Have you been working on your brand for some time now? Competitors know you and so do your customers. But is this enough? The answer is no! To thrive and be in it for the long haul, winning customer trust is imperative. How do you think giants like Charter sell their Spectrum mobile plans so effortlessly? They do it through the trust and credibility they have built over the years!
PwC performed a global survey that indicated that consumer trust in a brand has a significant impact on where they purchase. 35 percent of respondents said that brand trust was one of the top three factors affecting their decision to purchase at a specific retailer, with 14 percent saying it was the most important factor after price.
If you are out there thinking about how to build trust, social media is the answer. The popular social media platforms we all use these days can help us achieve a lot more than cultivating brands. Social media is one of the most effective techniques for building trust and connection with your audience. It allows them to share their experiences with your product or service with potential customers who might be interested in purchasing it.
Why Is Social Media a Trust Building Great Tool?
For starters, social media gives you a platform for direct communication with your prospects. It’s not a marketing blast sent to everyone who has ever signed up for your email list, nor is it a podcast commercial that will only get heard by the ones who know you. Social media is a platform to reach out to potential customers and your loyal fan base. You can see your fans and speak to them in a setting where they can directly answer you.
Second, regardless of your target market’s demographics, there’s a good chance they’re on social media. Their chosen platform may differ (for example, older audiences may prefer Facebook while younger viewers may choose TikTok), but social media is a part of their lives and that’s where you interact with them.
How to Build Trust with Social Media
Now let’s dig into some strategies for building trust using social media:
Be Your Authentic Self
What Millennials are drawn to? It’s authenticity! In fact, the word authenticity has never been used more than in the last few years. But what exactly does that mean, really?
It refers to a specific level of character purity, which in marketing terms means “no-nonsense.” Millennials despise false advertising and they are really good at sniffing out deceptive brand objectives. They adore a good, true story: something meaningful from the company’s founding staff that flows through its veins. They want messaging that feels authentic and is authentic and social media allows you to do that exactly.
Use the Power of UGC
UGC is a powerful way to make your products appealing. When people see a post in the lifestyle context by a real person, it is easier for them to imagine themselves in that situation too. Such posts are not just a gold mine for building trust but they are real sales boosters.
Start by repurposing posts of your products or service created by Instagrammers. You can even collaborate with influencers for that. By giving your fans a subtle shootout via sharing the posts they have shared, you are building a connection with them. Plus, they will feel seen, which is what most millennials and Gen Z want!
Stay Relevant
When you are posting content, don’t post about food if you sell flowers. Not only would this be confusing, but it could also cost you your credibility because this gives the impression that you strayed from your area of expertise. Once your audience feels that you have strayed, the trust just disappears!. It takes a long time to create trust, and it can be destroyed in a snap by silly things.
Keep your focus on developing a story that establishes you as a brand that thinks before posting content. You want your audience to be able to look at you as a credible source of information in your industry.
Be Transparent
Customers worry about far more than the final product in today’s industry. They want to know where it was created, who made it, what the working conditions were like, how long it took from start to end, how much the supply chain cost, how much each item’s carbon footprint is, and so on.
Modern buyers are highly knowledgeable and if you fail to convey all this information, it can prove to be detrimental to a company. The days of sweeping faults under the corporate rug are long gone! Consumers anticipate and demand access to information, and if a company fails to offer satisfactory answers to their questions, they will spend their money elsewhere without hesitation. So, you have got to be transparent. There is no better platform to be transparent than social media where customers have direct access to you!
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