Getting Feedback from Your Followers

February 27, 2014 by Christine

Having a social media presence is a two-way street. Not only can you share information with your customers and prospects, they can do the same with you. With just a few strokes of the keyboard, you can ask your followers what they think about new products, competitors, an emerging trend, and so much more. When was the last time you tapped into this? Below are a few ideas on how you can glean insights from your social media followers.

• Ask questions. This is by far the simplest and most direct approach. For example, if you want to know what your followers think of your current logo before you hire a logo designer to redesign it, ask your followers what they think of it. Let them know you are flirting with a redesign and ask for their thoughts. You may be surprised at the responses. For best results, use open-ended questions rather than yes or no questions, as open-ended questions prompt people to share their opinions.

• Create a poll. Polls are easier for participants to give you their two cents but a little harder for you to put out there. However, polls also tally the results, making it easy to see which option is the clear winner.

• Create a survey. Surveys go into much greater depth than polls though they work in a similar fashion. Third-party survey tools, like SurveyMonkey or SurveyGizmo, allow you to quickly create questionnaires and share them with your followers. Depending on the tool you use to create the survey, you may even be able to embed the survey directly on your social media pages. If not, place it on your website and let your followers know where to go by linking to it. Most third-party survey tools include graphical results and detailed reports so that you can understand the data.

• Hold a social focus group. Traditional focus groups are usually held in a conference room where a moderator leads the group through various activities such as sampling the product and talking about it. You can do something similar using social media. For example, you could recruit participants from your social media sites and then hold a traditional or virtual focus group. You could even create a private Facebook group specifically for private group discussions.

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Why ask your followers what they think? If you have built a targeted audience, your followers are customers and potential customers. They have problems that your products and services can solve, but you can’t possibly solve them if you don’t know about them. One way to find out is by asking. Another reason to get your followers’ opinions is to keep them engaged and show them that you value them. If you genuinely care about your followers, getting their feedback can help you to better equip your company to serve them.

Thomas von Ahn – Chief Elephant Slayer – Viral Solutions LLC

Watch out elephants! This slayer of business challenges comes with 30 years of record breaking sales, marketing, operations, training and leadership experience . He has worked face-to-face with 100’s of small business owners as well as large firms. His love of creating, communicating, developing and executing results for clients shines with each project, publication and training event. His entrepreneurial spirit, passion, industry experience, education, problem-solving prowess, charismatic personality and been-there-done that attitude leads his client focused approach.

Filed Under: Social Media Tagged With: social media, social media strategy