Transforming customer engagement into customer loyalty is the overarching goal at LG Electronics, says David Vanderwaal, Head of Marketing USA for LG Electronics. One of the biggest ways LG Electronics achieves this customer engagement is through its use of social media.
"We put a lot of time into social," Vanderwaal told Loyalty360. "We are building social platforms and programs that talk about things other than straight-up product; our Facebook, YouTube channel, and Twitter post lots of things that don't have to do with appliances, but topics that are of general interest to our target. For example, last year we ran a 'Life's Good House'-everything on our Facebook page centered on tips on how to make the home run better; many were humorous and practical, and very few had anything to do with appliances. We had tremendous engagement with that."
What's more, LG Electronics leveraged the platform around its TV campaign on social.
"This was our 'Inner Voice' campaign that focused on momsí inner confessions," Vanderwaal said. "A mom would go on our site and deliver her own inner thoughts and confessions. The engagement was off the charts. And once they post their own confessions, they turn it around and push out on their own social platforms. Social is the way to stay in the game and is the 
way to keep people talking about the brand whether or not they are ready to buy. Social is the way to stay intactñeven if economy isnít there."
Vanderwaal said the ìbig measure for usî on the social side is engagement.
"How many times did someone push, pull, like, tweet?? he said. "How much did we push it-Twitter, like, etc.? We have done enough of these over the past five years, so we have some pretty good benchmarks based on history, and our agency helps us understand some category benchmarks. That becomes our primary KPI. Translating to sell-through or sales is a little trickier. How do you really get a good modeling mix that can show how much this is worth in terms of sell-through? We plan to put together a true modeling mix, a research piece, which is going to more directly establish correlations among all our different channels and touch points to see how activity affects actual sell-through."
About the Author: Mark Johnson
Mark is CEO & CMO of Loyalty360. He has significant experience in selling, designing and administering prepaid, loyalty/CRM programs, as well as data-driven marketing communication programs.