Guest post by Hollie Hoadley

It’s no secret that knowing your customer journey and nurturing it throughout the entire lifecycle is so important to running a successful business. We know that from the second someone enters a form, emails or calls, or places an order, it’s critical to ensure that their experience is handled with the utmost professionalism and care.

Seems simple, doesn’t it?

Let’s add social media into the mix. Are you considering the customer journey that starts with a tweet? A complaint on a Faebook page? Or a bad Yelp review? Are you considering the @mention that goes unnoticed or the Instagram picture promoting your product that goes unhearted? Many companies aren’t considering all these little social media interactions that happen each and every day and the impact it has on the customer’s journey.

Let me explain.

Include social on your customer lifestyle map

Whether it’s a tweet asking a question to your company before someone becomes a customer or a negative post from a long time customer, you need to know which posts to expect and what they mean to your customer lifestyle map.

It’s important to think of it in three parts: acquiring a prospective customer, nurturing a current customer, and building relationships with past customers. How can social media play a part in each part of the customer lifestyle? By carefully mapping out which experiences matter the most and what you can do on social to care for each milestone, you can really begin to build on the customer experience.

Speak to your target audience

Many customer journeys start on social media, particularly when the customer is simply considering a product. I know many women who follow makeup brands online for weeks before finally going to Sephora and purchasing the product they’ve been drooling over. Don’t miss your chance to win over customers before they even know they’re going to be customers.

Create a specific social strategy for prospecting and know what it entails. Be aware of people who are engaging with your brand on social and interact back. Take note of what content gets people talking and how you can turn those conversations into leads, and eventually, a new customer.

Create a specific social strategy for prospecting and know what it entails. Click To Tweet

This strategy will not only bring you new business, but will create a positive social relationship with your new customers. You will take a new customer and turn them into a brand ambassador. The customers you find on social media are some of your most valuable assets. If you have customers positively interacting with your social media, this will benefit you greatly by snowballing even more positive interactions with new prospects.

Build stronger relationships

Once a customer has already bought your product or service, you can really grow your relationship through social media interaction. Find out if your customers are on social media and how they like to interact with your company and be proactive. Ask them how they’re liking it, tweet them some FAQs or relevant content, and get them excited about interacting with you.

If you notice someone complain, go above and beyond to deal with the complaint. Realize that social media is often where customers are going to voice their opinion. Be on it! Know what people are saying. Create Twitter lists, monitor your social, and train your customer service team and social team about what to expect at which touch point in the customer journey.