How to use social engagement strategies to boost brand loyalty

Did you know that customers spend up to 40% more on brands that interact with them on social media?

Social media can be a great tool for marketing and advertising your brand, but it can also be the key to help you build long-term relationships with your customers and increase their brand loyalty.

Let’s see some of the ways social media engagement and incentives can improve brand loyalty and why you should be rewarding social media activity.

What is the relationship between social media and brand loyalty?

The relationship between social media and brand loyalty is symbiotic. Social media platforms offer companies an invaluable opportunity to foster brand loyalty through networking, communication, and community-building.

By engaging with their audience in real time, brands can effectively increase brand awareness, enhance brand recognition, and ultimately drive brand loyalty.

The cost-effective nature of social media strengthens the connection between brands and their customers, making it a pivotal tool for modern businesses.

Benefits of Combining Social Media with Loyalty Programs

The synergy of social media and loyalty programs offers many advantages for businesses. Leveraging social media can boost your loyalty program's visibility, engaging current and potential customers.

It serves as a powerful platform to showcase your loyalty benefits and rewards, encouraging user-generated content that highlights positive experiences. It creates a sense of community among loyal members, fostering a strong brand connection.

In essence, social media enhances the reach, recognition, and engagement of loyalty programs, resulting in increased customer loyalty and brand growth.

White Label Loyalty’s new social engagement module can help you incentivise word of mouth, engagement and referral on social media. It can also be a great tool in shopper activation campaigns for FMCG and CPG companies.

Here are just some of the benefits you could experience:

• Have your customers share your brand’s UGC content on social media.
• Acquire new customers for less than ads, at scale.
• Increase long-term retention, revenue goals and social proof.
• Build social engagement and generate high-quality traffic.
• Create more brand campaigns that your customers will respond to and want to participate in.

Now let’s see more in detail:

How does social media build loyalty?

Building brand loyalty through social media hinges on active engagement. It entails not only listening to your audience's feedback, questions, and concerns but also responding promptly and courteously.

It also involves curating and sharing content that is both relevant and valuable, evoking interest, curiosity, and emotions.

This multifaceted approach fosters a deeper connection with your audience, solidifying brand loyalty as customers feel heard, valued, and emotionally connected to your brand.

How to use social media for customer loyalty

To start harnessing the power of social media for customer loyalty, you can first follow some key steps: actively monitor your social media channels, and promptly respond to comments, messages, and mentions.

Engaging in conversations with your customers, whether initiated by them or you, is another crucial step. If you want more activity from your users, you can use the right tech to track your users’ activity on social media and offer incentives for following, liking and posting content.

This combination of engagement and appreciation nurtures a strong bond between your brand and customers, fostering lasting loyalty and creating more social media and loyalty engagement.

Unlock the potential of UGC

Awarding points for transactions is pretty much the basis of every loyalty program - and it works, don’t get us wrong. But transactions aren’t the only way to engage with shoppers, and it might be time to consider other options, too.

User-generated content (UGC) refers to brand-related content created by consumers and brand advocates instead of an employee of that brand.

We all know that reach is the key to social media: UGC makes your customers the stars of the show - and what better way to engage with consumers beyond monetary transactions?

Incorporating UGC into loyalty programs means your customers get more opportunities to engage with their favourite brands and to see their feedback and contributions be appreciated.

You can encourage social engagement and user-generated content through points and by rewarding consumers for submitting reviews, photos, videos, and other content.

In return, brands collect a higher volume of UGC content. 59% of consumers indicated they’d be prompted to write reviews if they received loyalty points in exchange.

This type of content can positively impact the purchase behaviour of future shoppers: word of mouth is the most powerful acquisition channel, and this is a great way to incentivise your customers to talk about you, making it a great, cheap way to find new customers.

What’s more, younger generations like Gen Z expect more brand interaction via channels they know best - social media. A recent study found that there’s a 120.3% increase in conversion when a shopper engages with ratings and reviews on a product page, and a 91.4% lift when a visitor interacts with UGC on a product page.

If you want to harness the power of social engagement, you can follow these steps:

Example of White Label Loyalty's Social Engagement Module

White Label Loyalty’s social engagement module allows you to identify your most engaged customers and reward them for interacting with your brand on social media.

By analyzing your customers' social media accounts and activities, you can uncover valuable insights, such as identifying those with the largest following, and reward them for engaging with your brand on social platforms.