There is no doubt that social media is a huge part of our lives these days. Although many people today cannot imagine life without Facebook, Instagram or TikTok, the role of social media is the result of an evolution that has been going on for many years.
We remember the times without Facebook, we remember the times when GaduGadu, Fotka.pl, or Nasza-Klasa ruled the Polish internet. Even when Facebook had already settled on the Polish market for good, its role also changed over time. Do you remember the times when Zuckerberg's platform was ruled by... games?
Yes, once upon a time, one of the most important activities on FB was playing social games like Farmville, which in its heyday attracted almost 100 million active players.
Those days are gone, however, and Facebook has become primarily a place for discussions, groups, events, and communication between companies and their customers. Today, we will focus on the latter.
Not just posts
The basic form of communication that we are all familiar with is of course posting to our brand page. While this is an important part of social media activities, it is just one piece of the puzzle in a larger whole.
The thing that has changed the way brands talk to their fans with social media is the two-way nature of communication. Never before have we been able to reach out to a company so easily, whether it’s through a comment or a private message.
Unfortunately, this is often the most neglected element of the communication game. If our fans' comments hang unanswered and our inbox is flooded with unread private messages, we are committing a kind of social media suicide. It quickly turns out that we are not really on Facebook to talk to our fans, but only to post content and then turn our backs.
Response time
Not only do you have to respond, you also have to do it effectively. One of the indicators of this effectiveness is the time that passes from sending a comment or private message to receiving a response.
Some statistics:
- 53% of customers abandon a purchase if they cannot find answers to their questions quickly (source: Forrester).
- 40% of customers expect a response on social media within an hour, 85% within six hours. At the same time, the average response time for businesses on Facebook is one day, three hours, and 47 minutes (source. 2020 Sprout Social Index, Hubspot, Eptica).
A fast response time is not only a matter of providing an answer, but also showing that we care about our customers and are open to two-way communication.
If you are active on social media, check your response time and make sure you reply to all messages and comments 🙂
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