The benefits and risks of using social media marketing to improve customer retention in the fashion industry
Creating a profile of the followers and customers
By using social media to market an online clothing brand, analytic applications/software can be used to create a greater understanding of the age, gender, location and level of activity (Weinberg, 2017). By creating this average profile, the business will be able to create more appropriate and effective marketing techniques as well as products. The business can create marketing schemes that will encourage the current followers of the social media accounts to continue to engage with the brand through liking, commenting and sharing posts or promotions (Weinberg, 2017). By creating a more specific individual identification of the followers, the business is able to identify the needs of the average consumers (Sashi, 2012). Identifying this need is crucial since meeting these needs on behalf of the business should translate to greater customer retention due, if these needs are not met then the followers are much more likely to look for alternative brands on social media platforms that will meet these needs. By seeing which outfits customers like, share and comment on the most a general image can be created in regard to what is currently popular and what style the social media account should be posting the most. If the outfits are more appealing to the customers they are less likely to unfollow and not buy products from this brand.
https://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/5-ways-to-improve-customer-retention-with-social-media/
Social media is a great listening tool
Another benefit to using social media to improve customer retention is the potential freedom that the customer has for feedback (Hyder, 2017). By having an open-door attitude towards feedback, the company can see what areas need to be improved within the business whether that is the online shop’s scheme or the social media presence (Sisira, 2011). Social media responses will allow for a general idea to be created about what the business is doing well and what the business is failing to do. The feedback given allows for the business to create a better response to these problems since the customer will commonly provide their suggested solution to the problem within the feedback. This service is completely free and is available for any business with a social media account (Hyder, 2017). Some businesses choose to have direct messages unavailable but this generally is not a good idea since it is free feedback and also gives the impression that the business cares about the consumer opinions or problems. If a customer feels that their opinions are valued by the business they are much more likely to continue to be a loyal customer.
Risks involved in using social media marketing to improve customers retention
One of the largest risks of using social media marketing is the censoring of comments and posts about the business. If a clothing business such as Topman wants to allow customers to comment freely on all of their social media posts then it is expected that there will be some very negative comments that can cause people to question whether or not they will buy a product or be associated with the brand (Sandilands, 2017). If there are a few people that do not like a product and then a photo of said product is posted onto the Topman Instagram account then they are likely to voice their negative opinion of the comment. This can cause other customers or potential customers to refuse to buy products from Topman again if they feel the negative comment is reasonable and likely to be accurate.
Some platforms such as Twitter don’t give the option to delete or disable comments on a post (Sandilands, 2017). This can be good because if a frustrated customer wants to cause to stop others from buying a product then this can be stopped, however customers that see this would think that censorship of accurate negative reviews is not a good action to be taken and therefore would not want to buy products from a clothing industry that do not value all the opinions of customers.
http://smallbusiness.chron.com/advantages-disadvantages-social-media-marketing-21890.html
References
Hyder, S. (2017). 4 Ways to Use Social Media to Improve Your Customer Retention Rates. [online] Inc.com. Available at: https://www.inc.com/shama-hyder/4-ways-to-use-social-media-to-improve-your-customer-retention-rates.html [Accessed 2 Jan. 2018].
Sandilands, T. (2017). Advantages and Disadvantages of Social Media Marketing. [online] Smallbusiness.chron.com. Available at: http://smallbusiness.chron.com/advantages-disadvantages-social-media-marketing-21890.html [Accessed 2 Jan. 2018].
Sashi, C. (2012). Customer engagement, buyer‐seller relationships, and social media. Management Decision, 50(2), p.258.
Sisira, N. (2011). SOCIAL MEDIA AND ITS ROLE IN MARKETING. 2nd ed. [ebook] Warangal, p.12. Available at: https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/1013/ba91a504e085212ae4751ed61c3c0e1b6622.pdf [Accessed 2 Jan. 2018].
Weinberg, T. (2017). 5 Ways to Improve Customer Retention With Social Media. [online] Socialmediaexaminer.com. Available at: https://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/5-ways-to-improve-customer-retention-with-social-media/ [Accessed 2 Jan. 2018].