Successful social Media Marketing Practices

The rate of disconnect between companies advertising and consumers is ever widening. The average consumer is been bombarded with advertisement more than a thousand times per day. The pressure mounted on consumers to buy products they are not interested in as lead them to find ingenious ways to solve their buying challenges. Consumers now use peer to peer validation research strategy to make decisions on what to buy and what to avoid. One of the best peer to peer platforms is social networking. Smart companies have discovered that natural advertising is no more producing the desired results, and they have found ways to harness the new digital platforms to engage and win the hearts of customers online. In the following paragraphs, two of the most brilliant companies making a big impact in the online social realm will be featured, including the strategies that they deploy to win on the new battle field, the social media. These two companies are Zappos and WholeFoods.

Now let’s get started!

  

Zappos was started in 1999 by a teenager out of frustration of not finding the perfect shoes for himself after searching through store after store. Since then, the company has been operating in the digital realm and has been able to build its brand online grossing over one billion Dollars in revenue in less than ten years. It has continued to use digital tools to gain huge chunk of market share and it still sees big opportunities for growth and improvement in its chosen competitive market.

Zappos’s marketing strategy is regarded as one of the very best in its industry. Combining exceptional customer service with customer relationship building using digital tools such as social networking platforms.

Zappos has been successfully using social networking platforms to execute its marketing strategy since the early days of the social tools awareness. Using these social tools has played an important role in Zappos’s phenomenal growth in the last few years. Zappos is one of the top ranking companies on major brand ranking in social media and customer service.

This company uses social tools to engage its client base and also as a customer service tool for resolving customer issues. Zappos has positioned its marketing strategy on word of mouth. By this, they cultivate their relationship with current customers who help them spread the word to friends, associates and family members about the excellent customer service Zappos provides.

Zappos encourage its happy customers to share their experience with Zappos through their social network of friends. The company use words such as “Love your order? Share it”. This simple psychological language saw the number of sharing go up by seven percent.

Each social media platform has its own place in Zappos’s arsenal of social commerce strategy. For example, the company invests money on sponsored posts on Facebook. It says that,” it is a necessary evil. It is the difference between 1,000 likes versus 10 likes.” Twitter is used primarily for customer service at Zappos. While Pinterest is used to remind customers and prospective customers that the company has products in other categories aside from shoes.

One of the most important marketing strategies Zappos uses to win the word of mouth game is called the WOW! Strategy. Using the WOW! Strategy by surprising customers, Zappos automatically upgrades all purchases made by first time customers to priority shipping (next day delivery) without even mentioning the surprise upgrade to the customer at the checkout page. This single act generates a strong emotional commitment and word of mouth about the company’s services through customers.

Whole Foods is a leading natural and organic food store with about 300 outlets in America and the U.K.

This company has been building its customer relationship through online social media for over seven years, and this has helped it grow phenomenally.

Whole Foods has shown strong brand presence in all locations it has set up an outlet, whether physical or web property. The company’s ability to engage customers and get customer’s loyalty is unparalleled.

The company’s social media strategy is to be genuine and transparent in the customer engagement process by letting the conversation occur as naturally as possible. At whole Foods, the various outlets have their own social presence so as to provide customized and unique experiences to their customers.

All the departments within the company collaborate in the process of listening and learning what customers want and inventing, planning and executing solutions or campaigns. This collaboration process helps the company respond quickly to opportunities recognized through its social engagement with customers.

Whole Foods Twitter strategy is to use the tool as a customer service tool, in which individual customer questions and requests are responded to as fast as possible. The company has different Twitter accounts for specialized topics such as cheese and wine, and also individual accounts for local outlets.

In conclusion, it can be seen that both Zappos and Whole Foods have applied the principles of enterprise 2.0 (peering, ideagoras and prosuming) in executing their social media strategies.

Reference

http://www.businessinsider.com.au/zappos-on-facebook-and-social-media-2013-2

http://www.digitalsparkmarketing.com/customer-focus/customer-engagement/whole-foods-customer-engagement/

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