SPONSORED — Watch out, brick and mortar, the internet has a leg up on you—again. These days, communicating with a business or brand rarely means walking into a store. With social media becoming a universally accepted, and accessed, means for communication, businesses and customers are reaping the benefits.

From customer service and surveys to promotion and sales, businesses – and the customers they serve – have gone digital.

The Social Strategy

Media-savvy businesses increasingly rely on platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Google Plus – with their millions of loyal users – for the foundation of their customer-communications strategies. Even small businesses have joined in, and are dedicating significant resources to build and maintain a social media presence.

Many consumers exclusively use online interaction rather than more traditional lines of communication, such as phone calls or emails. And with today’s accessibility to robust, symmetrical broadband connections, both businesses and consumers employ social media as a convenient and easy-to-use two-way service channel.

The Platforms

A 2014 Accent Marketing survey of 1,000 consumers nationwide showed that Facebook, unsurprisingly, was the choice of 82 percent of social media users who requested information or service from a company. Twitter was the runner-up, with 30 percent of users preferring a platform of short, pithy word snippets when interacting with businesses.

Businesses are happy to comply with these fluid, convenient means for communication. Frontier Communications, for example, has a strong presence on social media.

“We find that social media allows us to promote our services, monitor what is being said about our brand and more quickly resolve customer issues,” said Ken Baldwin, General Manager at Frontier. “As long as you have a strong Internet connection, social platforms are an easy and efficient way of communicating with businesses.”

The Newbie

While Facebook and Twitter dominate the consumer communication market, Pinterest is a dark horse to watch. The platform currently boasts 47 million users, and businesses are starting to recognize Pinterest users’ focus on favorite “things” — and how their “pins” can link to products and encourage e-commerce sales and brick-and-mortar business.

In fact, a market research survey showed a higher percentage of Pinterest users clicking through to browse e-commerce sites than users of Facebook and Twitter.

Other Findings

The digital link between consumers and businesses is only getting stronger according to the Accent survey:

-Almost one third of consumers with a customer-service inquiry prefer to contact companies through their social media pages instead of emails or calls to toll-free numbers.

-47 percent of consumers cite Facebook as the fastest, most effective social media avenue for solving a customer-service issue.

-72 percent of consumers want to interact with a business soley through comments on social media channels.

-Two thirds of consumers use Facebook to find discounts and promotions (plus 80 percent of Baby Boomers).

-More men (34 percent) than women (25 percent) use Twitter as their social media platform of choice to interact with a company to conduct business.

-75 percent of Millennials and 55 percent of Baby Boomers find posted comments on a business social media site from other customers or followers to be helpful.

While consumers may not completely abandon traditional means of communicating with businesses, it’s clear they are rely heavily on social media to do just that. And why not? As long as you have a reliable internet connection, customer service, and brand exposure are just a click away.