A new study of social media customer service practices highlights a major opportunity for companies to improve client satisfaction through better social media outreach, according to Socialbakers, a social media analytics provider.

Defining a new standard of “Socially Devoted” companies, the Socialbakers study identifies businesses that succeed with open and responsive social communications.

Socially Devoted companies can serve as role models, demonstrating how businesses worldwide can drive customer engagement by adopting more reactive and open social media strategies.

“By defining Socially Devoted companies, we wanted to start a discussion in the industry,” said Socialbakers CEO Jan Rezab.

“Socially Devoted companies communicate openly, actively respond to fans and make sure customers receive a quick answer to feedback or questions. Socially Devoted companies set a new global standard that other businesses can adopt to improve their social media marketing strategy.”

Research Shows Incredible Opportunity to Expand Social Engagement

The Socialbakers research study revealed:

• On average, companies respond to only 30 percent of social media fans’ feedback.
• Local companies tend to have higher social media response rates than their global counterparts, with 40 percent responding to customer queries.
• More than 25 percent of global companies have a closed wall on Facebook, meaning users can’t post questions or feedback.
• U.S.-based companies tend to perform less effectively on social media channels than their regional peers.

In the new study, the most Socially Devoted companies are those that respond to feedback quickly and have the highest number of wall posts on Facebook.

Rezab observes that Facebook performance is only a starting point; Socialbakers encourages companies worldwide to embrace other social media elements, including live chat functions and platforms like Twitter, as a part of their social media marketing strategy.

Most Socially Devoted Brands Revealed

Here are the top 10 Socially Devoted companies from the new Socialbakers study:

The Socialbakers study provides interesting insights on specific industries that demonstrate high levels of social devotion.

The telecommunications and mobile industry is by far the most Socially Devoted, with 13 of the top 20 Socially Devoted brands coming from that sector. Airline and financial services companies also perform well in the study.

The study indicates that a mobile operator in South America – Personal Argentina – is a stellar role model as a Socially Devoted company, answering thousands of queries via social media channels with an average response time of just four minutes.