New customers are great, returning customers can be even better—there’s no other way to state this age-old adage without losing it meaning. Now we’ll apply this age-old adage to leverage your social media marketing efforts of the 21st century to keep customers coming back.
Incentive. It’s not enough to simply ask your customers to be your friend or fan on Facebook, or follower on Twitter—you have to inspire them with incentives. One example of how you could encourage a customer to become a fan of your business’s Facebook page is if you offer exclusive discounts on future purchases if they become a fan. Or, for Twitter, if a customer tweets about one of your product promotions with a special hashtag, you could send them an exclusive discount via a direct message.
The key here is to think creatively by devising a social media incentive scheme while promoting your product or business. Once someone becomes a fan on Facebook or a follower on Twitter, they’ll stay within your marketing reach for future promotions.
Quality Content. Once you’ve given customers the incentive to join your business on Facebook or Twitter with special promotions, the effort doesn’t stop there. Customers join communities not only to avail themselves of exclusive online promotions, but also to join conversations with other customers about a common interest that your business might belong to. Build a community around that common interest by offering quality content by offering your business’s expert advice. A summer camp could offer advice on starting a camp fire with two sticks and friction; and a karate studio could give advice on the executing the perfect high kick.
As you can see from the graph above, ‘Customer Engagement’ is the top benefit of social media marketing so remember that social media is about conversations, and sharing and consuming information. Blatant, aggressive marketing will turn away customers so be sure to post useful, quality content to keep them coming back.
Play Favorites. This strategy is twofold. First, offer your social media customers, i.e. fans on Facebook and followers on Twitter, exclusive deals that aren’t available to your non-social media customers. This will motivate your customers to stay connected to your business and encourage non-social media customers to convert.
Secondly, you’ll notice that some of your fans will stand out more than others as community leaders. These are the fans that constantly and actively engage with your business by ‘liking’ posts on Facebook or retweeting your product promotion. You should draw attention to these customers by playing teacher’s pet and give them recognition. Setting examples out of your exemplar customers will encourage new customers to return and engage your business on social media platforms.
Written By: Jaszver Bauzon
