For most brands, social media is a key relationship building tool. But do you need to be following your customers back to take full advantage of it?
Giving you the ability to communicate directly with your target audience, increase visibility and humanise your brand, social media is an essential tool for every modern business. But as new platforms emerge, trends evolve and the digital world becomes more saturated, it’s becoming increasingly difficult for brands to stand out and resonate with their target audience.
So today we will look at whether following back is truly worth your while and how much of an impact it’s likely to make on your customer relationships.
The pros of following your customers back on social media
#1 Build relationships
Social media gives you the ability to engage directly with your audience and establish a greater level of trust and loyalty. Whilst your brand can interact with followers via Stories, captions, comments and direct messages regardless, following your customers back will help you to bring that to the next level and make your communication more personal and timely.
Interacting with more content will show your target audience you are interested in them and what they are doing. You’ll also have the option to engage directly with their posts, Stories and more, helping to build that sense of community and forge lasting relationships.
#2 Enhance customer service
Social media has proven to be a big success in the customer service department. And for good reason. It allows businesses to monitor and respond promptly to customer complaints and questions, helping to mitigate risks and improve customer satisfaction.
By following your customers back, you’ll not only have access to real-time comments and complaints without the need to search for brand mentions, but you’ll also gain insights into their thoughts and experiences with your competitors. You can use this to shape your customer service responses & services and enhance their overall experience.
#3 Invaluable insights
To sell a product or service, you have to be aware of your target audience. You need to understand their pain points, interests and what makes them tick. And who better to inform you about your target audience than your target audience themselves?
By following your customers back on social media, you’ll unlock key insights into their preferences, needs and everything in between. You can then use this information to tailor your new and existing products or services to best serve their needs.
#4 Increase brand awareness
If you use social media, you’ll be familiar with suggested users. And one of the ways social platforms form these suggestions is based on mutual followers. So by following your customers back, you’ll be gaining more exposure to people from within your target audience – and for free!
By following your customers back on social media, they may also feel more inclined to tag you when an opportunity arises. Be it in a photo of your product, when reviewing a service via their Stories or anything in between! Meaning increased exposure for your brand and a bank of invaluable user-generated content for you!
The cons of following your customers back on social media
#1 Time-consuming
Following every user back just simply isn’t plausible. So taking the time to qualify the right users and then monitor and respond to relevant content on social media can use up a lot of time and resources.
Naturally, the more users you follow back, the busier your feed will become. And this can make it tricky to navigate and may lead to missed brand mentions. A clogged feed will remove many of the benefits of following your customers back on social media, making it increasingly difficult to find relevant information and pull out helpful insights.
#2 Shadowbanning
For those who were on social media platforms like Instagram in the early days, you’ll be all too familiar with the follow-for-follow strategy. But gone are the days of #FollowForFollow and #LikeForLike – social media is far too sophisticated for this now.
Adopting this sort of strategy may lead your account to be “Shadowbanned”. But what does this mean? Essentially, the algorithm will seriously harm your reach by stopping your posts from being recommended to others. It’s thought that follow-for-follow strategies and following too many users within a set time frame are among some of the triggers for Shadowbanning.
#3 Risk of alienating customers
If someone from within your target audience follows you knowing that you typically follow your customers back, they are likely expecting a follow from you too. They want to feel included within this community and be a part of your network. But the issues we’ve mentioned above mean following every user back simply isn’t plausible. And unless you are very selective about who you follow, you can risk alienating your target audience, leaving them wondering why their account isn’t good enough for you.
So there are pros and cons to the argument, but ultimately, what you decide is down to your business. It may be more beneficial to follow back on certain apps, such as Twitter which is typically used for customer service, and within specific industries. You’ll need to review everything on a case-by-case basis. Just keep the above points in mind when deciding whether or not to follow your customers back.
For more helpful social media tips, check out our ultimate guide to social media marketing. Or if you’re looking for bespoke advice and help developing your strategy, get in touch to organise a free consultation.
