Selling in social media was unethical in recent history. While brands shouldn’t be using social media to push product down people’s throats, they do have the opportunity to transact business on Facebook and other social media hubs. But how do we make it relevant beyond one-time flash mob deals?
The opportunity lies between social sales and social rewards. Existing brand loyalty program members that demonstrate faithfulness are the best target. Provide them with word of mouth activities that offer program points that can be redeemed for tangible goods and virtual experiences to foster a deeper level of brand loyalty. The intersection of these activities must benefit the brand and the community. Loyalty only occurs if users organically or voluntarily participate in the program, and they will only do so if the rewards are deemed valuable to them in return. It doesn’t always need to be some “Groupon-like” deep discount. It does, however, need to show the consumer that they are appreciated and incent them to return for more and more benefits… not just any benefit, but better brand experiences. How do we do it?
1. Gamify your Program: Rewards what we already do on the web & real life–create and share content. Social, Economic, and Environmental reality is the gaming opportunity. Today, marketers turn to online game-based content, such as Facebook Credits, badges, reward schedules, and progress bars, to hook consumers and drive deeper participation. By integrating with Facebook, Foursquare, and Twitter, gamification brings dying card loyalty programs to the social channel to increase adoption.
2. Enable Social Commerce: People buy where they connect and connect where they buy. There is a fine line to walk to prevent yourself from being a sleezy used-car salesman. Tie social purchases to your loyalty program. Challenge your customers to a game, but make sure the transaction is secure and start with add-ons, not your entire product line.
3. Make for Meaningful Data: Why aren’t we connecting the data points between the users that connect with us via mobile, all the social channels, the website and purchasing behaviors? We have the ability to collect millions of data points and enhancing our customers’ everyday lives by turning those points into something useful. This advanced tracking can do more than offer relevancy, it surfaces peer influence to ultimately provide better brand-experiences, independent of channel.
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Or, talk more about it TODAY by joining our live twitter chat to ideate and debate ways to make social CRM actually mean something. Use #SocialCRM to join the conversation starting at 2PM CST! We believe the path forward is through commerce and meaningful rewards… What do you think?
