Can Social Media Sites Benefit Mystery Shoppers?

Love them or hate them, social media sites are wildly popular with many people. Individuals use sites like LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and others for personal as well as professional reasons. They connect with other individuals who are friends, family members and co-workers. They also connect with organizations and businesses. You may be wondering how social media sites may benefit you as a mystery shopper. Here are a few key benefits that you can enjoy when you use social media sites.

Networking

You can use social media sites to connect with other mystery shoppers. While many mystery shoppers have been networking with other mystery shoppers through online forums for years now, social media sites provide you with yet another opportunity to network. In some cases, you may enjoy the improved ability to network with mystery shoppers who share your same interests, live close to you or even work with the same providers. This allows you to network in a more customized, personalized way. In addition, you may network in a more personalized way with your providers. The online forums are largely used by mystery shoppers, but you can connect with your providers’ company page, follow their tweets and more online through social media sites.

Finding Opportunities

You can use social media sites to find new work opportunities in some cases. For example, if you keep your eyes and ears open, you may learn about a mystery shopping provider that offers higher rates or that has more assignments in your area. Some providers actually use these sites to announce new assignments that are available, and these assignments may not always be posted on their job boards. Connecting with providers through social media sites may enable you to find more or better opportunities than you currently are finding on the job boards.

Training and Education

Many social media sites provide you with the opportunity to learn more about industry happenings if you regularly follow the sites. For example, there may be a mystery shoppers convention heading to your town or a nearby town, or there may be an online training seminar that can help you to get certified to complete video mystery shopping assignments. You can easily learn more about these opportunities, and these can actually help you to become a better mystery shopper.

There are some pitfalls to avoid when using social media sites as a mystery shopper. For example, you may not want all of your Facebook friends to know that you are a mystery shopper, so you may want to open a second Facebook account that is only used for mystery shopping purposes. Your job as a mystery shopper should remain secret if you want to maintain a low profile while out and about completing assignments. However, when you take a few extra precautions to maintain a low profile, you can easily take advantage of all of these benefits that social media sites offer. You can get started reviewing the various companies and organizations online today, and connect with them using a new profile or account that you’ve opened just for your mystery shopping persona.