Make it easier to handle all customer conversations: combine all social media into one

No business, small or large, can ignore social media in 2024. While it will always be an excellent tool for generating leads and showcasing your brand, recently, the use of social media has extended well to customer service. Per a survey, 75% of Twitter users have used the platform to engage with brands. Facebook is not behind, where 59% of Facebook users reach out to brands. For Instagram, the figure stands at 34%. 

The primary reason for customer engagement on these channels? It's quite simple, customers want answers to their questions. About 33% of Twitter and Facebook users communicate with brands primarily for customer service reasons. The same is true for 30% of Instagram users.

However, managing multiple social accounts across various channels is becoming increasingly overwhelming, especially from the customer service point of view. I have been there — juggling between tabs and channels could not only waste time, but you may also lose the context of what the customer wants. And there’s no collaboration among team members if you are doing it the traditional way.

The solution? You can combine all social media into one centralised platform for easy collaboration and better customer experiences. 

In this article, I will discuss how to make that happen — and your team needs it. 

First, some basics. 

The most popular social media channels used by customers

When it comes to social media messaging, businesses must be present where their customers are. While the landscape is vast, a few channels have emerged as the most popular among customers worldwide.

1. WhatsApp

Owned by Meta (formerly Facebook), WhatsApp is the most popular messaging platform used by customers across different industries. Its end-to-end encryption and cross-platform availability (mobile, desktop, web) have made it a favourite among users who value privacy and convenience. Businesses can receive text messages and voice and video calls. There is also an option for conference calls in case a meeting requires team collaboration across other departments. 

With its business version (WhatsApp Business), businesses can build their profile, share digital catalogs and respond to customers with automated messages. For a larger quantity of messages, bots can also be employed. 

Key WhatsApp features

• 2 billion+ monthly users
• End-to-end encrypted 
• Businesses can share digital catalogs on profile
• No ads
• Bots
• Text messages, voice and video chat
• Location sharing

2. Instagram Direct Messaging

A visually-driven platform, Instagram is another popular messaging channel, with over 2 billion monthly active users. Its Direct Messaging (DM) feature has become a convenient way for businesses to engage with customers, especially among younger demographics. According to Statista, a staggering 63% of Instagram users are under the age of 35, making it an essential channel for businesses targeting millennials and Gen Z consumers.

And for catering to this young customer base, Instagram DM offers built-in GIF and sticker galleries — you can infuse some fun into the conversation to connect with your customers at a personal level. 

Key Instagram features

• Over 2 billion monthly users
• Can be kept as a destination in Meta Ads
• GIF and sticker gallery 
• Text, video and voice chat
• Integrated with Instagram 

3. Facebook Messenger

With over 1 billion monthly active users, Messenger is a messaging powerhouse. It’s a messaging app in itself, but its built-in integration with the world’s largest social network has made it a go-to choice for customers of all ages and demographics. Apart from text and voice chat, the platform also offers video call capabilities.

With Messenger, businesses can create automated replies and set up chatbots to respond to the most commonly asked questions. Like Instagram DM, there is a built-in library of GIFs, stickers and emojis. 

Key Facebook Messenger features

• Over 1 billion active users 
• Messenger ads
• Can be kept as a destination in Meta Ads
• Text, video and voice chat
• Built-in GIF and sticker library

While these three are the most popular, other platforms, such as TikTok direct messages, Snapchat, WeChat, Telegram, Discord, etc., are also popular among certain demographics. For example, TikTok and Snapchat have a younger user base, while Discord is used more frequently by gamers. Similarly, WeChat is popular in China and Chinese-speaking communities.

Importance of a streamlining social media channels

Think of yourself or people close to you and how many social platforms they actively use in a day. Most of us — roughly 5.04 billion or 62.4% of the world’s population — use at least one social media platform. Given that many social media platforms do not allow children under 13 to open a social account, this translates to 9 out of 10 internet users being social media users. This represents internet users across demographics, industries, interests and countries. 

While the usage statistics vary across different demographics and regions, the trend is clear: social media has become an integral part of our daily lives. For businesses, this presents a vast opportunity to connect with their target audiences, who spend a significant portion of their time there.

Here’s what a social media presence, and offering support and service via those channels can means for businesses: 

Brand awareness

Social media is a powerful platform for increasing brand awareness and reach. Your customers are there — and so should be you. How and what type of content a business shares on its social accounts can give it unimaginable reach, especially if the content is personal, shareable and engaging. I will give you an example. In 2020, Spotify launched its Wrapped2020 awareness campaign. The goal was to make their existing users share how their 2020 went (and then, as a FOMO, bring those not on the platform under its fold). The campaign became an instant access, with mobile app downloads increasing by 21% in the first week of December. 

That engagement with customers is pretty much what Spotify wanted!

Brand reputation

Brand awareness and reputation go hand in hand. While brand awareness focuses on the visibility and familiarity of your brand, brand reputation is more about how customers and prospects perceive your brand. Today, customers turn to social media to express their opinions about brands, whether positive or negative. To put it in perspective, 49% of consumer reviews communicated poor experiences about a business, while only 38% of social media consumer reviews shared positive experiences.

And reviews matter for brands — a lot. More than what businesses share about themselves. 

Competitive positioning

We all have been aware of the social media wars of large brands, Pepsi vs. Coke being one of them. But it’s a ground wide open for small brands as well — in fact, for small brands, social media could be the very differentiating factor in their success. 

Why? 

Social media provides businesses with a unique opportunity to monitor their competitors’ activities, engage with their target audiences and identify emerging trends within their industry. For example, after carefully analysing your competitors, you can come up with a strategy that’s more personal, humorous and fun. Thus, more engagement and better positioning as industry leaders. 

Customer service and experience

Social media has transformed the way businesses interact with their customers, as it allows for real-time communication and prompt resolution. Also, customers’ attitudes have changed, especially in the last decade. According to Smart Insights, 63% of customers expect brands to offer customer service through their social media channels. Instagram DM, Twitter mentions and Facebook posts are especially popular among customers for voicing their concerns or expecting prompt responses. 

Interacting with customers also helps businesses tailor their sales strategy, improve their product development and make changes to their content strategy. Companies also use it to learn about customer experience, gain competitive insight and conduct market research.

Crisis management

Social media and PR crises happen — it could be unhappy employees, fake news, cybersecurity breaches or accusations of fraud by a group of customers. A couple of decades ago, many would not even know about the crisis. But not anymore. Irrespective of the cause of the crisis and whether it is true or not, an event of crisis could severely impact a brand’s reputation. 

In the event of a crisis or negative publicity, social media can be a powerful tool for businesses to address concerns, mitigate damage and regain customer trust. A few years ago, Zion Williamson, a basketball player, suffered an injury due to a malfunctioning Nike shoe. It instantly became a global social media crisis for Nike, with even Barak Obama jumping in. However, Nike came forward, expressed its concerns and wished the player the best. It also updates customers on what they have done and their plans to improve their service delivery. A few weeks later, the basketball player was back on the court, wearing custom Nike shoes. On Nike’s part, it was an event of crisis that was managed well, thanks largely to social media. 

Lead generation

What makes social media a powerful lead-gen tool is its capability to be a channel where businesses can not only generate but also nurture and convert leads. Some, such as Facebook, are more productive for a range of demographics and industries. However, based on your target audience, other platforms — YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok — can bring in equally good results. 

According to a study by HubSpot, 63% of marketers cite lead generation as one of their primary goals for leveraging social media. And for all the right reasons — by sharing valuable content, engaging with potential customers and leveraging targeted advertising, companies can attract and nurture leads effectively. 

Challenges in managing multiple social accounts

I’ve witnessed firsthand the significant challenges businesses face when attempting to manage multiple social media accounts across various platforms. This fragmented approach not only hinders the any customer-facing team’s efficiency but also can also affect brand consistency and customer engagement.

• Maintaining brand consistency — each social platform has its own unique tone, audience and best practices. Without a centralised strategy, businesses risk appearing disjointed and inauthentic, and that can surely erode consumer trust and loyalty.
• Prompt customer support — another critical challenge is the ability to respond promptly to customer inquiries, comments and mentions across multiple platforms. Today’s customers demand real-time support and expect brands to be readily available on their preferred channels. But businesses, as I’ve seen, struggle quite often here. 
• Monitoring conversations and trends — monitoring conversations and trends across fragmented channels is also a hurdle. With countless discussions happening simultaneously on various platforms, it becomes difficult for businesses to stay on top of relevant conversations, identify emerging trends and find opportunities for engagement. 
• Resource management — managing multiple social media accounts often requires dedicated resources and expertise, which can be a strain on time, budgets and staff. 

Overview of current social media management practices

Businesses across the board have adopted various methods to manage their presence across multiple social accounts, and all of their channels. However, many of these approaches fall short, leading to inefficiencies, inconsistencies and missed opportunities.

Here are the most common approaches to managing multiple social media channels:

Dedicated team members

In this model, specific employees or teams are assigned to handle separate social media accounts individually. While this approach means focused attention on each platform, it often leads to siloed efforts, inconsistent messaging and communication breakdowns between teams.

Third-party tools

Many businesses rely on a combination of third-party tools to manage different aspects of their social media operations. These may include separate tools for scheduling posts, monitoring conversations, analysing metrics, and more. While these tools offer specialised features, most of them fall short, especially in providing an omnichannel window for customer support cases. 

Manual monitoring

Some businesses may go for the traditional approach — manually checking each platform for incoming messages, comments and customer interactions. This is a labor-intensive approach. It is not only highly time-consuming but also prone to oversight of important customer inquiries. 

While these methods have been widely adopted, they present significant limitations and drawbacks that can hinder a business’s ability to fully leverage the power of social media. 

For example: 

Inconsistent brand voice and messaging

Going the older way, maintaining a cohesive brand voice, tone and messaging across disparate platforms becomes an uphill task for teams. The lack of consistency can confuse — or even worse, alienate — customers. 

Delayed response times and poor customer experience

With customer inquiries and interactions scattered across multiple channels, offering real-time support and personalised engagement can become a challenge. If there is a delay in response times or lost context, it can lead to frustrated customers. 

Siloed customer data and context

Customers can reach out on any channel and expect that you will know the context. Zendesk reports that 70% of customers assume companies will collaborate on their behalf to avoid repetition, lag time or confusion. However, when customer interactions are managed separately on different platforms, valuable data, context and conversation histories remain isolated. 

Fragmented analytics and incomplete insights

Data is useful only when you can make sense of it. But combining performance metrics, audience insights, team performance and campaign data from separate data sources would be a cumbersome and often incomplete process. 

Some of the limitations above can be addressed by relying on social media management tools. But note that they are social media management tools, not conversation management tools. You can manage multiple platforms from a single dashboard, but for customer support cases, you would need a platform that would consolidate all conversations. That includes conversations from social media and other channels, such as Livechat, email, ticketing system, etc. 

Trengo does that—it consolidates all your social conversations into a unified, omnichannel inbox. Everything is at your fingertips, irrespective of the origin of the conversation and all team members are aware of what’s happening in real-time. Explore how Trengo helped Ferryscanner handle a 700% increase in customer queries with ease. And if your business is more focused on WhatsApp, here is how Hubo receives more than 500 orders a day only via WhatsApp. 

Advantages of combining social media channels into one platform

The benefits are many. Streamlined operations, enhanced team efficiency and exceptional customer experiences are a few. Here are more benefits of what consolidated social media channels could mean for businesses:  

1. Enhanced efficiency and time management

One of the most significant benefits of an all-in-one social media integration is the management of all your accounts and channels from a single, centralised platform. Your team does not have to juggle between multiple tools or platforms anymore. With a unified solution, you can streamline social media tasks, such as scheduling posts, monitoring conversations and analysing performance data. Across all platforms!

Take monitoring conversations, for example. Instead of manually checking every inbox and replying to messages there, a unified inbox means all conversations are in one inbox, accessible to all relevant team members. Jamani Group, a Netherlands-based e-commerce business, uses Trengo to efficiently handle more than 1,000 daily customer conversations via email, live chat, Facebook and WhatsApp. “That simply saves us time,” says Max Middelkoop. 'Conversations with customers are being picked up a lot faster than before.'

2. Better real-time collaboration

Effective social media management requires collaboration among team members, whether it’s coordinating content creation, assigning tasks or responding to customer inquiries. With consolidated social media channels, teams can work together in real-time, access shared inboxes, use internal communication tools and assign tasks to relevant team members. 

3. Improved audience engagement

Every social platform offers insights and analytics about your audience. However, rather than disjointed data sources, an integrated social media approach provides unified analytics with a panoramic view of your audience’s behaviour and preferences. Based on the detailed metrics and insights across each platform, you can compare data sets side-by-side, see what is working and for which platform — and, most importantly, how to improve. Basically, making data-driven decisions to improve your content strategy becomes a lot easier. 

Also, with all conversations centralised, you gain access to rich customer profiles — contact details, full interaction histories, notes and context that is so crucial. 

4. Brand consistency across platforms

Maintaining a cohesive brand identity across multiple social media platforms can be a daunting task. You will have to promote your services in ways that align with your brand persona and your target audience — across every platform. However, by combining social media into one platform, you can ensure consistent messaging, visual elements and tone across all channels. Doing so not only reinforces brand recognition and credibility but also creates a memorable customer experience, regardless of the platform in which the message is delivered. 

5. Time-saving automation

Finally, automations. Many social media management platforms offer templates and auto-replies for common inquiries, where you can insert pre-approved responses with a few clicks. Especially speaking of Trengo, you can automate many repetitive tasks, such as assigning conversations, adding labels to conversations or sending messages to your customers. Plus, our Flowbot is capable of forwarding customers to the right team, providing info by asking questions with multiple-choice options, and much more.

Using Trengo’s automation capabilities, Perfumado’s team was 30% more productive, with their response times decreased by 42%. 'What we see is that 17% of all incoming tickets are through the Flowbot. And that from all Flowbot tickets, 42.5% is completed successfully without ever reaching our inbox.'

Strategies for combining social media channels

Unifying all social channels is important, we get that. But how to do that — and do it right? Here are some strategies to help you out. 

First of all, define your goal. Is it to centralise only your conversations or all of your social media activity? Saying this because you need different tools to serve different purposes. A customer operations platform will easily integrate all your channels into a single dashboard, but it is not specifically designed for scheduling posts, etc. Conversely, with a social media management platform, you can manage all your social media accounts from one dashboard, but it will struggle with customer support use cases. 

In any case, here are some options for both of your goals. 

Popular platforms for social media channel integration

While the market would give you tens of options, the following two stand out for their excellent integrations with different social media channels. 

Trengo

Designed specifically for customer operations cases, Trengo helps businesses set up an omnichannel inbox. All conversations from various channels, including Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, Instagram DMs, email, Live Chat and more, are integrated into a single intuitive interface. All these in addition to countless other integrations essential to your team, such as Zapier, Twilio, HubSpot, Shopify, etc. 

Trengo offers solutions to all businesses, small or large. Plans start at $113/month for 5 users — and a free trial on request. Get a demo to see how 80% of teams cut their manual tasks by more than half.

Zoho Desk

Zoho Desk is another comprehensive customer service platform that offers easy integration with popular social media channels. While the platform is geared more towards a ticketing system, teams can still view and manage customer communication via social media, like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. 

That said, if you are in search of a social media management platform, you may consider platforms like Hootsuite and Sprout Social. These platforms are specifically designed to unify your social media activity in its entirety, such as connecting multiple social accounts, scheduling posts across platforms, social listening and analysing performance data through a unified dashboard.

Step-by-step guide to consolidating social media

Whatever your goal may be, transitioning to a unified social media platform is a strategic process that requires careful planning and execution. 

Here’s a step-by-step guide to help you navigate this journey:

1. Conduct a small audit — start by identifying all your active social media accounts and channels, as well as any existing tools or processes you currently use for management.
2. Define your requirements — moving on, evaluate your business’s specific needs, such as team collaboration, automation, analytics and integration with other systems. As discussed earlier, it could be combining only your messaging platforms or the whole of social media. 
3. Research and evaluate solutions — based on your requirements, explore various platforms (customer engagement solutions or social management tools) and their social media integration capabilities. Compare features, pricing and scalability to find the best fit.
4. Implement and integrate — once you’ve selected a platform, work closely with the provider to set up and integrate your social media accounts. Make sure you choose a platform that offers excellent onboarding support. At Trengo, we know transitions can be daunting—at no point will you be left in the dark. Here’s what our clients say about our onboarding process: 

And: 

Surely:

5. Train your team — during the onboarding process, ensure that your team members are properly trained on using the new platform, its features and best practices for efficient social media management. Any platform you choose should be intuitive and user-friendly, even for the non-technical members of your team. When you choose your platform make sure you choose one that offers a smooth onboarding, like Trengo.
6. Communicate the transition — depending upon your business size and audience, inform your audience about the change. It’s an optional step, but doing so could boost your engagement on social media.  
7. Continuously optimise and adapt — combining social media into one dashboard is not a one-off task. Regularly review your performance metrics, gather feedback and refine your strategies to optimise your social media operations and engagement within the unified platform.

Tips for talking to customers on different social media channels

While consolidating your social media presence offers numerous benefits, it’s crucial to recognise that each channel has its unique strengths, audience preferences and best practices. To maximise engagement and deliver a tailored experience, consider these tips:

1. Leverage channel-specific features — explore and leverage the unique features and functionalities of each social media platform within your unified solution. For instance, Instagram’s visually driven nature is good for captivating images and videos (especially short videos), while Twitter’s character limit encourages concise, attention-grabbing updates. Draw people in, and then keep the conversation going.
2. Tailor content format and tone — adapt your content format, length and tone to suit the specific channel’s audience and norms. For example, LinkedIn may call for a more professional and informative approach, while Instagram allows for a more casual style, where you can use emojis, GIFs, etc.
3. Monitor and analyse performance—finally, leverage the unified platform’s analytics capabilities to monitor the performance of your content across different channels. Identify which types of content and engagement tactics work best for each platform (and which don’t!), or continually refine your customer engagement strategy accordingly.

Do your team a favour and combine all social media channels into one

Combining all your social channels into one unified platform will make handling daily customer conversations a lot easier. Your team can streamline workflows, improve collaboration, use deeper audience insights, apply consistent branding and rely on powerful automation capabilities.

To make the transition successful, clearly define your goals, and based on that, choose your options. So are you ready to set your customer-facing teams up for successs? Trengo stands out as one of the best in the league — it has the right social integrations, automation capabilities, collaboration tools and deeper analytics.

Get in contact.