In between picking up the social media hacks, engaging consumers, mitigating risks and dealing with problems, and making sense of their marketing efforts, social media managers now need to think whether they are ready for the next big phase of social media or not. At present, Social or Consumer Loyalty is touted as the next most significant phase of Social Media.
The Social Media platforms have already been recognized as a great way to bolster brand outreach especially owing to their targeting and segmenting capabilities. All these years, it has been about listening to your customers, advertising and real time marketing. But, now it's about meeting expectations of a savvier consumer base. Today, your consumers are on the lookout for fast apps and quick rewards as a return for their engagement. Now is the time to offer a more personalized experience to clients.
Your efforts should be geared towards coordinating their shopping experience with their spending patterns. According to MyBuys, around three fourths of the shoppers are actually willing to reveal their store purchase data for a more well-rounded shopping experience. They have simply grown weary of the onslaught of the irrelevant messages thrown at them every now and then. Given below are a few reasons why social loyalty has emerged as the next big thing in the realm of social media.
Real-time marketing is losing its edge
Around eighty percent of the marketers have admitted that they are unable to track ROI of their real time content programs. There are thousands of brands in the markets and they have thousands of events running every session. One interesting tweet or Facebook update might make you one of the most talked about brand for a couple of days but can't promise long term results. Real time marketing is crowded. It will only be a matter of a few months before it becomes outdated.
It is time to give more control to your consumers.
Contrary to traditional beliefs, you are not required to track down and assemble thousands of followers including spammers and bots. Neither are you required to be on every other social network out there. Your focus funnel should consist of:
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A limited number of social networking sites where you can spend time rather than several sites with negligible presence
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A limited number of followers who relate with your brand, are not spammers or bots, from whom you can learn and who will interact with you (having 10,000 inactive fans does not count)
You might as well want to utilize Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn Periscope or every other network to bolster your marketing strategy. However, if you really do not have time to concentrate equally on all these platforms, you would rather give some of these a miss! A limited number of "meaningful" fan-base allows you to give more control to your clients. You are simply able to customize messages better and deliver them at the right time. "Marketing" is more of a utility today-where customers enjoy a tailored brand experience and use their smartphones as remote controls for delivery, usage and rewards.