Engaging and Retaining Customers Through Social Media and Mobile-Enabled Loyalty Programs

Social networking isn’t new—it is a concept that has existed for centuries.  What is new is that the influence of a consumer’s social network has been recently amplified by the digital organization of our existing social touch-points through social media tools such as Facebook, YouTube, Tumblr, Pinterest more.  

This amplification is certainly powered by the growth of mobile technology, as shown by two separate studies released in late 2011:

• There are more mobile devices in use in the United States than there are people—327.6 million wireless subscriber connections vs 300 million people living in the U.S. and its territories (study conducted by CTIA)
• 60% of all Americans spend between one and six hours viewing content on electronic devices (study conducted by Poll Position)

Your customers are spending over one-half of their day using their iPhones, Android phones, Blackberries, iPads and other tablets to interact with the world around them.  And quite often, according to telecommunications vendor Ericcson, this interaction is occurring in a very personal manner:

• 35% of smartphone users log onto a social networking site before they get out of bed
• 20% of social media users do a “last check-in” before bed at night