Source: Wix | Unsplash
Nowadays, people are overloaded with information and subsequently, social media becomes convoluted. This is where social currency becomes imperative for brands to acquire and maintain; a 'gregarious' brand gains advantages by sustaining presence through the process of building awareness, consideration to purchase, and brand loyalty. A study by Joachimstaler's consultancy firm, Vivaldi Partners, highlighted six consumer's social behaviours that drive the social currency. Let's have a look at these levers and how brands can leverage these levers to strengthen their social currency:
Affiliation
Enabling consumer-to-consumer interactions can enhance a sense of community. This demonstrates an opportunity for marketers to facilitate this ingrained need to interact with fellow consumers: brand community. Brand communities increase social currency as it drives engagement and fosters two-way communication between the users. If brands can aid positive affiliations within their communities, a positive narrative will be spread.
Harley Owners Group (HOG) is one good example that uses this lever. Through its experiential marketing activities not only for existing consumers but also for potential buyers, HOG was able to create positive experiences in every consumer touchpoints. Furthermore, they incentivised consumer loyalty with membership-only features, eventually helping HOG in driving more engagement and building social currency.
Identity 'You are what you buy'. Consumers do not only form connections but also identify themselves with brands. It is then important for a brand to create meaningful relationships with consumers that can drive their social currency. Since people nowadays constantly share their thoughts and interests in social media, the more consumers can resonate with the brand, the more potential brands will have in strengthening their social currency.
Personalisation is one of the tactics to achieve resonance. Netflix is one of the successful brands who implemented this tactic; not only by recommending movies based on content that consumers have watched, but also to the extent of personalising movie covers with actors that its consumers are familiar with.
Information
Knowledge sharing is one attribute that consumers value from a brand, especially for new users. An informative marketing campaign help brands to build social currency as consumers share new knowledge and conversely learn from the knowledge shared by other consumers.
Apart from promoting their products, Colourpop makes use of its Instagram profile to inform ways of utilising their products through makeup tutorials submitted by their consumers. This informational campaign doesn't only educate new users, but also drives engagement by co-creating value with their followers.
Conversation
Once pieces of information about the brand are circulating, marketers are usually left with no control. It is why that aiding constructive conversation is important to achieve positive WOM. The more positive a brand's WOM is, the more likely it is for the brand to build powerful social currency.
Coca Cola became viral in 2010 for its' Happiness Machine campaign. It was aimed to build positive conversations around the brand, that were not only evident between the students in the campaign, but also between its consumers around the world thanks to the virality it caused.
Utility
Utility is defined as practical values derived by engaging with brands and/or other brand users. When consumers consider brands are delivering a positive value, it increases the desire to pass the information to their strong or weak ties. This desire to share valuable message then becomes a drive of stronger social currency for the brand.
One classic example to drive utility is Starbucks' BOGO campaign. The clear call-to-action 'to share with a friend' doesn't only refer to share the free beverage but also to share the promotion with friends.
Advocacy
Once brands gained trust from their consumers, they benefit from support coming from their loyal advocates. This advocacy helps companies to save money from spending on advertising fees by letting loyal consumers organically champion the brand.
However, companies can also attain advocacy inorganically through influencers. Daniel Wellington was one of the firsts-to-market to leverage micro-influencers in their social media strategy. They did not only offer more than free product endorsement but also asked the influencers to include their own discount code in theirposts to enable referral and to track which influencers generate more ROI.
Questions to ponder...
Do you think these levers truly drive social currency? Can you think of an example of a brand that successfully utilises all of these levers to achieve strong social currency?
Updated 20/09: Shortened the post.