In the modern world, all companies are essentially in retail. In essence, each company is a shop and your website is your shop front, each page a different aisle with a new product lining its shelves. Using this same model, social media is the equivalent of someone walking down the main street, holding a sign above their head and trying to encourage all your potential customers to walk into your shop.
The thing is, when the customer does walk into the shop, if they can’t find what they are looking for, they are likely to walk straight back out and into your competition next door. Your customers want red shoes size seven, and your only pair is buried somewhere in the back corner of the store, and the shop next door has a pair sitting in the front window, illuminated by lights.
In the online world, customers seek simplicity. They want to find information within three clicks, along a clear path. If they have to click around your website and are unable to find the information they were seeking, you’ve lost their interest.
They use Google to try and find their red shoes, size seven. Ideally, the first website has the catch words ‘red shoes’ and once the customer has clicked on the link and entered the website, they can find the shoes in size seven almost immediately, so they click order and the sale is confirmed.
It doesn’t matter what product or service you offer, the facts remain that customers don’t want to mess about, they want to go straight to what they want. The challenge is how businesses cope in the online world where everyone is clambering for the customer’s attention.
Companies need to be careful, throwing as much information at the customer as they can, with pages full of words and pictures, stuffing all services and products within a single page, is likely to overwhelm the customer, as their eyes dart and sort through the overload to find the single product or service they require. Alternatively, if you are too simple, keeping information to the bare minimum, the customer may find the information lacking, leaving them confused as to just what you can offer them, and they’ll go and look elsewhere. The trick is to strike the right balance, offer the information that the customers are likely to be seeking and to not overwhelm them in the hope that they will try some of your other services.
You wouldn’t display a huge billboard with pictures of red shoes, size seven, if all you had in stock was blue shoes, size 10… its misleading and can disenchant customers if they remember that you were the company whose post on Facebook said you could do this, but when they actually talk to you, they discover you can’t.
It’s also essential to utilise your social media, make sure it’s an illuminating light which leads the customers straight to the services or goods that it advertises.
I wish you good luck in the modern world of business…
