Tips and techniques to incorporate social media into loyalty communications

Over the years, social media has evolved, reshaping how businesses interact with their customers. It has become an essential avenue for driving meaningful, two-way conversations between brands and customers, boosting engagement, and increasing customer loyalty.

True to the fact, 22.4% of people use social media to share and discuss topics with others or interact with content from their favorite brands.

But to truly maximize its value, you must understand how social media drives two-way customer engagement and how to do it right.

That’s precisely what I’ll discuss in this guide, along with tips to help you build a thriving, interactive brand presence.

What Is Two-Way Customer Engagement and Why Is It Important?

Two-way customer engagement is a reciprocal interaction between your brand and customers. Unlike traditional marketing, which focuses solely on delivering marketing messages, this form of engagement invites and encourages customer participation.

It’s about creating open lines of communication where customers can share their thoughts, feedback, and experiences with your brand. When you actively listen and participate in these dialogues, your customers feel seen, heard, and valued.

This results in benefits like:

• Increased Trust and Loyalty: Customers are more likely to support a brand that listens to them.
• Enhanced Brand Reputation: Engaging customers demonstrates care, resulting in a positive public image.
• Improved Customer Satisfaction:Prompt responses and personalized interactions enhance the customer experience.
• Valuable Insights: Direct feedback provides an unfiltered view of what your customers genuinely want and need.
• Highly Relevant Content: Customer interactions allow you to create content that better resonates with their needs and preferences.

How Social Media Drives Two-Way Customer Engagement

When used intentionally, social media platforms offer numerous opportunities for your brand to interact with its audience.

Here are several ways social media drives two-way customer engagement.

1. Facilitates Real-Time Interaction

Social media platforms enable you to communicate directly with your customers. Whether someone is commenting about your product or raising a concern, you can respond within minutes.

When you answer questions promptly or participate in relevant discussions, you can increase customer engagement, generate social media leads, and maximize conversions. It also shows your brand is present, attentive, and human, not just some faceless logo.

Take a look at how Domino’s Pizza interacts with its followers on Instagram:

A tool like Hootsuite can help you monitor multiple feeds, hashtags, and brand mentions across platforms to respond to customers instantly.

Here are some more tips for maximizing customer engagement through real-time interactions:

• Turn on push notifications for mentions, comments, and messages to ensure quick responses.
• Prepare short, on-brand replies for common questions or issues.
• Go live on Instagram, Facebook, or TikTok to answer FAQ in real-time and interact with followers.

2. Increases Organic Reach via Influencer Collaborations

Social media platforms provide an avenue for meaningful influencer collaborations that can lead to two-way customer engagement.

Influencers already have the trust and attention of your target audience. They bridge the gap between your brand and their followers by creating content that feels real, relatable, and trustworthy.

Here’s an example of a food influencer promoting a restaurant and the interaction that follows:

Collaborating with influencers naturally opens up a conversation channel between your brand and its followers. The key here is choosing the right influencers whose values align with your brand and encouraging them to engage with followers during campaigns.

You can use a platform like Popular Pays by Lightricks to find and connect with diverse creators whose style, content, and audience match your brand. The platform also lets you manage your campaigns and measure performance based on specific engagement metrics.

3. Supports User-Generated Content (UGC)

User-generated content creates a perfect foundation for two-way customer engagement. When a customer shares a picture of themselves using your product or writes a review, your brand can engage with and repost their content. This makes the customer feel validated and encourages them to keep contributing.

Here’s an example of UGC posted by Uber on its Instagram page:

UGC also:

• Enhances Your Brand’s Credibility and Authenticity: Real users sharing their experiences provide social proof, reinforcing trust in your brand.
• Increases Audience Participation: Your customers become part of your brand story when they share positive reviews, unboxing videos, tutorials, and more.
• Boosts Reach and Engagement: When multiple users share UGC, your brand becomes more visible on social media platforms, driving more engagement.

You can encourage UGC by running hashtag contests, featuring customer stories, or simply asking your audience to share. A tool like TINT lets you collect, organize, and publish UGC across digital channels.

4. Fosters Community Building

Besides individual interactions, social media allows you to build thriving communities around your brand. These communities can be official groups on platforms like Facebook or simply a collective of loyal followers who regularly engage with your content.

Creating such spaces empowers your customers to connect, share feedback, and deepen their relationship with your brand. Over time, these interactions become a self-sustaining loop of engagement and loyalty.

The best part?

Most social media platforms come with native features that facilitate community building. You can leverage Facebook Groups to create a niche community and drive engagement.

Peloton created a Facebook community that keeps members engaged and emotionally connected to the brand and one another.

5. Provides Insights for Better Content Personalization

Every interaction on social media provides valuable data about your customers. Likes, comments, shares, direct messages, and even UGC offer insights into audience preferences, pain points, and interests.

Analyzing these insights can help you create more personalized content that truly resonates with various audience segments. This then snowballs into deeper engagement, more conversions, and stronger retention.

Consider using the Meta Business Suite to access detailed audience insights, post-performance statistics, and ad analytics that inform your content strategy.

Best Practices for Driving Two-Way Engagement on Social Media

To drive customer engagement on your socials, you’ll need to stick to some best practices.

Here are a few tried-and-tested practices to follow:

• Respond Promptly: Reply quickly to customers’ comments, messages, and mentions to demonstrate your brand’s reliability and keep the conversations flowing.
• Maintain Consistency: Post content and interact with your audience regularly. A consistent presence keeps your brand top of mind and encourages ongoing engagement.
• Diversify Engagement Tactics: Use various engagement methods, such as polls, questions, and contests, to keep interactions fresh and exciting for your audience.
• Initiate Conversations: Don’t just wait for followers to engage with you. Instead, ask questions, share opinions, and start discussions to spark authentic dialogues.
• Use Interactive Content Formats: Leverage Stories, Reels, quizzes, and interactive stickers to invite direct participation. These formats capture customer attention and drive fun and dynamic engagement.

Wrapping Up

Brands that embrace two-way engagement create stronger and more authentic connections with their customers. Today, social media grants you a direct line to your customers’ thoughts, desires, and needs.

From directly interacting in DMs and comments to creating dedicated communities, every touchpoint on social media can become a conversation. By actively listening, responding, and involving your audience in the brand journey, you can build trust and maximize engagement.

And when engagement goes both ways, loyalty follows.

Editor’s Note

Reena Aggarwal is Director of Operations and Sales at Attrock, a result-driven digital marketing company. With 10+ years of sales and operations experience in the field of e-commerce and digital marketing, she is widely known in her industry. You can contact Reena via email (Reena@attrock.com) here or find her on LinkedIn and Twitter