Implement a social media strategy to actively engage in customer conversations

Ask any 'social media maven' or read any blog on Social Media 101 for Business and overwhelmingly the first word of advice is 'listen'. Listen to what your customers and prospects are saying – and they're saying a lot - over Twitter, Facebook, and a host of other social media venues.

So while corporate boardrooms debate the big issues – Who owns social media? How do we measure it? What's the best way to engage our customers there? – there's one fact everyone pretty much agrees on: Integrating social media into your customer support loop can pay big dividends in terms of enhancing and improving customer service. Excellent customer service + social media = an army of invaluable online customer advocates.

• Parature for Facebook
  Feature Sheet
• How to Use Facebook to Engage Your Customers and Deliver Great Customer Service
  White Paper

Implementing a 'social media strategy' can cause a bit of 'analysis paralysis'. Where to start? What to do first?

With Parature, you can see some pretty significant pay offs in short order.

Take Facebook, the '500 million user- gorilla' of social media communities. Parature for Facebook enables you to be where your customers are, delivering quality support on your company's Facebook page. And it's using the same proven Parature software at work in nearly 1000 organizations today. (People are calling it 'the support tab for every Facebook page'.) In fact, Parature is the industry's first customer service and support application that enables direct one-to-one engagement from any Facebook page.

You can monitor Wall conversations, posts and comments ... enable your followers to search your knowledgebase, submit tickets, even chat with an agent, all right from Facebook. Start by just monitoring if you choose, then add on more capabilities later as you listen and learn.

In any case, here's where the power of social communities really manifests itself: not only can your customers get support from your organization right on the Facebook page - but they can instantly share their positive support experiences with their wider community of friends.

With Parature, you're an active part of the conversation, serving and supporting your customers right from one of the busiest customer communities in the world.

You can:

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  Monitor Wall posts and maintain a history of customer cases and your response to each
• Track tweets and respond in real time
• Get a centralized view and analysis of your social media efforts with Parature business intelligence tools
• Deliver true multi-channel support leveraging the power and popularity of Facebook.

Phil Fernandez, CEO at marketing automation leader Marketo is a pretty influential (and direct) guy. "Social media is becoming more pervasive daily, and you better address it – quick" says Phil.

Parature gives you a way to start, quick.

"Social media is becoming more pervasive daily, and you better address it – quick" Phil Fernandez, CEO