How To Attract More Customers To Your Brand Using Social Media

One of the biggest advantages of Social Media platforms is the way that these social networks can connect you with a massive audience. Being able to interact with your customers gives you the ability to boost the customer experience and increase your brand visibility, reputation and authority.

BUT HOW ARE CUSTOMERS USING SOCIAL MEDIA?

“Content-based marketing gets repeated in social media and increases word-of-mouth mentions; it’s the best way to gather buzz about a product.” – Marsha Collier (@Marshacollier)

Customers using social media to complain might be the first thing that you think of, and it’s true that many customers will take to social media to get in touch rather than older methods such as phone or email. But this isn’t the only reason why they’re using social media – they want to engage with the brand, discover what other people are thinking and saying, and be a part of a community.

Food and Beverage (F&B) brands face stiff competition with each other, with new products, innovations and trends constantly changing the market. You need to be visible with constant quality content to remain in the public consciousness. As a Brand you should be looking at how to attract more customers using social media, because if you’re not doing it, you can be certain that your competitors are.

Social Media Marketing doesn’t mean that you promote your product to anyone and everyone, and hope that something sticks. You need to take a targeted approach to your digital marketing to really see a valuable return on investment (ROI). Your strategy should be focused on how to best serve your customers whilst remaining true to the core vision, values and voice of your brand.

HOW DO YOU MAKE SOCIAL MEDIA WORK FOR YOU?

Before you start your social media campaign, you need to ask yourself – what is a great customer experience? Who are your audience? What are they expecting from you?

How to attract customers using social media will depend entirely on who your audience are. If you don’t have a clear idea of who is buying your product, and what they’re interested in you’re not going to be able to appeal to them properly.

For example, if you’re selling full fat mature cheese, you could appeal to wine-lovers, but you wouldn’t get very far trying to market your product to vegans.

Start by thinking about your ‘ideal customer’, imagine their personality, level of expenditure, location and interest, what pain points or questions do they have? You can then conduct research into their hobbies, brand preferences, media consumption and who inspires them. By collating this information together you can create a strategy that will directly appeal to them.

Millennials want to know more about how their food is produced and want to “see the story behind the scenes” (81 percent and 80 percent, respectively) – 73 percent are willing to pay more for sustainable brands.” – Nielsen

DO YOU KNOW WHAT CHANNELS ARE THE BEST FOR YOU?

Having a social media strategy for your F&B product doesn’t necessarily mean that you have accounts on every single social media platform, nor does it mean that you post once or twice and consider it done. How to engage customers using social media requires a bit more investigation and a targeted approach.

Analytics from your website or social media channels will provide you with key information for deciding which channels you should be making the most of. Look at your customer demographic, what channels are most popular with them? What channels are your direct competitors using? If your audience are using Instagram and Facebook, then running a targeted campaign on Snapchat isn’t going to yield any sort of significant results.

However, even if you don’t plan on using all of the social media channels, and intend on focusing on the most popular – it’s not a bad idea to sign up for accounts on the other networks, this will allow you to claim your username and prevent malicious use of your brand name; and once you have ownership – should the trends change down the line, and your customers start to make more use of those channels, you’ll already have an account set up and ready to go to meet their needs.

ARE YOU PREPARED TO MAKE YOUR STRATEGY WORK?

Social Media and your marketing strategy is an ever evolving and changing beast. You cannot just set it and forget it, not if you want to succeed.

Social Media Marketing takes time, insights and consistency, but it gives you a direct insight into what people are thinking and saying about your brand. It also gives you the opportunity to create more connections, increase positive sentiment, and damage control anything that may have gone wrong.

Your plan needs to be flexible – you need to be able to adapt to changes in trends, customer sentiment, social channel updates and industry fluctuations.

But when you get it right, you can attract more customers, generate a stronger more loyal community, and grow your brand in a sustainable and long term fashion.