You already know that customer testimonials are a powerful tool in a marketing director’s arsenal. They offer people a third-party assessment of a program’s quality – and they give a peer-to-peer recommendation that is so important in attracting today’s consumer.
However, customer testimonials are being reinvented because of social media. Social content, in fact, is the new, more credible testimonial. People want to feel safe in their purchases – and there is safety in numbers. If other people recommend your program, it means your communication vehicles are a safer source of information.
When someone recommends your program on a social media site, they are doing it because they want to, not because they’ve been asked to. However, a study by Bit.ly found that the half-life of a social media post is a mere three hours.
Here are five ways to get the most out of social media testimonials, expand their reach, and get them to work for your marketing effort beyond its three-hour half-life.
#1. Take a screenshot of the testimonial and save it as a jpeg. You can do this for any of the social media sites and crop it so that only the testimonial is in the picture.
#2. Add the screenshot to the bottom of emails as part of your signature.
#3. Post the testimonial screenshots to other social media. For instance, if someone recommends you on Facebook you can post a picture of that recommendation onto Pinterest.
#4. Include social media testimonials on your landing pages and blogs, before your call to action. For instance, on your course description/registration landing pages, post a social media testimonial before your “click here to register” link.
#5. Put social media testimonial screenshots in your print materials. LERN always recommends that you cross promote between your eMarketing and print marketing pieces. This is another way to drive those who see your catalog to interact with you online.