Customer Engagement is the new black

Business mogul Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon, has said last month that obsessing over their customers was the secret of his success. Who can argue with him? Marketers know the importance of developing authentic relationships with customers as a key strategy to ensure repeat sales. Furthermore, social medias have increase the proximity between the brands and the customers. Clients regularly interact online with their favourite brands to share posts, ask questions, comments, complain and give feedback. This is important because 95% of Millennials are following a brand through social media (source: Dreamgrow).

When customers are positively engaged with a brand or a public figure, they do not even have to promote themselves on social media: it is their customers who do it for them. The vast majority of consumers (71%) who have had a good social media experience with a brand are likely to recommend it to others (source: Dreamgrow). Therefore, how does positive customer engagement look like? In her article 7 Customer Engagement Strategies That Marketers Can’t Ignore, Audrey Ference states that “Customer engagement is about encouraging your customers to interact and share in the experiences you create for them as a business and a brand. When executed well, a strong customer engagement strategy will foster brand growth and loyalty.”

Joelle Desaulniers is a stylist and fashion designer based in Trois-Rivières, Québec. Her expertise is to suggest individual pieces of clothing, to explain the trends and to advice on how to wear and style current fashion outfits and basics garments.

Her brand has exploded in the last few years, thanks to a lot of hard work and her savvy usage of social medias. She is very active on Facebook and Instagram (posting multiple videos and photos daily), as well as using Pinterest, running her YouTube channel and feeding her blog with live chats. Her videos on Facebook are well loved with hundreds of comments and likes every day. What makes her so successful with social media is her level of authenticity (her language, jokes and tips are all very reliable) and her commitment (she replies to every comments & questions, as well as making personal suggestions). She says: “I honestly think that social media allow me to understand better our clients and to share with them. It’s the best way for me to create a community. This is why I reply personally to all messages and comments. People who give us attention deserve to receive it back. I spend more than 30h/week in managing all our social media platforms and planning video.”

George Beall suggests 4 ways to increase customer engagement on social media and Joelle Desaulniers Stylist uses all of them.

1. Create a Community People Want to Engage With

The live videos that she post regularly on Facebook have a high level of engagement. They average 10k-90k views (from her 67,000 followers and others) and are shared by her viewers.

2. Know the Audience on Your Platform

Joelle Desaulniers knows who her clientele is, because she’s one of them: Millennial women searching for quality fashion pieces that are stylish, yet comfortable and easy to wear. She express herself talking directly to her customers, no matter which channel of communication she’s using. The use of live videos allows her to reply to questions in real-time, as well as giving personalized tips and tricks to her followers.

3. Stay Consistent With Messaging

Her key point is to make sure that women can get the proper fit on their body type. Every engagement with the customers, all her comments, replies, videos, photos, etc. are geared toward this message.

4. Be Available as Much as Possible

Her team is growing – and so is her fan base and followers. At some point she will no longer be able to reply personally to all comments and questions. However, this is now one of her strongest brand attribute.

Lessons for Others

Repeat sales, free promotion, and brand loyalty: customer engagement is an aspect of business that no organization can overlook. Smaller brands can do this efficiently by responding personally to their followers. Meaningful relationships, even in business setting and profit-generating transactions, are never basic.

If you have concerns as to the accuracy of anything posted on this site, please send your concerns to Peter Carr, Program Director, Social Media for Business Performance.

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