Make Social Media Your Friend - Part III

In our previous articles we have talked about how to engage your existing audience on social media and how to communicate with them strategically. Though engaging and communicating continuously with your audience on digital platforms is a must, to be able to incite action (either a visit to your site or transaction) a nudge from time to time is necessary.

This is the era where the first thing anyone does during decision-making is to gather information about the available options and compare & contrast them to arrive at a likely choice. However, during this process there are a few channels which the customers abide by religiously over others. One such powerful medium is social media influencers. They have this mass following that has developed trust over a period, which constantly looks up to them to give pointers on various available choices. Below listed are some of the ways in which influencer aspect can be used for effective marketing:

Influencers doing Live Streams and Story Swaps​

Identify the influencers who do related content and solicit them to endorse your product. The key here is to identify whether it should be a couple of big influencers or multiple micro and nano-influencers as per your marketing spend, in order to maximize your reach.

Live streaming from those influencers can help you reach their followers and give them a working demo of your product. You can extensively share details about your brand and philosophy, so that you generate the flow of traffic.

Also, letting influencers feature their experience on your Instagram stories or IGTV will create a positive vibe in your audience and help grow your base. 

User generated Content​

Along with influencers, encourage your audience to share their individual experience and feature them in your stories. This will allow your audience base to gauge the reach of the brand and will foster their need to associate with you.

Simple UGC strategy can increase brand engagement and drive conversion rates as more people within your audience's individual networks also discover your brand, and want to engage with you.

Use Augmented Reality (AR) apps for virtual experience​

Until now people were visiting stores to see, touch and try the products. However with the changed times, that experience is getting missed. Nonetheless, customers would still prefer if such alternative can be provided in e-retail mode.

So adapting to the AR filters or Virtual trails can help customers shop the products online without hesitation. 

One such example is Sephora, which provides “Virtual artist” experience to their customers shopping online. This allows them to see how the different colors of make-up will look on their face, thus replicating the physical store experience. 

This will definitely address the questions which customers have while making their decision.

Final thoughts​

We can clearly distinguish the time before and after social media marketing. It is changing rapidly every day and adapting to it is a challenge that we ought to take in order to sustain the evolving customer habits and behavior.

If we make a better use of this constant engagement, it will create increased brand awareness, website traffic, audience base and thus convert into higher sales and revenue.

Thus, in a nutshell, – social media should be a vital component of your overall marketing efforts. When used optimally, it will enhance customer experience and satisfaction.

Content research for this article has been contributed by Spoorthi Duggi