Research conducted by Sprout Social on the consumers buying patterns has indicated that people are more likely to buy things from brands that they follow on different social media platforms. The study further revealed that 75.3% of the people buy new things just because they saw or read about the product online, especially on the social media channels. Thus, it is quite obvious that having a good presence on the social networking sites can prove to be a great boon for promoting brand loyalty.
There are an estimated 2.34 billion people worldwide who use social media platforms every day and rely on such platforms to be informed about the latest happenings of their favourite brands. Not to mention, the consumers use the platforms to connect and share with the friends about all the things they like and enjoy. With such a huge avenue of marketing on social, it is high time (for those who have not already used the social media to its optimum capacity) for the brands to pull up their socks and use the social media platform to its fullest potential and garner loyalty among both their existing and prospective customers. If you are a business owner, it would greatly help you to understand how you can benefit from brand loyalty.
Do you know what brand loyalty exactly is?
As per the text book definition, brand loyalty is the tendency of the customers to buy things from a particular brand over and over again rather than purchasing a similar product from a competitor brand. In simple words, brand loyalty implies that a consumer has a higher preference to an individual brand over the other similar brands. Last year, in November, Facebook conducted a study wherein they found out that nearly 77% of people have some degree of brand loyalty. In the social media parlance, a loyal customer can be identified by the number of times he or she likes the posts and comments on the posts put by a certain brand.
Social Media and Brand Loyalty
About 53% of Americans who follow certain brands on social media are more loyal to the brand than other customers. However, brands should know that the social media platforms are used by the customers only for communication, and it does not affect their decision making to buy their goods or subscribe for their services. The follower of brands on the social networking sites expect a prompt reply from the brand, as marketers, it is best to respond to the customers’ queries or comments within 30 minutes. However, in reality, it is quite sad that nearly seven out of eight messages sent by customers go unaddressed by the marketers and when it happens, the chances of the customers switching loyalty increases by almost 50 %. With social media now playing a pivotal role in influencing the purchase decision of the customers, the marketers should take the following steps to promote brand loyalty through social platforms.
Define the way you communicate
It is pivotal to establish your own voice across all social media platforms; it should be uniform, consistent and in line with your brand personality.
Keep your ears wide open
One of the keys to succeeding in converting a casual visitor to your brand page into a loyal customer is to listen to the customers’ problems and provide an instant solution to solve their problems. People generally expect the brands to respond to their questions, complaints, inquiries, and reviews in the same way as they communicate with their friends. As a marketer, you need to be proactive and listen carefully to what people are talking about and don’t be shy to retweet or repost the things shared by the followers of your brand. Make sure to be courteous and thank people if they have said or shared something about your brand. Remember, being thankful for their patronage is sure to win their loyalty. Also, another important aspect of promoting brand loyalty through social media is to provide the users quality content, which is not only relevant to them but also is useful.
Tell a tale
It would be foolish to assume that your customers are experts in their respective industries and that they know everything going around in your sector. It is therefore important to provide valuable evidence in the form of illustrations and statistics to underpin your claim. This will have a massive influence in projecting yourself as a trustworthy brand in the market. Remember to engage with the audience as much as possible to get an insight on what they think about your brand and what is the type of content they like to consume the most. Once you learn that, you can increase the customer engagement by sharing more content of their choice.
Try to build a community
Having a regular interaction with the followers of your brand on the social media helps in creating a sense of importance among the customers, they feel their opinions matter, which can you can use to build a community. You can use the community to your own advantage by rewarding their loyalty with special offers and discount coupons. You can use the paid ads to promote the discount offers and attract new customers, who can eventually become your loyal followers.
