Consumer Engagement 101: Improving Brand Awareness & Customer Loyalty Through Social Media
When you think of consumer engagement, what memorable brands come to mind? Are they known for having a customer base that is made up of strong brand advocates?
Among other benefits, loyal brand followers are key to continued company growth since repeat customers are much more affordable to maintain in your brand ecosystem than the cost of acquiring new customers. Looking for ways to cultivate brand loyalty?
An integral ingredient in the recipe for brand loyalty is quality engagement with your consumer audience, and it is a dish best served hot. Let’s start with social media.
Effective social media engagement will vary depending on your target customer demographics, your brand’s products and services, and, more importantly, your overall business goals.
When it comes to audience interaction on social, the possibilities are endless! Sticking to your brand voice and image is essential, but focusing on your audience is what will bring your business loyal customers.
How to Use Social Media to Develop Customer Loyalty
1) The first key component is to create a structured guide of who your brand is and what you’re trying to achieve.
2) Adapt your strategies within the ever-evolving social media world, utilizing innovations from the latest and greatest platforms to your benefit.
3) Once you determine how to level with your ideal user, you can now combine all your creative efforts into capturing their attention, improving engagement, and ultimately establishing brand loyalty.
Interaction and engagement with your audience can be used to your business’s benefit in several different ways—both directly, and indirectly.
8 Ways to Increase Social Media Engagement
1. Post relatable content to increase likes, views, and shares
Content should be treated as 75% entertainment and 25% promotional. In our fast paced world, social media enthusiasts are being served paid ads left and right; treat your engagement strategy with a 75–25 mindset to maintain the perfect balance.
2. Interact directly with users through voting polls, rating scales, quizzes, & open ended questions
Get creative with the way you interact! Don’t be afraid to ask questions or opinions — get a discussion going (respectfully), and encourage users to interact with not only your brand, but with each other! Building a brand community is really what embodies thorough brand equity.
3. Host A Challenge or Giveaway
Launch a giveaway or sweepstakes to expand your reach and brand engagement within social platforms. This is a great opportunity to give your brand a voice and interact directly with new and existing consumers.
4. Partner with influencers or other brands who are relevant to your consumers interest
Utilizing influencers who can promote your brand and products is a great way to showcase your offerings on social platforms to an audience that matches your target demo but not already be a part of your brand ecosystem.
Curate your brand’s influencers by selecting partners who align with your brand naturally. This will make their promotion of your products more authentic, while also increasing the probability of converting their followers to your customers.
Ensuring your influencer maintains an on-brand image is crucial when it comes to promotional posts, and these expectations should be clearly stated before you make the decision to work with an influencer or other brand.
5. Leverage creative content with high quality images, gifs, videos, memes, & reposts
Have you ever seen a meme and thought “LOL, I have to send this in the group chat.” ?
Sharing content with your followers that they can 100% relate to is a quick and easy way to increase your user engagement, followers, and brand awareness. When users know your account has relatable content, they will be guaranteed to come back for more.
6. Promote your brand’s offers and sales through social media
Having a sitewide sale? Make sure you let your followers know through all marketing channels.
Whether it’s through paid or organic media, your social platforms are a great opportunity to reward engaged customers with deals on your incredible products.
7. Interact with followers directly within the comment sections
Another natural way to improve your brand equity is to interact with users directly in the comments section.
Yes, this may seem tedious if your posts receive 1,000+ comments. However, by randomizing the amount of comments you choose to like, or comment back on, you can maintain an interactive approach with your brand loyal consumers, while making them feel special with a thoughtful response back to their comments.
8. Give your brand loyal customers a spotlight feature on your main page
What better way to make someone feel special than by giving them their own spotlight? By reposting user submitted content, or user generated content (UGC), you tell users that your brand cares and monitors how your customers interact with your products.
When other users see the shared spotlight, this entices them to do the same by sharing their own content featuring your brand. Not only does this give consumers a sense of importance, this also increases your reach to new potential customers. Be sure to ask for the brand tag!
– Cater to your consumers’ needs.
– Collaborate with your brand’s interests.
– Create a consumer spotlight.
– Care for your customer.
Taking the appropriate approach to achieve longterm goals via social media engagement is crucial for an ecommerce brand. Here at X Agency, we determine the best customer engagement tactics to support strategies for incremental revenue gain.