The era of "likes" is over for businesses. If it ever was truly an accurate gauge of how your social media strategy was working, Facebook officially killed it when it changed who saw your brand's posts.
While having a strong number of followers on social networks is still important, the process of turning followers into customers requires digging deeper and acting on the more nuanced social cues that your customers are sending you.
Understanding Your Followers
Before you can work on reinforcing customer loyalty, you need to understand what your followers are telling you in the way they're using social media. A simple way to do this is to look at each level of interaction as a score on your customer satisfaction card.
Much like the Net Promoter Score many companies use, these interactions give you a good idea of how interested your customers are in your product - and how likely they are to share it with others.
9 to 10: Active Positive Engagement
These are your most loyal customers. They "like" and share your content, ask questions, and give constructive feedback about your company. Your social media strategy should be focused on keeping these followers happy and creating more of them.
7 to 8: The Silent Following
These are the customers who have "liked" your page or followed your account but act mostly as passive observers. They're valuable because they have some interest in your company and can (sometimes) see what you're posting, but without engagement, there's no way to really measure how satisfied or interested they are in your product.
6 or Below: Active Negative Engagement
Customers are just as likely to use social media to air their grievances as praise your company. Monitoring customer complaints and addressing them in a timely and professional way is vital to a healthy social media presence. After all, the last thing you want is to be overrun by a mob of Twitter haters.
By studying your followers and placing them in these simple categories, you can get a nice overview of how your customers feel about your product and your social media strategy. Once you know where you stand, you can move on to creating more nines and tens.
How to Turn Followers Into Customers
To create more of your ideal followers who will share your content and recommend you to others, you need to find ways to engage these individuals and encourage them to interact with you and other potential customers.
1. Cater to your audiences. It's important to remember that even followers who score the same for engagement fall into a whole range of demographics. Not every person will find every piece of content valuable, which is why it's critical to cater to a broader range of people who might be following you.
Take a cue from the New England Patriots. The team doesn't stop at posting information about the games; its social media manager creates content that speaks to a broad range of fans.
The Patriots post pictures of pets dressed up in team garb, stories of the team and owners giving back to charity, and photos of families getting ready for the game or playing football themselves to keep followers interested between games and in the off-season.
2. Share the love. Unlike traditional marketing methods, social media is a two-way street. Customers don't just want someone shouting at them; they want interaction. An easy way to show that you're paying attention is to like and share user-generated content that's relevant to your brand. This makes people feel good and will make them more likely to return the favor.
3. Ask their opinion. Customers like to know that they're being heard. Rather than waiting for them to complain or offer suggestions, ask them specific questions about what they would like to see. This kills two birds with one stone: You get valuable consumer feedback, and your customers feel like their opinion matters.
4. Dress up your marketing. Your social media presence is a marketing tool at its core, but your customers don't want to be sold to 24/7. Interesting, informative content related to your business can both entertain followers and build your brand. Even when you're explicitly promoting your product, there are good and bad ways to do it.
Big attractive images and infographics are a great way to catch your followers' attention. According to Tim Morris, director of marketing and branding at the American Wind Energy Association, the organization has seen an increase in social engagement since it began posting helpful infographics on Facebook and Twitter. "Infographics are perfect for engagement because their visual nature makes them easy to share," says Morris.
5. Follow the leaders. Your company doesn't exist in a vacuum. There are others in your industry already producing great content. Some of them are competitors, but many are just interesting professionals who have garnered their own loyal followings. Follow and interact with the most meaningful leaders in your industry who could help you reach new followers and influence buying decisions.
6. Celebrate milestones. Some companies do giveaways to reach a certain number of followers, post pictures or videos around a specific theme, or do special posts to celebrate the holidays. Don't forget to take advantage of initiatives that activate your brand, and don't be afraid to get creative with it! These milestones can help reinvigorate old followers or even bring in a whole new audience.
Social media marketing isn't about your quantity of followers; it's about the quality of your engagement. If you have millions of followers but none of them are interacting with you, you might as well be shouting at random people on the street.
A good social strategy takes serious effort at forming real connections with people. By following these tactics, you can create a vocal fan base that will become loyal customers and - if you're lucky - outspoken brand advocates.