Humans, by nature, are social creatures, and are far more likely to visit restaurants recommended by friends or relatives than to stumble across these establishments on their own. Some people even go further by asking opinions of others closest to them before making a simple purchasing decision. This is why fostering glowing reviews and recommendations from satisfied customers should be considered an important element for your marketing strategy.
Aside from creating content, highly-satisfied customers can be used as a secret marketing weapon for businesses, whatever industry they may be in. Integrated with social media optimization, and done the right way, customers could become brand advocates that can create high-quality content for your business. The question now is, how can you turn these customers into advocates?
Find Them
The first step in identifying your advocates is to gauge your customers’ loyalty in the form of a survey. Use a 0-10 scale, and ask questions like “How likely are you to recommend our products and services to your friends and colleagues?” Those who will answer 9 or 10 are already considered advocates. Ask your questions on customer loyalty through social channels like Facebook and Twitter to get more answers.
Encourage Advocates to Generate Content
Now that you’ve seen your advocates, it’s time to encourage them in creating content. Help them by giving online tools that can assist them in creating highly positive reviews, glowing testimonials, and answers to prospects’ questions. You can even encourage them to publish images, videos, and comments on Twitter and Facebook.
Make Your Brand Likeable
Both these steps, however, will only be possible if you’re able to present a likeable presence on social media. You won’t earn a person’s like or share if they don’t personally and genuinely love your brand, and they’ll want to feel like there’s a relationship with your business. Achieve this by being more personal, possibly even more open, to be able to connect with other people.
Stimulate Excitement
People will want to know why they should share a post on their social channels before actually sharing it. Let people know why a particular post excites you, and why is this worthy of being shared or retweeted. It may be a blog post or a new program that can address people’s concerns. You may be surprised to know that these kinds of posts can help people struggling with legitimate problems.
Gaining more brand advocates wouldn’t be enough if you can’t keep them, though. For help in this aspect, you can get in touch with companies that offer social media optimization services, like 5 Star Brand.
Sources
Social Media Marketing: How To Turn Satisfied Customers Into ‘Brand Advocates’, Forbes
Turn Customers into Advocates, Vertical Response Blog
