social media to enterprises has gradually been discovered. For example, the official Facebook account of an enterprise, the product Instagram display, the after-sales service Line account, and the LinkedIn recruitment account use different business functions to achieve the purpose of communicating with customers, reflecting and solving problems, and promoting product promotions. In addition, the Weibo of enterprise managers, such as Apple CEO Cook and Facebook CEO Zuckerberg, use personal image and personal charm to create brand charm, thereby enhancing consumer confidence, narrowing the distance between enterprises and consumers, and reflecting the human side of enterprises. It can be said that social media has become an indispensable tool for enterprises and customers to interact.
1. Advantages of using overseas social media for customer relationship management
The value of customer relationship management is not limited to marketing, but to extend the customer life cycle by providing customer-satisfying services, and ultimately achieve a “win-win” situation between enterprises and customers. Social media is particularly conducive to achieving this goal. The advantages of using social media for customer relationship management are mainly reflected in:
① Convenient communication. Social media provides a fast and direct way of communication between enterprises and customers. On the one hand, enterprises can directly release messages to the public without filtering or delaying by any other media. In particular, the popularity of mobile terminals such as mobile phones makes it possible to release information anytime, anywhere and at will. If forwarded by KOL (opinion leaders), it can also increase the coverage of information and expand public awareness. On the other hand, since social media users will only see the corporate messages they follow or the messages forwarded by users they recognize, this mechanism ensures that the communication audience is the company’s customers or potential customers, ensuring the efficiency of information dissemination and the effectiveness of relationship building.
②Users’ active choice. Under the traditional customer relationship management model, most of the communication between enterprises and customers is one-way. Enterprises take the initiative to contact customers with a strong performance indicator purpose, convey too much commercial information, and burden customers. The utilitarian nature of indicators makes the communication method usually simple, rough and offensive. On social media, users can establish or cut off relationships with a certain enterprise at any time, and can also join a relationship chain at any time. Therefore, it is the users who actively choose the enterprise, and this relationship established based on the user’s voluntary will is more stable.
③Humanization and interactivity. The content of social media often uses relatively humanized language, interesting pictures, videos, etc., so that there is no sense of distance between enterprises and the public. Enterprises can attract users to participate in the interaction by setting up rewarded forwarding, rewarded guessing, voting, or publishing topics, photos, videos, etc. Interactivity is the outstanding advantage of social media. In addition, the friend circle function of social media makes the interaction between friends frequent, which may bring more potential customers and form a virtuous circle.
④Open and transparent information. Social media gives consumers a channel to speak out. Consumers can communicate and complain to the management of the company by using simple functions such as comments and forwarding, which objectively promotes the company to find deficiencies and make improvements in time. Only when enterprises make information transparent, explain problems in time, and handle events in time can they win the trust of consumers.
2. How should enterprises manage customer relationships through overseas social media?
①Carry out overseas social media marketing with “product orientation”.
The survey results show that consumers value tangible value more, which is the primary reason for them to interact with enterprises. Therefore, customer relationship management of overseas social media still cannot ignore “product-oriented” marketing, that is, giving benefits to consumers. Discount coupons, gifts, lucky draws, points redemption, etc. can be used to attract consumers’ attention and let consumers feel the real benefits. The hot sales of live e-commerce are due to following this principle. It should be noted that “giving benefits to consumers” needs to be able to make customers feel the sincerity of the company, otherwise consumers will not only not accept it, but may also be disgusted.
② Communicate in a humane way.
Currently popular social media platforms are often created for user communication and entertainment. The official social media of enterprises should try to use humane and interactive language to communicate with users. Interesting pictures, jokes and events can enhance the communication effect. Do not use some official stereotyped language. You can even add some useful and interesting content that is not related to the company’s business, maintain communication and interaction with customers, and strive to enhance the stickiness of the “circle”.
③ Properly deal with public doubts.
Faced with public doubts or accusations, a reasonable explanation should be given quickly. If the company is indeed at fault, it should take the initiative to apologize and beg for the customer’s understanding. Especially when mass incidents occur, companies should not try to block news or comments, dodge and avoid issues, but should show an optimistic attitude and take the initiative to open communication until they regain the trust of customers.
④ Show the efforts made by the company to fulfill its social responsibilities.
On social media, companies should also show their efforts to fulfill their social responsibilities, which is very helpful in establishing a good social image, winning the respect of customers, and improving customer loyalty. The company’s continuous innovation, attention to social issues, protection of the environment and resources, and contributions to the community, art, education, and charity, etc., all help to establish a positive image of the company.