Building Relationships via Social Media Customer Service

‚ÄúTwitter has once again proven that customer service is the new marketing.‚Äù

This is how a recent post by SocialMediaToday begins, before diving into the revenue potential of being a responsive brand on Twitter. The study referenced in the SocialMediaToday article, conducted by Twitter, looks at just three different types of brands (airlines, pizza, telco), but the results that show a 3%-20% increase in potential revenue are consistent enough that any and all brands should be paying attention.

Yes, that means even us employer brands.

If customer service is the new marketing, and marketing is the new recruiting, then the transitive property from Algebra 1 tells us that customer service is where it‚Äôs at for recruiters and recruitment marketing teams.

You may be sitting there, rolling your eyes and thinking, “Yeah, of course recruiting is like customer service. That’s the oldest rule in the book.”

But let me remind you this was a study conducted by Twitter and published on SocialMediaToday‚Äîthis wasn‚Äôt just general research; this was research specifically showing what the power of customer service on social media means for any marketer, whether you‚Äôre selling pizza or a job.

The How

SocialMediaToday takes the info given by Twitter‚Äôs study and breaks down six ways that you can serve up better customer service on social media. Follow the link earlier here for the nitty gritty, but essentially the list goes:

1. Respond to everything on social media
2. Respond as quickly as possible
3. Ensure you can respond when people are trying to reach you
4. Give people the opportunity to DM you with more info
5. Ask for feedback
6. Learn from brands that are kicking ass at it

These rules, laid out for brands to follow, are pretty much the same for employer brands or even recruiters themselves.

You can see the rules come to one general consensus: be present. Be present and your potential revenue starts to go up.

The Why

I’m looking to dig even deeper than SocialMediaToday did. That’s great that they’re giving real data from Twitter and telling you what to do with it, but to really believe in what you’re doing and do it with gusto, it’s important to know why it needs to be done in the first place, i.e. why does your potential revenue go up when you are a present force on social media? Really, there are just two simple reasons:

1. Being on social media, especially as a recruiter/employer brand, you‚Äôre showing that you are present. You‚Äôre on social media because you know that‚Äôs where candidates are, and you want them to be able to talk with you.
2. Being engaged on social media shows that you want to be there. You want to talk with candidates and build relationships with them, even if it is through a DM or a tweet convo.

Don‚Äôt believe me on the relationship-building front? Still think social media is a crock? Here‚Äôs a little anecdote: in my first social media job out of college, I ran a twitter account for a pizza place in my college town. Because of the brand I was representing and the target audience of college students, I was able to have a lot of fun using memes, videos, quotes and other things college students find funny. There were a few Twitter users who would frequently reach out to the brand and be up for a little bit of banter. One night, I was out at a bar and a friend who knew one of the users who frequently interacted with the pizza brand introduced us in real life. We had a good laugh over me meeting her in real life and her seeing who was behind the voice of the pizza brand‚Äôs Twitter. She told me that she ordered pizza at least once a week and we continued to talk both as brand/consumer and now as friends.

Relationship value: affirmed.

The key here is that I interacted with her and many other users. I didn‚Äôt just post funny pictures‚ÄîI would respond to their responses. I would answer if they had problems with an order. Because that‚Äôs how you build a meaningful social media relationship.

The Conclusion

None of this is any different for recruiting. Don‚Äôt just be present on social media‚Äîthat‚Äôs only 50% of it. Now it‚Äôs time to engage your audience. Ask them for feedback on jobs; answer any questions they have for you and do so in a timely manner. Start building those relationships that are so important to candidates‚Äô perceptions of your brand.

If you‚Äôre still having trouble with the idea of relationship-building on social media, even if the revenue increase doesn‚Äôt sell you, look at it this: building relationships on social media isn‚Äôt about forgoing any other relationship-building strategy‚Äîit‚Äôs simply another way to build relationships with candidates, when and where it is convenient for the candidates. It‚Äôs all about taking the same customer service you would offer to a candidate over the phone or in person and applying it to the digital world.