A simple guide to social media: What is their role in business messaging?
A simple guide to social media: What is their role in business messaging?
Social media can be defined as a communication tool, designed to quickly and freely share content by anyone, with anyone. In 2020, around 3,6 billion people are using social media worldwide. Statista estimates that by 2025, this number will rise to 4,41 billion. For businesses, being active on social media is an essential part of marketing strategy. One example of keeping customers engaged is social media business messaging.
This article serves as a brief introduction into the social media world with emphasis on business messaging.
Social media business messaging
Social media business messaging is a high-impact, native way to engage customers. It is described as a contact between customer and a business through an online platform of a choice. Communication goes either one way – a customer does not have an option to answer, or both ways – an interactive discussion between a user and a business. A common tool for businesses is SMS messaging. It has been around since decades, but new ways of business messages are emerging thanks to the overwhelming penetration of social media platforms.
3 reasons to use social media business messages
1. Desirability
- 90 % of customers want to message with businesses
- 64 % of customers prefer messaging over phone call or e-mail communication
2. Conversion
- 96 % of text messages are read within 3 minutes after receiving
3. Added value
- 66 % of customers are willing to pay more for service or product that is supported by messaging
- 53 % of customers are more likely to purchase products and services of companies that offer a way to communicate directly
- Companies that use business messaging experienced an increase in overall customer satisfaction.
Source: Quiq, Facebook for Business
More characters for a single message
Business messages on social media provide an efficient, creative and personalized way of distributing content. They also offer more characters in a single message than SMS. That is a big advantage, since marketeers often find it difficult to squeeze a selling proposition into the character limitation of SMS. More characters brings more space for important information and more space for creativity.
Interactive way of communication
A big advantage is an ability to make a message interactive by adding click buttons that take customers directly where a sender wants them. For example, to a company website.
Unlike SMS, social media business messages can also include rich media, such as images. In a “fast moving” social media world, where a need to gain an immediate attention of a customer is high, pictures, GIFs are a big advantage.
Source: Viber
General principles for business messaging
1. Briefness:
The world of social media is fast. The most productive messages are those that do not include unnecessary information and go directly to the point.
2. Adherence:
Messaging to people who do not follow the brand may be considered intrusive. It is a better strategy to aim the content on people who already showed an interest in the business by following it.
3. Efficiency:
It is not recommended to spam the followers. The message should be sent only when there is something truly meaningful to share.
4. Consistency:
An informality of social media gives a space for creativity. That includes a less official language. Although, the brand should not go too far. For example, a message where a finance institution uses an extremely informal language can feel forced and out of place.
Which industries can truly benefit?
Finance
Social media business messaging is a secure way to give clients an update about financial issues.
A Ukrainian bank UKRSIBBANK faced a challenge: How to inform their clients of all the possibilities that their mobile banking application offers and encourage them to use it more?
Together with standard SMS Messages, UKRSIBBANK also launched a promo campaign on social media business messages. It gave them a platform to create simple, creative and interactive content.
Retail
Creative and colourful messages are attractive – an ideal way to draw attention to the newest product, offer or discount.
LEGO company boosted their sales through a creative messaging campaign with a Gift Bot Ralph as a main character. Through social media messaging, the little colourful LEGO character was helping people to choose the perfect LEGO gift.
News and media
Social media help news brands to reach their readers real-time on the right platform.
Famous worldwide news platforms like BBC, The Economist, The Wall Street Journal, Huffington Post or The Washington Post are using social media messaging to inform their readers about latest events.
For example, The Washington Post started to use Viber messenger tool by launching their own chatbot. The chatbot sends regular news updates from 5 sections (Politics, National, World, Opinions and Entertainment) to his followers, either daily or weekly. Readers can also ask for additional updates from a section of their own choice.
The Washington Post’s chatbot messages include “subscribe” section, an option to watch video content and a button through which readers can invite their friends to sign up for the chatbot option. The news giant also implemented a strategy that uses a creative side of social media messaging. The chatbot conversations have an option to use stickers with various journalistic phrases and The Washington Post inspired graphics.
On-demand services
Carsharing services and airlines, where the need for efficient and easy communication is high.
In Russia and Ukraine, the internet connection can be problematic and does not necessarily reach to every area. Therefore, BlaBlaCar messages were not always delivered to a customer.
The company needed an omnichannel strategy in place. To reach that goal, BlaBlaCar started to use Viber messaging services for sharing the confirmations, bookings, requests and changes. If a social media message cannot be delivered due to the lack of internet connection, the company sends a fallback SMS instead to reach the customers in any situations. That way, the chance of a customer not being aware of changes in schedule or a termination of the ride decreases dramatically.
Customer service
Social media business messaging is a future of customer service. It allows brands to communicate with their users anywhere and anytime, without a need to access chat on the company’s website.
Women’s Best, a brand that sells premium fitness supplies for women, reaches around 1,3 billion people in 150 countries. This number of customers requires an efficient and simple way of communication. Social media business messaging allows us to not only send answers, but also create a dialogue and follow up on customer’s request immediately if there are additional questions.
Generally, business messaging platforms can decrease customer service agent worktime by 25 %, since it offers a way to handle several conversations simultaneously.
Top 3 social media, profitable for business messages
o MAU’s worldwide in July 2020: 2 billion
o Hungary: 14% of Hungarian smartphone users
Originally, WhatsApp’s was a chat platform for family members and friends. Presently, it became a powerful use of communication between brands and customers.
In 2019, over 5 million businesses were using WhatsApp and more then 65 billion messages were sent every day through this social media. That is around 45 million messages per minute.
Facebook Messenger
o MAU’s worldwide in July 2020: 1,3 billion
o Hungary: 97% of Hungarian smartphone users
It is expected that Facebook Messenger will grow to 2,4 billion by 2021. Monthly, around 20 billion messages are exchanged between users and businesses via this platform.
Viber
o Hungary: 46% of Hungarian smartphone users
Viber is used in more than 190 countries of the world. Although the social platform had 260 million active users per month in 2019, the current number of unique users – passive and active altogether – is 1,1 billion.
Conclusion
Nowadays, social media usage is necessary for a business marketing strategy. It offers engaging and timely ways of communication with customers. It presents unique tools for starting a dialogue and discovering what are the opinions, desires and needs of the targeted group.
Social media business messaging is one of these tools, using discussion network platforms like Viber, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger and Telegram for direct communication with end users. It allows businesses to enrich texts with creative aspects and include more content. Retail, news and media, finance, on-demand or customer services are industries that greatly benefit from social media business messages. Although, other fields of business can profit from them, too.
Social media can be defined as a communication tool, designed to quickly and freely share content by anyone, with anyone. In 2020, around 3,6 billion people are using social media worldwide. Statista estimates that by 2025, this number will rise to 4,41 billion. For businesses, being active on social media is an essential part of marketing strategy. One example of keeping customers engaged is social media business messaging.
This article serves as a brief introduction into the social media world with emphasis on business messaging.
Social media business messaging
Social media business messaging is a high-impact, native way to engage customers. It is described as a contact between customer and a business through an online platform of a choice. Communication goes either one way – a customer does not have an option to answer, or both ways – an interactive discussion between a user and a business. A common tool for businesses is SMS messaging. It has been around since decades, but new ways of business messages are emerging thanks to the overwhelming penetration of social media platforms.
1. Desirability
- 90 % of customers want to message with businesses
- 64 % of customers prefer messaging over phone call or e-mail communication
2. Conversion
- 96 % of text messages are read within 3 minutes after receiving
3. Added value
- 66 % of customers are willing to pay more for service or product that is supported by messaging
- 53 % of customers are more likely to purchase products and services of companies that offer a way to communicate directly
- Companies that use business messaging experienced an increase in overall customer satisfaction.
Source: Quiq, Facebook for Business
More characters for a single message
Business messages on social media provide an efficient, creative and personalized way of distributing content. They also offer more characters in a single message than SMS. That is a big advantage, since marketeers often find it difficult to squeeze a selling proposition into the character limitation of SMS. More characters brings more space for important information and more space for creativity.
Interactive way of communication
A big advantage is an ability to make a message interactive by adding click buttons that take customers directly where a sender wants them. For example, to a company website.
Unlike SMS, social media business messages can also include rich media, such as images. In a “fast moving” social media world, where a need to gain an immediate attention of a customer is high, pictures, GIFs are a big advantage.
Source: Viber official website
General principles for business messaging
1. Briefness:
The world of social media is fast. The most productive messages are those that do not include unnecessary information and go directly to the point.
2. Adherence:
Messaging to people who do not follow the brand may be considered intrusive. It is a better strategy to aim the content on people who already showed an interest in the business by following it.
3. Efficiency:
It is not recommended to spam the followers. The message should be sent only when there is something truly meaningful to share.
4. Consistency:
An informality of social media gives a space for creativity. That includes a less official language. Although, the brand should not go too far. For example, a message where a finance institution uses an extremely informal language can feel forced and out of place.
Which industries can truly benefit?
Finance
Social media business messaging is a secure way to give clients an update about financial issues.
A Ukrainian bank UKRSIBBANK faced a challenge: How to inform their clients of all the possibilities that their mobile banking application offers and encourage them to use it more?
Together with standard SMS Messages, UKRSIBBANK also launched a promo campaign on social media business messages. It gave them a platform to create simple, creative and interactive content.
Retail
Creative and colourful messages are attractive – an ideal way to draw attention to the newest product, offer or discount.
LEGO company boosted their sales through a creative messaging campaign with a Gift Bot Ralph as a main character. Through social media messaging, the little colourful LEGO character was helping people to choose the perfect LEGO gift.
News and media
Social media help news brands to reach their readers real-time on the right platform.
Famous worldwide news platforms like BBC, The Economist, The Wall Street Journal, Huffington Post or The Washington Post are using social media messaging to inform their readers about latest events.
For example, The Washington Post started to use Viber messenger tool by launching their own chatbot. The chatbot sends regular news updates from 5 sections (Politics, National, World, Opinions and Entertainment) to his followers, either daily or weekly. Readers can also ask for additional updates from a section of their own choice.
The Washington Post’s chatbot messages include “subscribe” section, an option to watch video content and a button through which readers can invite their friends to sign up for the chatbot option. The news giant also implemented a strategy that uses a creative side of social media messaging. The chatbot conversations have an option to use stickers with various journalistic phrases and The Washington Post inspired graphics.
On-demand services
Carsharing services and airlines, where the need for efficient and easy communication is high.
In Russia and Ukraine, the internet connection can be problematic and does not necessarily reach to every area. Therefore, BlaBlaCar messages were not always delivered to a customer.
The company needed an omnichannel strategy in place. To reach that goal, BlaBlaCar started to use Viber messaging services for sharing the confirmations, bookings, requests and changes. If a social media message cannot be delivered due to the lack of internet connection, the company sends a fallback SMS instead to reach the customers in any situations. That way, the chance of a customer not being aware of changes in schedule or a termination of the ride decreases dramatically.
Customer service
Social media business messaging is a future of customer service. It allows brands to communicate with their users anywhere and anytime, without a need to access chat on the company’s website.
Women’s Best, a brand that sells premium fitness supplies for women, reaches around 1,3 billion people in 150 countries. This number of customers requires an efficient and simple way of communication. Social media business messaging allows us to not only send answers, but also create a dialogue and follow up on customer’s request immediately if there are additional questions.
Generally, business messaging platforms can decrease customer service agent worktime by 25 %, since it offers a way to handle several conversations simultaneously.
Top 3 social media, profitable for business messages
o MAU’s worldwide in July 2020: 2 billion
o Hungary: 14% of Hungarian smartphone users
Originally, WhatsApp’s was a chat platform for family members and friends. Presently, it became a powerful use of communication between brands and customers.
In 2019, over 5 million businesses were using WhatsApp and more then 65 billion messages were sent every day through this social media. That is around 45 million messages per minute.
Facebook Messenger
o MAU’s worldwide in July 2020: 1,3 billion
o Hungary: 97% of Hungarian smartphone users
It is expected that Facebook Messenger will grow to 2,4 billion by 2021. Monthly, around 20 billion messages are exchanged between users and businesses via this platform.
Viber
o Hungary: 46% of Hungarian smartphone users
Viber is used in more than 190 countries of the world. Although the social platform had 260 million active users per month in 2019, the current number of unique users – passive and active altogether – is 1,1 billion.
Conclusion
Nowadays, social media usage is necessary for a business marketing strategy. It offers engaging and timely ways of communication with customers. It presents unique tools for starting a dialogue and discovering what are the opinions, desires and needs of the targeted group.
Social media business messaging is one of these tools, using discussion network platforms like Viber, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger and Telegram for direct communication with end users. It allows businesses to enrich texts with creative aspects and include more content. Retail, news and media, finance, on-demand or customer services are industries that greatly benefit from social media business messages. Although, other fields of business can profit from them, too.
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