You already know the massive power of social media. In fact, 4.62 billion (or 58.4% of the global population) now use some form of social media and people use the internet every day for an average of 6 hours 58 minutes. That’s a lot of people spending a lot of time online. Perhaps more importantly, that’s a lot of customers and potential customers.
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The majority of businesses recognize the importance of social media with 67% of small businesses using social media tools and 25% of small businesses seeing social media as their most successful marketing tool. However, you also need to recognize that social media is a two-way street. It’s not just about you delivering content to the public via social media channels.
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Consumers will talk about your business, they will leave social media customer reviews, they will even share your posts if they resonate with them. Just how does that two-way street affect your business and your brand reputation? How do social media customer reviews lead to spikes in business CRM for startups when there are a number of highly positive ones? Read on to discover how such social media customer reviews can help your business and increase sales.
Six steps to using social media customer reviews to promote your brand
Ensure people can leave reviews
Image sourced from Oberlo
There is little point in having a strong social media presence if people can’t actually leave social media customer reviews. Facebook is probably the strongest channel when it comes to reviews and although they dropped the star ratings for a Yes/No recommend option, people can still leave written reviews and add pics to that entry.
As a startup, many people may discover your business via a search engine, but many more may come across your brand via a social media ad. If they visit your page to learn more about you, one of the first things they will do is look at social media customer reviews left by current and past customers. This makes good management of your social media pages a crucial task, especially when starting out.
It’s not just about good social media customer reviews, it’s also about how you respond to a negative one as this reflects how good your customer service scripts are. For example, say a customer has bought a power dialer software solution from you but has had issues with integrations. If your response to a negative social media customer review has included your tech support team contacting that customer directly to solve the problem, then that negative experience has been turned into a positive.
While people may post a social media customer reviews of a product or service on their own feed, you need to ensure there is a central ‘repository’ where potential customers can see all your reviews collected in one place. This will usually be your website and can be a standalone section with links leading to the relevant landing pages of the products that have been reviewed.
Don’t just read, engage
People don’t want a social media page to be static with little interaction with the brand. They want to see a high level of engagement that demonstrates that your organization cares about their customer base. That engagement has to go far beyond responding to any negative reviews or comments, it needs to involve engagement with every comment where possible.
Let’s say that your business promotes and sells services like RingCentral. A customer leaves a positive comment or review regarding the solution they chose. Rather than just basking in the glory of those positive comments, engage with that person. Thank them for their comments, offer to put them on your mailing list (if they’re not on it already), and nurture the relationship.
A good business looks beyond a single sale or a single positive social media customer review. You want to encourage brand loyalty and, ultimately, aim for that customer to become a brand advocate who recommends your business to others in their social media circle. Social media offers the opportunity for engagement and relationship building that other channels don’t.
Highlight positive social media customer reviews
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When someone leaves a positive review, particularly one that may contain additional content such as images or video of them using the product, then you should showcase it wherever possible. UGC (user generated content) can lead to 29% higher web conversions than content on websites or campaigns that don’t have it.
It’s not just about saving costs, something any startup is always aware of. Sharing good social media customer reviews and/or UGC is a great way for a new business to spread awareness of their brand. Startups often face more challenges than an established business. Not only do they need to attract customers, but they also have to ensure they comply with laws and regulations such as obtaining an employer identification number (EIN).
When you are just at the beginning of your journey as a business, people don’t know you or your brand. Reviews from customers are a fantastic way of engendering trust and growing your business. People are more likely to use your organization if they see positive social media customer reviews from their peers and sharing those reviews can lead to good spikes in sales.
While influencers are often seen as a great marketing tool, with some $4.14 billion expected to be invested in this group in 2022, nothing beats good old-fashioned recommendations from friends and family. When potential customers see reviews or content from people who have no incentive to praise a brand or product, then they are more likely to trust those recommendations.
Ask for social media customer reviews
If you have just – or recently – started your business, then you are also starting with zero social media customer reviews. You should never be afraid, while in startup mode or once developed, to ask customers for reviews. There is nothing wrong in actively asking customers to leave feedback or reviews as long as it is done politely. For example, “if you liked our product, please leave a review.”
This is something you can do at point of purchase but it can also be done later, such as when a customer leaves a comment like “I really loved this product” on a social media post or ad. If you know they haven’t previously left a review, a simple reply such as “Thanks for your comment and we’re happy you liked the product. Can we ask you to leave a review?” You can even add a link to where most of your social media customer reviews appear.
You can also – politely – remind or ask people to leave a review in any emails you send to them. Sending a follow up email a few weeks after they have bought a product can show good customer service by first asking them if they are satisfied with their purchase and can then simply ask something along the lines of “If you are happy with your purchase then we’d be very grateful if you left a review.”
Harvesting as many social media customer reviews as possible is crucial to any startup seeking to gain a foothold in the market. More reviews equals more customers, that’s just how it works. For example, if you can gather a lot of positive reviews for your app in the initial period of your startup, then you will possibly see a spike in sales that reflects the positive feedback left by your first batch of customers.
Optimize your content and posts
Free to use image sourced from Pixabay
It’s one thing to engage with your audience but it’s another thing to do that well. If you want your social media posts to gain traction, you should be sure that you optimize all content, and that includes sharing of reviews. Ensure that social media customer reviews and content are in the right places and are reaching the audience you need it to.
There is little point in having a post that extols the virtues of cloud based call center software on a page or platform where none of the audience will have an interest in that. While you may be offering limited products or services as a startup, you want your content to be producing sales and thus reviews (which in turn can increase sales further).
You want your posts to increase interest in your brand so you should be looking at rich SEO content as well as links to blogs or landing pages that further increase awareness. You should also consider scheduling your social media posts. Meaningless or poorly written content will drive customers to other brands rather than you and will result in poor sales figures, a scarcity of reviews, and therefore no resulting spike in sales.
Another thing to consider when it comes to optimization is that tastes and trends change over time. Thus, it is worth regularly checking your content to see that it matches any benchmark you may have set from previous audits. That can include any changes needed with your SEO strategy as the keywords and phrases people use to search may also change over time.
Visual content and other marketing
People love visual content, especially user generated content as mentioned before. A post with a customer demonstrating how they use your product will likely garner more views, likes, and shares than a video produced in-house. That’s not to say that the latter should be neglected; in-house videos can be a great way of demonstrating to customers how your product works and meets their needs.
Visual content should not consist of only videos. Images such as infographics can be a great way to both educate and entertain potential customers and lead them to buying your product and then, hopefully, leave a review which sees your sales increase more. Creating purely text based posts will not capture interest as much as those that also include visual content.
Another thing to consider is using social media to build an email marketing list. Having such a list linked to your social media platforms can be a great way to build your customer base and keep people informed of new products and/or developments. This can be a crucial tactic for a startup and it can help to use an email verify program to authenticate every address on your list.
Another major advantage of visual content is that it can be used across any social media platforms you utilize. For example, if you decide to make a lot of video content, you can make your own YouTube channel to keep all your videos on. When people click on a link, they may then look at other content you have created. One caveat is to be aware of any restrictions platforms place on the length of videos and adapt or edit your videos where needed.
The takeaway
Free to use image sourced from Pixabay
Startups face many challenges when trying to stand out from the crowd and usually have a limited budget to work with. However, one of their primary focuses should be on social media platforms as it can be the easiest way to build your brand’s awareness and reach and increase your sales figures. The first social media customer reviews you receive can be the most important ones you will ever have as they can produce quick growth in sales figures.
Sales and business spikes are good in the short term but it’s a cycle you want to repeat and maintain. While you may have no absolute control over when people will post social media customer reviews, constantly seeking to encourage them, and then share them across your social media platforms, can produce positive results every time.
Social media customer reviews are far more than an affirmation of the quality of the products or services you offer; they can be an indicator of how good your customer service and aftersales support is too. Even when a customer has a problem, if they see that your organization deals with – and solves – any issue quickly and efficiently, then it can be another factor in them choosing to become a new customer.
It’s clear that social media customer reviews can help boost your bottom line. So what are you waiting for? Put these tips into practice and start collecting reviews to grow your business.