How do you use social media for customer loyalty? Our guide outlines how to do this and the important philosophy behind building genuine trust.
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We are literally showered with advertising. We should be exposed to an average of around 10,000 advertising messages every day. The result is ad blockers and customers who switch immediately to advertising when advertising.
Brands quickly lose the sympathy and trust of customers who feel disturbed by all the advertising. Ironically, one of the largest advertising media – social media – can be used ideally to build a close bond with customers and to create trust and transparency. A brand should be particularly focusing on this opportunity to develop and strengthen customer relationships.
Trust is the foundation of customer loyalty
So the customer not only buys a product that he has to trust, but also an aid. It is particularly important to give customers the feeling that they are more a friend than a brand. A friend that you can trust, with whom you can talk about everything and with whom you can have a lot of fun. Social media, like Instagram in our example, can be used perfectly to create exactly this trust.
5 tips to use social media for customer loyalty
Give the brand a face
How could a nut bar or bottle of water become my friend? If you give your brand one or more faces, you immediately create more closeness and trust: you simply believe a person more than a logo. Instagram Stories (which also have a great visibility on the platform as a nice side effect), can be used, for examply by to employees communicate directly with your followers. In you can ask or answer questions about your brand or your products or simply show how you organize team events or how your office dogs play with each other. It shows that people like your customers work there and stand up for the brand.
Listen to your followers
Friends not only tell stories, but above all they listen. We learn from our followers by asking them directly for their opinion and needs and taking every criticism seriously. For example, after drinking coffee from disposable cups in a story we shared, there were some critical comments from our followers. A little later we published another story in which we showed that we bought reusable coffee mugs. In the end we got more positive votes than negative ones before.
Have a say
Whatever is said about us, we have a say. You should definitely take part in discussions about your own company. In the best case, you are in constant contact with your community – around the clock, even on weekends. We comment on each social media contribution to us, answer every question and are there for our followers.
The right clique
Show me your friends and I’ll tell you who you are! If you want to increase your awareness by working with influencers, you should note one thing above all: the influencer must fit the brand. On the one hand, a brand ambassador who lives the values of the company has the right followers and on the other hand only this one can sell the product credibly.
Be a community
Our followers do not follow us literally because we are not moving forward. We see ourselves as a community that makes a difference together. We want as much interaction from our community as possible and that our followers can really identify with us. To motivate your followers, you can, for example, include their stories in your own story or assign coupon codes for each post on a specific topic. The goal should be to get as many vocal customers as possible and create a sense of community.
If you as a brand want to retain your customers through trust, social media offers just the right channels. It is important not to remain silent, to always be honest and always to be there for the community.
