Council Post: Using Social Media To Connect With Customers During The Pandemic

SV-NED accelerate startups by connecting them directly to venture capitalists, angel investors and grant funding to launch their businesses.

Throughout the past year, entrepreneurs have had to find new ways to run and operate due to Covid-19 and restrictions on in-door events.

My company, SV-NED, a startup accelerator, was no exception. With more than a decade of running in-person business events in a handful of countries under our belt, we had to learn how to pivot those in-person events to interactive, live virtual experiences. After we transitioned to hosting events virtually, we saw an increase in our social media reach, and we learned that our virtual events were a launching pad for engagement.

This experience taught me some valuable lessons on curating virtual experiences that I believe all businesses can keep in mind throughout the pandemic.

Creating An Impactful Virtual Experience

Through continued virtual experiences, businesses are able to connect with customers, as well as provide a forum for diverse founders to share their business and technology success stories. I’ve found there is still an audience composed of people who are looking for new avenues of inspiration, especially those that allow the opportunity for conversation. The pandemic has deconstructed the way we knew life pre-2020. As business owners, we have to develop creative ideas to connect with our customers and reach new ones. Thus, the “virtual experience” is taking on a new role today.

With this in mind, my greatest piece of advice is that you must realize the immediate future is here. In order for your business to stay afloat, you need to develop a plan in the current climate that addresses how your business will retain customers, obtain repeat business and gain new customers from referrals.

Getting Started

To do this, find a virtual space and experience that works for your company’s customers. One area I suggest focusing on specifically is social media. Social media can help you to attract people to your brand. Get plugged into social media and begin sharing your company’s products and services with quality photography or videography. In my experience, each social media channel will offer marketing suites, so consider investing in them to get your company’s business in front of new customers.

A good practice when marketing your company on social media is to define your organization’s core value offerings to your customers and perform those services to the best of your abilities. In your delivery, display your excellence, monitor your customer loyalty and show potential customers how you can give them a “wow” experience.

Business models have to be revisited, and implementing a process for cycle for CRM is also needed. To be precise, incorporate a social media strategy for customer relationship management, and place an emphasis on your customer-acquisition strategy, customer-retention strategy and customer-profitability-increase strategy during the pandemic.

A social media platform and acquisition strategy means knowing your customers’ characteristics, how they receive information and which social media platform they spend most of their time on.

Conclusion

Analyzing and refining past processes and developing a social media marketing plan that inspires potential customers to take action is key. Businesses must adopt a marketing plan that will curate daily content for their organization to post on social media channels and attract new customers.

The professional virtual networking space is building positive results with great outcomes for the business leaders who will ride the pandemic wave, both during the good and the hardest time where human connection is critical for growth and expansion. And if you are not adverse to change and using technology as an advantage, you will grow to love the bridge between virtuality and business.

Forbes Business Council is the foremost growth and networking organization for business owners and leaders. Do I qualify?