The digital age has completely evolved the “word of mouth” concept. Many consumers choose to spread the word of a brand or company they resonate with through direct engagement and advocacy.

Candice Charleton from Hootsuite Media states “taking care of the customers that love your brand is incredibly important for a lot of reasons. You’re giving a fantastic customer experience to people who love you. When you look at having a strong community and brand advocates that are out there championing you on your behalf, you’ve got a major competitive differentiator.”

Skeptical about the monetary values that super fans bring? Candice Charleton proves that having social super fans are extremely beneficial for the long continued success of your business.

“80% of your future revenue will come from 20% of your current customers. Increasing your retention rate by 5% can increase your profits and revenue by 95% over the long term. This is huge. Increased engagement on your community sites can result in a 25% increase in revenue. Having someone that can go ahead and follow up on the conversation can have absolute direct impact on the bottom line.”

Hootsuite defines their community as their employees, partners, brand advocates, user base, their entire audience. “If we know what community is and we want to apply that to our business, it’s really important figure out who our community is and how community can help customer experience.”

This experience can be either digital or physical. In order to expand Hootsuite’s community and customer experience, they have implemented a customer journey that spans from awareness to expansion.

Charleton further clarifies the customer journey, stating “they read about Hootsuite in an article, somebody mentions it over drinks one night, they go online and see an ad. Then they think ‘Maybe I should check it out!’ They get to the evaluation stage and decide ‘I’m going to look into it.’ The, they end up joining in and getting to be a part of your business.”

The journey doesn’t end there, however. According to Charleton, “we need to think about how we are now taking care of them in terms of their experience to make sure that they’re happy, saying great things about our product, and want to recommend it to their friends. This is really where community becomes the most valuable.”

As Candice Charleton puts it, “the rise of social communities in media amplifies the voice of everyone. Social harnesses this dialogue and makes it useful in digital ways. With all of the wonderful ways we have via social to reach out, engage, and bring people into our community, now is the time.”

Article Written By: Mahin Rahaman