Professor Yolanda Jordaan Head of Department of Marketing Management at University of Pretoria deed onderzoek naar de inzet en het gebruik van social media om brand engagement te verhogen. De European Marketing Confederation, koepel van Europese marketing-beroepsverenigingen waarbij NIMA is aangesloten, publiceerde een rapport met haar bevindingen:
Many companies implement loyalty programmes to create a competitive advantage and increase the share-of-wallet with their customers.
However, most have realised that loyalty programmes alone do not guarantee loyal customers, and that there is a big difference between belonging to a loyalty programme, and actively participating in a loyalty programme. This makes it important to know what customers really want out of a loyalty programme. To explore this further, a recent study (2017) looked at a new approach to increase consumers’ use and perceptions of brands and their loyalty programmes, by not only rewarding their transactions, but also their social media engagement with the brand.
The authors analysed five types of social media engagement: participation in a quiz; in a competition; in a game; posting a travel review; and liking or commenting on the current posts on a Facebook group.
The members that engaged on the Facebook group were rewarded for their participation through loyalty points (indirect monetary reward) or a free train journey (direct non-monetary reward).