When it comes to Social Media, businesses automatically think about Selling via Social, but it’s not just about sales – it’s about those important business relationships

Last month I trained a business who wasn’t looking to take on new clients, but really wanted to strengthen their relationship with existing clients

The request went along the lines of this …

“I’m full to capacity with work, but I work with a number of clients across the UK and I’d like to keep in touch with them more often. It isn’t always appropriate to call or email every day, but I want to let them know I care. I’d also like to use Social Media to keep people updated as to what I’m up to as without social media I’m off the radar a little”

Here’s the process we took

1. CATEGORISING YOUR CONTACTS
Looking at detail in our training session we defined there were actually 2 key areas we needed to keep in touch with

• Clients
• Industry News

It was as equally as important to keep abreast of the latest industry news as it was their existing clients and therefore we used Twitter Lists to categorise these core sectors

The industry was such that changes and stories broke each day, so it was important to have a feed of relevant industry news sources that kept the client up to date

In terms of clients they ranged from being 20 miles away to the other side of the country – some were avid Twitter users and others were heavy LinkedIn users (so in terms of LinkedIn we agreed to look at that later and look at using LinkedIn Tags)

2. DECIDING THE CUSTOMER TOUCH POINTS
At Altrincham HQ we work with a large number of businesses on their Social Media Management accounts and every client is different in terms of when we keep in touch

In terms of contacting our clients, the range is from

• Being in touch every day
• Being in touch a couple of times a week
• Being in touch once a week
• Being in touch once a month

In terms of Social Media engagement there tends to be 3 categories

• Proactive Engagement – which 99% of our clients fall into
• Reactive Engagement – which just 1 client falls into
• Authoritive No Engagement – which none of our clients fall into, but news publications often do

So often it is down to the clients personal preference – when it came to using social media to keep long distance business relationships (particularly from going from no social media to some) we talked the training clients through getting the balance right and understanding how often they should keep in touch.

Like us they soon realised the some love to keep in touch on a daily basis and others as and when appropriate

There’s a thin line between being ever present and being overbearing and it’s important to get that balance right

3. CREATING A LONG TERM LEGACY
Although this campaign was about keeping in touch with existing clients and in the short term not actively looking for new clients, we felt that creating a long lasting legacy via content was important

Social Media is great for keeping in touch with contacts, but it is important to look at the bigger picture of your overarching web strategy

Keeping your website up to date is key even when not actively looking for new clients and having long form content such as blogs / news stories to show a business is still active is just as relevant to existing clients as it is to potential new clients

It also helps to have a body of work together that should situations change and you start looking for clients that boxes are ticked and the web copy is always fresh

WOULD YOU LIKE HELP WITH YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGY?

Call Alex on 07806774279 or email alex@altrinchamhq.co.uk

Altrincham Hq

“With over 12 years experience of Social Media and 17 years experience of online marketing in other companies, clients come to myself when they want a veteran rather than a rookie” Alex McCann