Social media has created greater opportunity for customer engagement and the amplification of brand advocacy. But how can brands tap this to the full extent?
Many brands in the region mistakenly believe that the broadcast message strategy of traditional communications is an appropriate social approach. A case in point are the vast number of brand sites where a Facebook page has been hurriedly created and populated with content from the company website and then left without regular updates or those with little relevance. For today’s social customer, if relevance and value are not realised in a short space of time, interest can be lost indefinitely.
The big opportunity for brands is the data generated on social platforms. Giving customers the ability to reveal their unique identities means you can build a richer picture of their lifestyle and tap into new information that you might otherwise not obtain through your existing relationship. These can include anything from music preferences, date of birth, and marital status to current events and much more. With access to the data comes access to the network of influence beyond the initial contact. Adding this rich social data layer is a huge opportunity for brands, especially those with loyalty programmes.
Understanding behaviour
Being able to connect behaviour in social channels to transactional behaviour via a loyalty initiative provides immense value in identifying the overlap in customers with high commercial value and high social influence. This will support the creation of more effective communication strategies in understanding behaviour across multiple channels and touch points.
An example is KLM, which used this effectively in its innovative Surprise social media engagement campaign, combining social data with the classic loyalty elements of surprise and delight. Based on passengers’ social media activity, KLM delivered personalised gifts in real time to a targeted group of loyal customers flying from Amsterdam’s Schipol airport. These gifts were based on insight gleaned from passenger’s social profiles.
Rewarding behaviour in social channels is another opportunity to drive loyalty, which is being considered by brands across sectors. For example, Estonian Air is going beyond the frequent flyer programme by introducing a Facebook app (AirScore) to reward customers and fans for being strong online advocates even if they don’t fly.
Sectors such as FMCG have been quick to embrace this approach to engage in consumer rewards where cost, tracking or margin has traditionally excluded them from launching a traditional points programme. Mountain Dew in the region has launched Dew Crew, an online loyalty club residing on social that encourages members to enter unique codes from under the lids of Mountain Dew cans, upload videos or images or engage with site content to earn points and move up the ranks. Members can redeem points for great offers and discounts.
Reward platforms
Emergence of viable social reward platforms and virtual currencies are also creating new and innovative ways in which brands can engage with customers. American Express continues to innovate in the social media space and has teamed up with gaming company Zynga (developers of Farmville) to offer in-game incentives for daily spend on cards. The reloadable prepaid card rewards customers in Farmville cash.
Social needs to become an integral part of any loyalty strategy. It provides brands with a significant opportunity to reinvent their value proposition to all consumers. Traditional loyalty initiatives will continue to be valuable, but consideration needs to be given to how best to drive loyalty beyond a transactional relationship. Leveraging social data to build a richer understanding of individual consumers and their interactions across all your brand channels will present a clear strategy for creating a more relevant customer experience and a platform for achieving competitive differentiation.
When implemented, brands must ensure that it complements business strategy, is driven by a business case with clear return on investment and is measured against well-defined key performance indicators. It is important that the structure of the organisation is able to follow through on the strategy. Social is both cross-functional and inter-departmental and hence a unified view is necessary to have a consistent and successful approach.
— The author is Director Loyalty Planning and Business Development, ICLP
