Social media is a powerful tool that can leverage engagement to bring more foot traffic into your store. With beacons, stores have yet another technique in their arsenal to increase interest in store visits and simultaneously broadcast customer activities over social media.
When done properly, each platform can fuel the success of the other in a cyclical pattern. Here are some methods stores are using to encourage foot traffic with beacons and social media working in tandem:
Advertising Beacons as an In-Store Draw
One of the most potent uses of social media is to inform customers of new promotions or new products that are in stock. Exposures to these types of posts and the engagement they drive can give customers a solid reason to come visit a retail location.
Beacons can be such a draw all on their own. Rather than informing customers of a specific promotion, a brand can instead mention that special offers can be found using beacons. The retail chain can also advertise new products in stock with the caveat that a beacon will be there to add to the experience with richer information or perhaps a demonstration video. Retail customers can then get excited not only about a new event, but also about how beacons can come into play during the process of it.
Using Beacons to Encourage or Automate Social Media Posts of Customer Actions
Proximity marketing is all about being in the moment. Social media is about sharing moments. The two can work together by encouraging a customer with beacons to perform a social media action that will offer them some sort of benefit.
For instance, a beacon by a store entrance can request for a customer to check-in on social media or even do so automatically with their permission. Every person that walks through the door using the relevant beacon app will immediately post about their store visit to inform their friends. Some stores offer loyalty program benefits for activities like these.
Customers can be encouraged to perform more specific social media activities while near beacon-enabled store displays. A great campaign idea would be to use beacons and digital signage to encourage a customer to post a picture of them trying out a product. For instance, a new brand of sun visors can ask customers to post a selfie of them trying the visor on to Facebook.
Likewise, people can be encouraged to tweet product reviews and this information can show up via beacon-enabled apps as a customer walks by a display. People get to participate in a fun, common activity and stores get a bevy of content to post online or display via beacon-enabled apps.
Providing a High-Quality, Relevant Experience All Around
Aside from one-off promotions and methods to get people excited, beacons and social media can play a more conservative role in offering customers value. Beacons can be used to give highly-relevant product information or personalized offers based on a person’s shared data. Data gathered from in-store activities can then inform decisions on which products to advertise or which information to share via social media. Relative engagement for these posts produces yet more data, so the two can work together to discover specifically what customers like seeing and how to deliver this content or information to them more consistently both in-store and online.
Many large chains are already discovering the potential these types of interrelated programs can offer. The rich information social media and beacons can provide from customer actions are an excellent resource when it comes to building retail traffic.
A beacon platform that can also manage social media is the key to unlocking the full potential of these programs. Digital Social Retail lets brands manage social media and beacons side-by-side so that actions in one campaign can create a response in the other. Our digital convergence platform also gathers and presents data so that brands can inform their decisions with as many metrics as they need.
Visit our products page to find out how one simple program can harness the exponential power of beacons and social media together.
