Product managers are the glue that bind the many functions that touch a product; engineering, design, customer success, sales, marketing, operations, finance, legal, and more. Product managers play a crucial role in all the stages of a product development lifecycle. From market research to drafting product specifications, from product design to its deployment, product managers are responsible for connecting various teams while making strategic product-related decisions.
We are living in the era of social media. This means that managers of the digital world, as Mckinsey likes to call Product Managers, must adapt and become proficient at using social media tools that are available.
With customer experience being essential for the product’s success, product managers are resorting to various platforms to interact with customers on a personal level. Social media is one of them.
To make the best of this platform and boost process efficiency, they leverage various tools, such as social listening tools, customer tracking tools, product management software, heatmap tools, and more. These help them streamline the overall product development and deployment process.
How product managers can leverage social media for their work
Build a community
Having a community promotes engagement which is essential for businesses as it brings customers closer and increases brand visibility. It creates a welcoming environment for you and the customers to share stories about product experiences, network and build professional connections, and inspire one another to grow.
Product Research
Social media contains a wealth of information about the product or feature you are looking to develop. Your job is to leverage listening tools, relevant communities to listen and investigate what people will probably need.
You can join the communities that you wish to serve and possibly subscribe and pay if need be. These communities can serve as a place where you can share your prototypes and get meaningful feedback for your next iteration.
Recruit Users for research
You can use social media to validate your problem hypothesis with a particular persona.
If you have a particular persona in your mind while building your product features, you can reach out to your community and recruit the desired members who fit the user persona to interview them. You can perform research with these members to better understand their perspective and validate your hypothesis to build better products.
Interact with existing customers and prospects
Have conversations with the customers to understand what they like about your product and what they do not. Gain insights into their requirements and how they intend to use your product to their advantage. This will help you in designing and developing a product that is relevant and competitive.
You can do this by
- Writing informative posts
- Responding to the comments and messages you receive on social media pages to understand the customers’ reactions to your product.
- Conduct regular contests, giveaways, and other competitions to increase customer engagement.
- Create a brand hashtag and promote it in your posts. Encourage your customers to use this hashtag whenever they post about you. This will help you track what people are saying about your brand.
Seek feedback
Social media is the best platform to get early qualitative feedback from users and non-users for your product. You may get both positive feedback and areas of improvement. The most important thing is to follow up on any actionable feedback to ensure your user base stays engaged and you can show that you genuinely care.
Find Early Adopters
Promote the product and its features on social media to attract a wider audience and grow the customer base. Share news about upcoming updates or product roadmap with the customers to keep them informed about how the product is growing.
You can even use social media to give an early preview of some of your features in case you are looking for beta testers. It always helps to iron out your features by getting some early feedback for your product capabilities before rolling out to production.
Learn new things
If you are subscribed to the right audience, channels, and communities you may shorten your learning curve for new technologies and also stay up to date with the latest and greatest in the space you care about.
About Author
Charity is leveraging her 7+ years professional experience in digital project management, digital marketing, digital automation and business consulting to help build a web3 product.
Currently in a 6 month Web3 fellowship put together by award winning companies Ayagigs and Coinbase giving, Charity is helping lead a team comprising of other product managers from the fellowship, product designers, frontend developers, backend developers and smart contract engineers to build a Token Staking and Rewards Marketplace.
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