What if your social media accounts could do more than just advertise new products? You already know you need to interact with your customers and fans. But how many companies take the time to help their customers? Most businesses make the fatal mistake of simply promoting new products instead of offering helpful advice on products their customers already have.

Facebook and Twitter can be used to helping customers learn to use their products or provide real life scenarios of why someone would want to purchase a particular service. The point of helping customers is to gain a reputation for excellent, proactive customer service. This creates buzz for your business. Treat your customers right and you’ll find business grows as a result.

Educate

Do you find customers often have common problems or questions with a certain product? Instead of a new promotion, run a campaign which links to articles, step by step guides, videos or a question and answer sessions on how to best use a product and solve common problems. Some companies actually take the approach of letting fans or followers to ask questions through the social network. The responses are then public for all other followers and fans to look at.

The better educated your customers are, the more they’ll enjoy the products and services you provide. This also works great if a customer posts a question about a product before they buy it. Take the time to actually help your customers by educating them.

Random Tips

Every day provide a new tip related to your products or services. For services, offer a new scenario in which the service would benefit the customer. Giving customers more reasons and ideas for your products and services gets them interested and they’ll even be more inclined to view information on upcoming products and promotions.