Building Trusting Relationships Through Social Media

eMarketer published yesterday an interesting article on the power of word of mouth. According to the article, in a poll of chief marketing officers from the Duke University Fuqua School of Business and the American Marketing Association (AMA), the top overall customer priority named was service excellence, followed by building a trusting relationship. No news here.

But how do you build a trusting relationship with your customers? This is where social media kicks in. More and more organizations are turning to social media websites such as Facebook and Twitter to engage in open conversations with their customers. And it works: on a recent survey conducted by Peter Sorgenfrei and Warren Sukernek, 97% of users believe that brands should engage with their customers on Twitter. Other interesting highlights include:

1) The majority also have a better impression of brands that use Twitter for customer service (88%).
2) The power of a relationship is extremely strong on Twitter: 80% of respondents would recommend a company based on their presence on Twitter.
3) Influencers: more than 80% of respondents have 100+ followers and almost 35% of respondents have posted more than 1000 Tweets since they signed up for the service.

And this is only regarding Twitter! Imagine what your company can achieve just by using the two or three most popular social media networks.

Not convinced yet? Social media empowers companies to directly speak with their customers. Plus, you can easily build your organization’s personality on social networks. It’s about being you and not a corporation without a face. Companies that share their stories, ups and downs and even employees’ moods will become more human to the eyes of the consumer, making it easy to relate to a business. Plus, it’s a paperless program – your impact on the environment is fairly low and you can always compensate any energy expenditure with carbon offsets.

Give social media a try.