This is a guest post from Carolyn K-
Carolyn writes about start ups and small businesses for the Blog Content Guild
It should be pretty obvious by now that you should use all available resources to solve your business’ problems. But here’s the thing, there are a lot of companies out there that are not using their potential. They are greatly neglecting one of the most incredible resources available to them, and that resource is social media. Whether you’re having concerns about inventory management, public relations, or personnel, social media might be the panacea for your business’ ailment.
Fostering Relationships
First of all, are you developing relationships via outlets like Facebook and Twitter? You want your social media accounts to have personality so do not give robotic responses to your customer’s Tweets and Facebook posts. People respond better when they believe there is a real human on the other end.
Setting Goals
Set a goal for yourself to engage in three conversations each day with different followers. Once you feel comfortable communicating with three people each day, raise the number to five.
Listen
Address any concerns users of your product may have by conducting a search on Twitter for your topic. This will generate a real-time list of what every Twitter user is saying about your product. This can be a great way to gauge interest in a future product rollout or a current release. If you’re worried about how to manage inventory and are not sure how many units of a certain item to order, social media can provide a great barometer for interest in the product. If the Twittersphere is abuzz with word of how great your product is, you should probably count on making large inventory orders.
When you are considering how to address your business’ concerns, do not forget about social media. The fact is, we are all more or less in the business of people, and social media allows companies to create real meaningful relationships with their customers.