Social media is a powerful tool. Using it effectively can reap great rewards for your brand.

Even if your business has an impressive follower base, there’s still work to be done. Turning those followers into brand loyalists requires persistence, patience, and strategy.

One of the first steps toward building loyalty is understanding that social media is more than just a promotional tool for businesses. Sure, you can operate your pages as purely promotional vessels, and that’ll work just fine for some businesses. But that strategy sells social media short of what it can truly bring to your business.

Loyal customers are very valuable. According to Bain & Company, a 5% increase in customer retention rates can lead to a surge in profits from 25% all the way up to 95%. Those are definitely profits worth chasing after.

 

Followers VS. Loyal Followers

Understanding the difference between a normal social media follower and a loyal follower will help you create loyalists out of those followers. Just because someone follows you on social media, doesn’t mean they harbor any loyalty for your brand. I’m sure you can think of a few Facebook pages that you follow that you wouldn’t consider yourself a loyalist towards. I know I can.

Loyal followers will comment, share, and engage with your posts much more frequently than others will (if they do at all).

 

Start Engaging

Loyalty on social media is all about engagement. Interacting with your followers on a more personal level gives them a better connection with the brand, and further fosters loyalty. Here’s a few ways you can better engage with your audience.

  • Provide feedback. Answering and responding to complaints, issues, and questions (in a friendly manner) demonstrates that your brand cares. This feedback doesn’t just have an effect on the individual follower, but on all of the followers that notice this behavior. It’s easy to tell the difference between an engaged brand and an absent brand.
  • Show off another side of your brand. As I mentioned before, making purely promotional content undercuts what you can get out of it. There’s a ton of ways you can highlight different sides of your brand. Try offering a behind-the-scenes look at your business, whether that entails how your products are made, your employees, or something else entirely. Another idea could be to create a customer profile that delves into how your brand has affected their life on a meaningful level.
  • Give your brand a dose of personality. Humor, for instance, can prove especially helpful in personifying your brand – and making it more likable! Check out this article from our blog on how you can inject a little extra humor into your social media.

 

Master Social Media With CoGoBuzz

Need a little help jumpstarting your brand loyalty? Take your social media to the next level with CoGoBuzz! Our state-of-the-art service gets you more followers – Automatically!

Our service leverages advanced WiFi, SMS, and Email solutions to digitally discover and engage your audience. We’ll automatically hook you up with fully trackable metrics and crucial data behind all of your customers, ensuring that you know exactly how to engage with them on social media. CoGoBuzz is the best way to discover what kind of content is going to resonate with your audience. Check out the rest of our website to learn more!

How has your business used social media to foster loyalty? Sound off in the comments!