What is brand reputation management?

Brand reputation management refers to keeping tabs on how consumers perceive your brand and reacting in a strategic way to maintain, improve, and protect that image. Much of your brand reputation hinges on what consumers say about you on social media and in reviews, and how you communicate with these shoppers. 

Focusing on your brand reputation management is crucial for growth. A positive reputation fosters brand loyalty, inspires shopper confidence, boosts sales, and puts you above your competition. Whereas negative sentiments may cause sales to drop and scare off customers. But hey, it’s not all bad. 

Paying close attention to the chatter about your brand — both positive and negative — presents an opportunity to learn about your customers to help you better meet their needs in the future.

Brand reputation management strategies

Brand reputation management isn’t a one-time deal. It’s a continuous process of keeping up with consumer perception and taking time to resolve any issues that arise.

Here’s the 10 most effective brand management reputation strategies to guide your brand.

1. Encourage ratings and reviews

Shoppers love sharing their opinions of brands, and review spaces give them a forum to offer that feedback. Reviews are a valuable part of the shopping experience. According to our research, 88% of consumers always or mostly read reviews before buying anything and 78% say reviews have the biggest influence on their purchases.

Keeping a fresh crop of reviews flowing in is vital. Consumers tend to spend more on products and services when they encounter positive reviews, and 25% of shoppers think reviews remain relevant after 12 months but most prefer reviews written in in the past three months. After turning to ratings and reviews for their site, retail brand Brother, for example, saw customers spend 3x longer on its website, and they were 2x more likely to click a call-to-action when they engaged with reviews.

The tools can help brands collect reviews and other user-generated content (UGC) like photos and videos.  

If you don’t have many reviews for a certain product, first focus your attention on increasing your review volume. Just a handful of reviews can noticeably increase sales and customer sentiment. There’s several methods for getting more reviews, including sending review request emails and product sampling.

2. Respond to all reviews (even the negative ones)

When customers trust a brand, they’ll return time after time, Cydni Lauper style. Engaging directly with shoppers helps build trust, and one of the best ways to do that is to respond to their feedback — both negative and positive. 

Respond to positive reviews with a thank you and comment on a specific element from their review to personalize the response. Or take the opportunity to emphasize your brand pillars, like your brand’s commitment to customer service. Positive reviews are excellent content, too, so promote them on your product pages and social media channels.

Over 60% of shoppers say negative reviews are just as important as positive ones. (Many people get suspicious when there’s too many positive reviews.) So, you need to respond to this negative feedback as well.

Be understanding and authentic in your reply, and offer a solution, such as sending a product replacement or a genuine apology. This signals to customers that you’re listening and care about making them happy. 

Among unhappy shoppers, 70% will do business with a brand again if their complaint is resolved and 34% will delete a negative review if they’re satisfied with a brand’s response.

3. Answer customer questions 

If an in-store shopper asked you a question about a product or your customer service, would you answer them? Of course, you would. So you need to answer online questions, too. Answering customer questions is a critical part of brand reputation management — it builds loyalty and helps shoppers make confident, informed purchasing decisions.

Enabling a questions and answers platform on your product page(s) can also slash your return rates and the number of customer complaints you’ll receive, and boost conversion rate. 

For example, brands that use Bazaarvoice’s Questions & Answers platform to respond to shopper queries can see a 98% jump in conversions. You can also garner valuable insights from the customer questions to help improve your products or business.

Nestlé Canada enabled Bazaarvoice Q&A on its site and within three months had already responded to 700 questions. Noting consistent negative questions and comments about a particular product, the brand reacted by changing the recipe and the product’s average star rating jumped from 1.7 to 4 stars.

4. Share your mission 

Consumers increasingly want to shop with ethical brands that have a mission that aligns with their own values. Especially millennials and Gen Z. 71% of consumers think brands and retailers have the potential to positively impact society, and about 60% believe brands have a social responsibility to speak out and take action on important issues. 

Sharing your mission — whether it’s sustainability-focused, supporting specific social causes, or being a top-notch place to work — across social media sites and on your e-commerce site helps build trust and emotional connections with shoppers. 

When you share your mission and commitment to important causes, it makes your brand more relatable to the public. This will do wonders for your brand reputation. According to a Sprout Social report, 64% of consumers want to connect with brands, and 53% feel connected when a brand’s values align with their own. 

Communicating your mission also helps you control the narrative that surrounds your brand and lets you present your values in an authoritative and accurate way. 

5. Embrace visual and social content 

Authentic experiences are important to today’s shoppers. They like to see products in real-world settings — clothing modeled by real people and consumers demonstrating how something works. Actually, 40% of shoppers won’t purchase if a product page lacks UGC. Consumers seek out customer photos on product pages, search engines, social media, and other websites that sell the items.

Deploying the right visual and social content across every channel where your brand can be found engages shoppers and promotes a positive brand reputation. 

Displaying authentic imagery from real shoppers on your e-commerce site does more than just improve your brand reputation. When consumers interact with visual content on-site, shoppers spend more time on the website, buy more, and conversion rates soar.

For example, Le Col has seen average order value increase by 13%, revenue per visitor by 155%, and conversion rate by 125% when shoppers engage with UGC. 

6. Optimize creative product pages

Shoppers want to feel confident that anything they buy will meet their needs, and they rely on product descriptions to provide all the information they need. When product detail pages lack details, it’s so frustrating for consumers that they abandon their shopping cart. 

A whopping 98% of shoppers say they’ve been dissuaded from purchasing something because a product page didn’t have enough information. Not including detailed descriptions or including incorrect information can weaken your reputation and drive up your return rates. 

Highlight a product’s key features and use sensory wording that’s relatable to consumers. Include details about how an item works, how it’ll help in consumers’ daily lives, and the results that it will provide. Featuring visual UGC, reviews, and questions and answers helps shoppers make quick (but well-informed) decisions and inspires loyalty. 

7. Step up your SEO tactics 

A significant amount of shopping journeys start on search engines, like Google. So, it’s crucial to optimize your SEO strategy to ensure your brand gets noticed at this critical stage. Producing high-quality, SEO-centric content on your website will help you stand out. So, your brand reputation management process should factor in SEO, including how you’ll monitor negative online search results and what action you’ll take. 

You can gather insights into the wording that shoppers use to search for your products and describe how they meet their needs from syndicating reviews and other UGC. This information can then be used to create your SEO strategy around user sentiment and keep up with Google’s algorithm changes. 

8. Monitor your reviews on other websites

The more ratings and reviews that your products have, the more likely shoppers will be inspired to purchase. But, your website isn’t the only place where people can leave reviews. A key part of your brand reputation management strategy should be to keep an eye on what consumers are saying about you everywhere reviews can be posted. Channels like social media, Yelp, or your Google seller rating.

With thousands of reviews likely to pop up on multiple platforms, overseeing it all can be overwhelming. If you need help, a ratings and reviews platform can streamline everything. The right tools feature built-in insights and analytics to help you quickly identify themes and problems that could affect your brand reputation. As well as ways to take action to improve the sentiment around your brand.

9. Focus on top-notch customer service

Happy customers keep coming back. The best way to keep your most loyal shoppers happy is with proactive customer service and unique, personalized customer experiences. Customers are actually starting to expect these experiences from brands, with 25% of consumers saying they’re interested in personalization in shopping.

Getting it right — which involves actively listening to consumers and quickly resolving any problems that come up — offers endless benefits, including higher customer satisfaction and conversion rates, which translates to a stellar brand reputation. 

The most loyal customers tend to use words like “happy,” “love,” and “adore” when discussing their favorite brands. This kind of customer sentiment resonates with other shoppers and helps attract new ones. When happy customers share something positive about your brand on social media, for example, reward them with a special discount or other perk or highlight their stories on your website.

Showing appreciation for your best customers will amplify your brand and reinforce your reputation. 

10. Crack down on fake reviews

Nearly all shoppers (97%) say fake reviews make them lose trust in a brand, according to our research of 10,000 global consumers. That’s significant because 81% of shoppers also say they’d never use a brand again after losing trust in it. And they’re getting better at spotting fake reviews:

Cracking down on fake reviews associated with your brand is an essential part of your reputation management. Effective tactics include:

• Don’t allow fake reviews. Sounds obvious, but don’t be tempted to allow fake reviews just because they may be positive. Use an in-house our third-party content moderation service to screen them out
• Keep on top of legislation. Fake reviews are becoming so prevalent that new regulations are constantly being drawn up. For example, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has recently proposed new regulations to crack down on fake reviews
• Never incentivize positive reviews. You can ask customers for reviews (and you should!) but never offer financial reward for a positive review. If you do incentivize a review, through a coupon for example, then make sure to add a disclaimer to the review

Brand reputation management case studies

1. Retail giant River Island keeps on top of its brand reputation management through authentic visual content. The brand wanted to provide an authentic shopping experience for customers so they incorporated visual UGC onto their homepage, landing pages, and product pages. Visitors that engaged with this visual UGC on the brand’s site drove a 184% increase conversion rates
2. Hairhouse wanted to build a web presence that today’s shoppers expect by providing social proof through honest reviews. Not only did implementing reviews provide this, but the brand ensured only authentic, genuine reviews were featured. This real life social proof from shoppers inspired other shoppers to make purchases and led to a 35% increase in conversion rate.

Get a head start on your brand reputation management

These days, with consumers always-on, you can’t ignore your brand reputation. Taking the opportunity to listen and respond to customers, in both positive and negative situations, is crucial for growth. Follow these steps, repeat them and repeat them again and again — brand reputation management is an ongoing process. But a worthy one.

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What is suggestive selling?

How do most brands and retailers accomplish this? With suggestive selling. Suggestive selling basically means “cross-selling” or “upselling.” You’re trying to get customers to buy more than they originally intended to (without being annoying). 

The benefits of suggestive selling 

We’re sure you’ve been to a store where the sales associate won’t stop asking if you’d like to try a new product. Maybe you’ve been to a website where an annoying pop-up keeps asking if you’d like to add more items to your cart. 

Those types of suggestive selling techniques can turn customers off and potentially lower AOV (or encourage them not to make a purchase at all!) But, when done right, suggestive selling can significantly impact revenue. Your goal is to be helpful, not pushy. 

When you actually focus on being consultative, you’ll learn more about the customer and what they’re looking for. Then, you’ll be able to have better conversations, make more personalized recommendations, build credibility and trust, and increase AOV. 

Below, check out the 5 best suggestive selling techniques to increase your AOV, without bothering your customers.

Top 5 suggestive selling techniques for brands and retailers 

1. Recommend complementary items 

Have you ever ordered an entree at a restaurant and been asked if you want to add a side salad for just $2.99? Or been asked if you wanted fries with that when you ordered a Big Mac? That’s basically suggestive selling. Your server offered you a complementary item you could easily add on for a low price. 

This technique works for brands and retailers, too, because if a customer is already buying something from you, they’re likely to add more complementary, affordable items to their cart. 

In stores, showcase complementary items together on the shelves, like putting a new scented body wash, its matching lotion, and perfume on the same display. Or, if you’re selling electronics, place any accessories like headphones or chargers, next to the product in-store. 

For your e-commerce shop, use pop-ups or messages on the check-out page to encourage customers to add more items to the cart. For example, if a shopper is purchasing a leather bag, suggest they buy an affordable leather cleaner to keep their bag looking new at all times. This is what Cuyana does. When customers are looking at product pages for leather bags, the brand encourages them to “Add Accessories” in the form of leather cleaner and conditioner. 

2. Tell customers about new arrivals right away

When a customer comes into your brick-and-mortar store, have a sales associate welcome them and ask if they’d like to check out new products that just came in. The salesperson will learn a little more about the customer and what they’re looking for and may be able to put additional items on their radar. 

You can do this online too, by directing customers to new arrivals as soon as they land on your website. Fashion retailer Revolve immediately advertises new arrivals to customers on its homepage with a flashy graphic. The goal here is for customers to find something they weren’t looking for originally and place a larger order. 

3. Create product bundles 

This is one of the more commonly used suggestive selling techniques. Customers want a good deal, and product bundles offer them that while allowing you to increase AOV. It’s a win-win. Create a bundle of products that are typically purchased together. Then, tell customers that if they buy the whole bundle at one time, they’ll pay 20% (or whatever number you choose) less than if they purchased everything individually. 

Home security company Ring understands that when customers buy a video doorbell, camera, or alarm system, they’re probably outfitting an entire home with security measures. That’s why Ring offers bundles that allow customers to purchase multiple cameras for their homes at once. And save money doing it.

For example, one bundle saves customers $139 when they purchase three Spotlight Cameras and an Amazon Echo.

4. Use ratings and reviews to your advantage 

Ratings and reviews from real customers can encourage product discovery and conversions. They’re a form of visual suggestive selling. According to our 2021 Shopper Experience Index, about 40% of shoppers won’t purchase from a brand or retailer’s website if there isn’t user-generated content (UGC) on the product page they’re on. And our 2022 Shopper Experience Index revealed a 144% lift in conversion rate when shoppers engage with UGC.

Display authentic content from current customers on your site with gallery pages that feature product tags and encourage shoppers to discover new products. We’ve seen AOVs increase by 15% when customers interact with Galleries. 

Furniture brand West Elm displays social media photo galleries on its product pages to show how customers styled certain furniture pieces in real life. 

When a shopper clicks on one of the photos, westelm.com shows them how to “Get the Look” and recommends other products from the customer photo as a suggestive selling technique. 

5. Create a loyalty program 

Loyalty programs are a great way to upsell because they reward customers with discounts or free products when they spend more money. Accenture found that 57% of customers spend more on brands they’re loyal to. The other benefits of a customer loyalty program for brands and retailers are that they provide you with more customer data and easily help you collect feedback for product improvements. 

Sephora has one of the best loyalty programs in the biz. The Beauty Insider Program has three tiers that customers can qualify for each year: 

• Insider: Free to join
• VIB: Customers must spend at least $350 per year
• Rouge: Customers must spend at least $1,000 at Sephora in a year 

Each tier offers customers unique benefits. For example, Rouge members get $20 off during the store’s seasonal sales (Insiders get 10% and VIBs get 15%), and they also receive invites to exclusive events and first access to new products. 

When used together, the suggestive selling techniques we’ve detailed create a better overall customer experience. You’re providing more personalized recommendations, making it easier for customers to find what they need, and helping them make more informed purchasing decisions.

You’ll see the benefits too in higher AOVs, and you’ll retain more customers because you’re providing a pleasurable shopping experience. 

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For these brands, it meant more orders and more consumers discovering them via online channels. And companies that had already been following e-commerce trends had a major advantage over those that had to catch up.

Two years later, home improvement marketing trends are focused on customer experiences that bring a new level of immersion to the shopping experience. Customers reward brands that make it easy to get as much product information as possible through live support, mixed reality technology, and user-generated content (UGC).

Top 5 home improvement marketing trends

By 2025, a quarter of all furniture sales will take place in the online channel. For your home improvement brand to win in 2022 and beyond, these are the five marketing trends and tactics to watch.

1. Augmented reality

When shopping for a new piece of furniture, customers want to be able to visualize it in their home. That’s where augmented reality (AR) technology comes in. Using their phone, a customer can see if that new sofa matches the coffee table before they commit to the purchase. As such, AR isn’t a gimmick but a useful functionality that’s a win-win for retailers and consumers. Some AR tools, like Envision, decrease returns up to 80% while increasing sales by 30%.

Pinterest, everyone’s go-to platform for when they need visual inspiration, has released a new AR shopping feature that includes home improvement. The Try On feature works with items from retailers like Walmart and Crate & Barrel and spans 80,000 pins. Because the pins are shoppable, users can easily go from scrolling to ordering, so there’s little friction between discovery and purchase. According to Pinterest, the Try On feature increases the likelihood of users making a purchase by 5x. 

E-commerce platform Shopify also helped the shopping complex Magnolia Market bring an AR feature to its app. Users can preview what decor products would look like in their homes and also take a photo to share with others. They can also manipulate the object to see it from different angles.

When it comes to using mixed reality technology, leave it to furniture giant IKEA to go all out. It already has an AR-powered app (IKEA Place), but the Swedish company has released a new solution that blends AI and mixed reality. Called IKEA Kreativ, it captures an image of a room and helps you decorate it from scratch. It can also remove your current furniture from the photo, so there’s no need to shuffle things around IRL. The kings of home improvement marketing.

2. Buy now, pay later

With rising inflation and an uncertain economy, shoppers are going to think twice before making big purchases — especially if they must pay up front. Flexible payment options like buy now, pay later (BNPL) can increase conversions and expand access to your products. BNPL allows customers to pay off items in multiple installments, usually without any fees.

Over 30% of internet users are also BNPL users, and projections estimate that 79 million consumers in the US will rely on BNPL in 2022 to fund their purchases. 

Home improvement e-commerce stores can offer BNPL via popular providers like PayPal, Klarna, Afterpay, and Affirm, which integrate at checkout. BNPL can also help you when marketing to Gen Z, as they made up nearly 37% of users in 2021 — more than any other generation.

Furniture companies that added Affirm’s BNPL solution include Article and Herman Miller. For Article, it represents an opportunity to build consumer trust, while Herman Miller wanted to bring more payment flexibility to its online customers. According to Erika White, head of communications and corporate marketing at Affirm, its retail partners experience an average order value growth of 85% with its solution.

3. Live customer support

Customers who are making big home improvement purchases sometimes need more information before placing an order. If they can’t find this information on your website, then their next step is to get in touch with customer service teams. That’s where live customer support comes in. It includes customer service agents who are there to help customers in real time, by phone or chat. 

Live customer support is especially important when we talk about online shopping for items that require some technical knowledge. “Lighting is a very technical category. It requires different electrical components, installation. We certainly augment our site experience with live sales teams, based here in the U.S., that are very knowledgeable. Sometimes that will help people feel comfortable making the decision,” explains Anne Berger, chief marketing officer at lighting retailer YDesign Group.

Customer expectations for live support have increased. From 2019 to 2021, the percentage of US online adults who described live online chat as “important” for retailers grew from 27% to 42%. Home improvement e-commerce brands that ignore this are providing an opportunity for their competitors to win over potential customers, making live support an essential part of your online store user experience.

4. Social commerce

For proof that social media is essential to home improvement marketing, look no further than Pinterest. When we plan a redecorating project, we go online to find interior design inspiration. (How are you supposed to know that a glazed tile backsplash is perfect for your kitchen if you’ve never seen it before?) 

So, social commerce bridges the gap between exploring and purchasing, allowing online furniture and decor brands to organically incorporate their products into social media. From Instagram to Facebook, major social networks all incorporate e-commerce features that your furniture store can take advantage of.

Anthropologie, a clothing and home decor retailer, saw a dramatic increase in searches for its home decor on the platform: 1,057% year over year for the “anthropologie home decor inspiration” keyword. To follow up on that success, it launched an exclusive digital catalog on Pinterest for its 2020 spring home collection.

While browsing the catalog, Pinterest users can click on links that will take them to the Anthropologie website, where they can purchase the items.

Live commerce (shopping while watching a livestream) is also making waves in the retail industry, with conversions close to 30% (almost 10x higher than traditional e-commerce). Although live commerce is much more popular with clothing brands (furnishing and home improvement only make up 3.6% of live commerce events), this creates an opportunity to focus your home improvement marketing strategy on attracting this consumer attention.

In Korea, IKEA has already piloted a live shopping solution. During the livestream, IKEA home improvement experts talked about their products and shared tips, while viewers could ask questions and make orders.

5. User-generated content

Images, videos, and written reviews all fall under the umbrella of UGC. Since UGC comes from real people and not the brand, it plays an important role in providing social proof and assuring consumers of the product’s high quality. And UGC has a major impact on consumers — by using customer photos and videos, you can increase the likelihood of purchase by 66% and 62%, respectively.

You can grow UGC for your home improvement marketing strategy in several ways. One is by introducing a product sampling program that gives out items for free in exchange for honest customer reviews. Home Depot Canada partnered with Bazaarvoice to create the Seeds Sampling program to increase UGC for four new Philips WiZ products. The added product reviews resulted in a 68% higher conversion rate compared to other products that weren’t included in the program.

Another way of encouraging UGC is by launching contests and challenges on social media. Furniture and houseware retailer Made.com launched a campaign that invited customers to share photos on Instagram of its products in their homes with the hashtag #MADEdesign. Participating customers had the chance to be featured in a new digital and print campaign which was a strong incentive to take part in the contest.

Build your customers’ trust in your home improvement e-commerce brand

New consumer behaviors and marketing trends have allowed home improvement brands’ e-commerce businesses to flourish. In the UK and Germany, for example, more than 50% of consumers now turn to online shopping for furniture and home improvement.

Home improvement marketing isn’t immune to broader trends in retail, such as social commerce, but it does face unique challenges. Customers take more time to research and buy furniture and other home furnishings (as opposed to clothing), so providing them with innovative ways of learning more about your products is essential.

Solutions that establish customer trust grow UGC with genuine reviews. The reviews boost your customers’ confidence, which results in improved conversion rate metrics — just in time for you to take advantage of the growing number of online home improvement shoppers.

Learn more about home improvement marketing, trends, and solutions.

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Using examples from industry giants, and our own network data, we lay out expert tactics and tips for doing just that, including the best products (some of which might be Bazaarvoice’s ) to help you achieve your lofty goals.

If you’re a consumer electronics brand, you know that a growing part of your consumer base is Gen Z and millennials. And as technology advances, consumers are largely moving toward online shopping when it comes to making purchase decisions. Statista predicts that 43.6% of this year’s total revenue alone for consumer electronics will be generated through online sales.

Consumer behavior has also turned toward product research online, with many shoppers searching through social media for peer opinions. According to Marketing Charts, 24% of social media users are doing their research on social media prior to purchasing electronics products. Considering that 82% of the United States population older than 12 uses social media, that’s a large chunk of the market.

How to boost your consumer electronics marketing strategy

Boosting engagement on social media is crucial to a successful marketing strategy for consumer electronics. And even though it’s hard to think of fresh approaches, social media is where many consumers (especially Gen Z and millenials) look for buying advice.

Here’s our top consumer electronics marketing tactics to increase your social media engagement.

1. Encourage user-generated content

First and foremost, your efforts to increase engagement need to start with the way you interact with your community. While posting about your current products and exciting new deals may bring in some interaction, you need to actively encourage engagement. That might look different depending on your brand — but it’s good to note what other brands are doing.

Apple’s smartphones are known for their high-quality built-in cameras. And there’s a reason for that reputation. Apple encourages their iPhone users to submit their photos to be shared publicly through their #ShotoniPhone campaign.

This photo shared by Apple was taken by Mathilde Z. in French Polynesia. Apple added information to the post like the location of the image, what tools the photographer used, and a quote from the photographer about their artistic style. They also tagged the photographer, allowing Mathilde Z. and their followers the opportunity to interact with the post.

This kind of user-generated content (UGC) instills buyer confidence, fosters audience trust, and increases revenue up to 62% more per visit. Influencer marketing and UGC platforms like Aspire, Mavrck, and Upfluence can help you find and manage influencers as well as the UGC they produce. And of course, Bazaarvoice’s own platform offers many tools to help with management, plus we’ve just been named industry leader for the sixth consecutive quarter so y’know. 

Use easy tools like a UGC ROI calculator to help you determine the impact that UGC can have on your business.

2. Face the competition

One way to garner more attention on social media is by posting content that encourages your followers to compare your product to your competitors’. Take this post by Samsung, for example. Samsung has been running their app, Smart Switch, on several generations of their smartphones. With each new advancement, they ensure their users are aware of the app and how easy it is to switch to Samsung from another popular phone (like iPhone).

This post shows the ease with which a user could switch to their new Galaxy S22 Ultra. While the old phone in question was not specified to be an iPhone, Samsung’s commenters still compared Samsung’s product to Apple’s.

This comparison is in part due to the battle between Samsung and Apple for the largest market share of smartphone sales — with Samsung currently winning with 19% of the market compared to Apple’s 16.7%.

In any case, this post earned over 63k likes and over 1,900 comments on TikTok. Consumers are aware of the competition, and it shows. The comments section of this post is mostly rooting for Samsung.

Before comparing yourself so obviously to a competitor in a social post, you should research whether you’re really in the same ballpark as them. You can access some basic competitor reviews via a Google search or Trustpilot. You can also track your competitors’ organic traffic and social engagement metrics through tools like Semrush, find employee reviews on Glassdoor, and discover revenue and customer info on Owler.

Alternatively, a single tool like Bazaarvoice Insights and Reports will help you see how you stack up against trends and individual competitors. Our tool provides information on industry benchmarks and competitor ratings, reviews per product, and reviews with more than four stars, so you can make informed decisions about your posting strategy.

3. Take an interest in what makes your community click

If you have demographic data on your consumer base, you’re probably already aware of what media most excites them. It’s even better if that media is produced by you. Sony, for instance, has been involved in the making of the Spider-Man franchise since 1999.

The most recent Spider-Man movie, Spider-Man: No Way Home, grossed $1.89 billion USD worldwide at the box office. Sony is obviously proud of that achievement — and they capitalize on that box office win on social media.

This post by Sony appeals to members of their audience who are Spidey fans and gives them an opportunity to interact with the brand. The simple invitation for fans to identify with a character other than Spidey earned over 500 comments and 8.5k likes.

Before choosing your post topic, look into how consumers have been using your product. What are they thinking? What do the online fandoms post about most often? Leverage trending data and customer sentiment, so you can use popular media to your advantage.

4. Showcase your employee base

Younger shoppers today want to support brands that resonate with their values. According to Newsweek, consumers not only care if brands are supporting the environment but also about how they treat their workers. Brands with poor reputations are more likely to lose customers in the coming future, as a little over half of Gen Z shoppers make purchases based on reputation.

While Amazon’s treatment of their workers has been (rightfully) called into question lately, the brand has been working to salvage its reputation with digital marketing. One of the ways Amazon has succeeded at this is by sharing content created by employees. While TikTok’s known for short-form videos, this form of media also gains good traction on other platforms, like Instagram.

This short video shares the morning journey of a delivery worker delivering small parcels with his bike. This story works to humanize the brand by showcasing life at Amazon through the eyes of an employee.

Any time you share UGC, make sure to get the creator’s permission, including from your employees. You can do this painstakingly through individual emails or DMs. You can also make the process easier by asking for permission in bulk via a platform like Bazaarvoice.

5. Amplify the environmental impact

When it comes to sustainability, marketing a consumer electronics brand is no different to marketing any other industry. Consumers want you to be green. If your brand invests in making the world a better place, don’t be afraid to shout about it. A 2021 Deloitte survey shows that a brand’s environmental impact sways the buying choices of many Gen Z and millennial consumers today. Showcasing your efforts provides an opportunity for your followers to comment and share, as well as show their support for you or the cause you support.

Panasonic posts a lot about the environment. They even created a branded hashtag — #PanasonicGreenImpact — which they use to amplify their current sustainability activities on social media.

The above tweet includes a link to learn more about Panasonic’s work in creating the world’s first manufacturing facility powered entirely by renewable energy. This type of marketing tactic can help raise consumer awareness of your electronics brand’s values and achievements.

Making your content shareable can often start with a simple hashtag. Even better if that hashtag represents both your brand and efforts to make a better world. HP created the #HPRadicalReuse challenge, which has 13.3 billion views on TikTok.

For example, this TikTok video by @rachelmishaelstudio shows how artists can reuse plastics (and unexpected materials originally designed for consumer electronics) to make sustainable art.

This strategy works to engage Gen Z, an audience particularly focused on positive environmental impact efforts, according to Newsweek.

But you don’t need to do third-party research to figure that out. Do your own research on your audience’s interests with Bazaarvoice’s Social Analytics.

6. Emphasize your brand’s longevity

While new products may excite consumers, longstanding brands tend to be associated more with quality service. If your brand has stood the test of time, your customer base will be happy to hear about it. And your most loyal customers will be happy to talk about their experiences. Take Roku, for example.

This post by Roku not only makes great use of a meme format, but it also provides an opportunity for their long-term users to sing their praises.

The simple question, “When did you get your first Roku device?” invites comments about how long their brand lasts as well as a discussion about why users are loyal to Roku. The 54 comments (at the time of writing) on this post all talk about how long users have had their Roku devices, suggesting the longevity of their products and the quality of their customer service. 

Before imitating this, ensure that customers are satisfied with your product using a tool like Connections. This tool helps you stay in touch with consumer reviews, answer questions, make product recommendations, and collect important feedback across channels. This information gathering is crucial to predicting what kind of UGC you might gain from posts like Roku’s.

7. Cast a vision for the future

With many people around the world grappling with an uncertain future, it can be a good idea to show your audience your vision for the future. GE is most commonly known for their home appliances and refrigerators, but they’re also a leader in aviation. As such, they can paint a bright picture for the future of more sustainable aviation products.

This video by GE is short, fast-paced, and inspirational. Their copy is bold and forward-thinking, explaining that the brand is, “engineering next-gen jet engines that use sustainable aviation fuel blend today for a better tomorrow.”

Not only did they portray a future that is bright, but GE also spent time responding to commenters with a tag and a heart. Keeping the positive momentum going in your comments section encourages other commenters to interact and hope to receive a reply as well.

Should you follow the bright future route like GE or stick to a more laid-back, reflective approach? Bazaarvoice’s Premium Network Insights provides detailed insights into your UGC and sentiment analysis that can help you make important decisions about how to portray your brand.

8. Lean on beautiful visuals

Consumer electronics is a visual industry, so bring those visuals into your consumer electronics marketing strategy. Consumers have become used to seeing captivating content on social media, especially during the pandemic. If your social posts don’t seem interesting from the get-go, chances are you’ll be passed by. A way to fix this and attract more engagement is to make your posts visually appealing, as Google does.

Similar to Apple, Google Pixel posts a customer’s photo, tags them, and uses the hashtag #SeenOnPixel. But the photos the brand posts are always visually striking, like this photo by Isaiah Winters using two mirrors. This single post gained almost 6k likes in just four days.

Like Apple and Google, if your social followers are generating great visual UGC, it’s a good idea to reuse it on your own social profiles (with consent, of course). You can also repurpose UGC in a gallery on your website. Google does this on their store page for the Pixel phone.

Tools like Bazaarvoice Galleries can help you repurpose visual UGC from social media on your site as a gallery of images and videos. Adding this feature to your site is a great way to boost interaction — conversion rates tend to skyrocket after adding interactive galleries.

9. Incentivize UGC with contests and prizes

One way to encourage engagement is by actively rewarding UGC. You can do this with gamification marketing — running contests and offering prizes to users who create and share content about your product (and tag you in the posts). One brand that does this regularly is GoPro. Their contest asks users to post amazing videos and photos with the hashtag #GoProSummer, which encourages plenty of engagement.

This first post explained the rules of the contest and generated future UGC in the form of interesting videos and images that GoPro could share to showcase the quality of their product. It also gained the brand more exposure with new audiences through the users who were featured on the brand’s IG profile, like @gotzonmantuliz, who has 667k followers of his own and was tagged in this post with 123k likes.

If you do create contests encouraging visual UGC, you can easily curate and showcase that content on your site with Bazaarvoice Galleries.

10. Have fun with national holidays

One of the main advantages of consumer electronics marketing is the chance to be creative. Making posts for Christmas and Thanksgiving is pretty obvious, but what about the smaller holidays in between? While not a lot of people celebrate micro holidays like National Donut Day, these smaller days can offer a good excuse to encourage UGC and showcase your brand’s personality.

For instance, Dell posted an upbeat, animated reel showcasing their laptops that celebrated national donut day, with the hashtags #donut, #nationaldoughnutday, and #donutlove.

This post brought in 602 likes and mostly positive comments (who doesn’t love donuts?!). Dell also posts geeky jokes as reels (even though they don’t have sound) like this one and this one that also serve up the brand’s personality as funny and personable to everyday computer users.

If you try this type of social media campaign as part of your wider consumer electronics marketing strategy, just make sure you’re celebrating what your audience wants to celebrate.

A great way to identify this is through our consumer insights tool, a customizable tool for determining your audience’s interests.

11. Post a shoppable image on social

One way to encourage consumers to share your posts is by adding shoppable images to your social media profiles. Not only does this make sharing more likely, but you might also get a purchase out of the post. Consider posting a shoppable image on Pinterest as Fitbit does. This post links to the Fitbit blog, tags brand ambassador Ryan Hall, and includes links to shop for similar wearables in the image.

Shoppable content is a great strategy for Fitbit since their Pinterest page earns over 565k monthly views. Even if only a small percentage of their user base interacted with each post or purchased an item, that would amount to a decent chunk of engagement and sales.

Social commerce is a big deal, especially on social media. Our social commerce report outlines some important information about this type of commerce, why it matters, and how you can use it to your brand’s advantage. For instance, we know that 70% of those who use social commerce — and are most likely to respond to shoppable photos — are millennials.

If you’re interested in trying your hand at social commerce, you can use Bazaarvoice’s Like2Buy feature to turn Instagram images into shoppable posts. That way, those who are engaged with you on Instagram can shop directly from your Instagram profile.

12. Commit to diversity

A genuine commitment to diversity can communicate to your customers that you care about them. Consumers who know you see them and their struggles are more likely to view your brand in a positive light (and engage with your posts in a positive way). Inclusive marketing can also build up your reputation as an ethical brand.

One such example is Fitbit. The brand shared athletic influencer @tishaalyn’s video in support of the LGBT+ community for Pride month.

The brand has made several posts on Instagram in honor of Pride month, as well as previous posts honoring AAPI Heritage month and more, garnering a large number of positive interactions from users who felt seen by the brand.

We suggest using a tool like Bazaarvoice’s Social Analytics Highlights to gain insight into your IG performance. This can be helpful in filtering out the noise from online trolls, so you can focus on what your loyal fans are truly excited about.

13. Make your posts accessible

While your posts can be consumed by most social media users, it’s important to consider who might not find your posts accessible. There’s many disabilities and impairments that might make certain users unable to interact with your brand online. If you want to make your brand more widely accessible, you can start with how you design your posts.

For instance, Xbox celebrated Women’s History Month through this post sharing the favorite games of their female staff.

Accessibility was built right into this post. The copy found in the images was also pasted directly into the text of the post, so any users with visual impairments could still use a screen reader for this and have a positive experience.

Intel takes a more product-centric approach to accessibility. Instead of simply posting in an accessible way, Intel uses the social post to show how their product is accessible. They do this via short videos and captivating copy. Intel’s posting strategy is more immersive and has earned better engagement than the post above.

This Reel by Intel explains their current efforts to make tech more accessible for people with disabilities as part of celebrating Global Accessibility Awareness Day. The video not only shares an exciting concept but also demonstrates how the technology works. This video earned over 13k views and mostly positive comments in support of the brand.

It may take some extra time to ensure all your posts are accessible, but that effort won’t go to waste. About 7.3 million Americans use a screen reader, so making your social media presence more accessible can increase your reach and broaden your audience, not to mention provide a superior user experience that consumers have come to expect from the consumer electronics industry.

You can save time creating this type of post with an easy social publishing platform. These platforms can help make designing accessible posts a breeze by allowing you to determine what your audience needs and schedule posts well in advance.

14. Gamify your reels

One of the best ways to encourage engagement is to make your audience’s social media experience interactive like Xbox does. The brand turns their Instagram reels into a game dubbed Xbox Mini Games.

Gamification marketing is all the rage. And Xbox’s audience is already invested in gameplay, so it’s a good approach for their demographics. The gamification makes a fun brand experience for their followers, and the gameplay produces some decent UGC in their favor. Even if your brand isn’t in the gaming industry, it’s a good idea to gamify your reels.

Still unsure about gamified reels? Using AI to discover which social content your audience is more engaged with can help you make decisions about what content to create. Bazaarvoice’s social publishing tool can help with that, including detailed conversion and revenue analytics.

15. Show behind-the-scenes content

The advantage to marketing consumer electronics products is that your most enthusiastic fans are deeply interested in how the gadgets work. That means your social content is perfectly positioned to start increasing demand by posting behind-the-scenes content like Nikon has done with this inspiring before and after reel.

Nikon uses the branded hashtags #NikonCreators and #NikonNoFilter to share UGC like this on their IG profile. With this particular post, they added the hashtag #Goldenhour, referencing a lighting term used in photography. This meant Nikon brought in more photographers from across Instagram to view their post and be inspired to buy one of their digital cameras.

If you’re worried about casting too broad a net with a UGC campaign like this one, you can easily verify and authenticate this type of content with a content moderation tool like ours. This allows you to code content for easier and more accurate authentication and publishing.

Start with social media analytics

To truly connect with your audience in the modern age, your brand should establish an active social media presence and engage authentically with your followers/commenters. An effective consumer electronics marketing strategy is an easy way to do so.

This doesn’t mean you need to break your back or your budget to connect with your audience. It does mean that you should be paying attention to how your audience interacts with you and how well they respond to your current social posts. And you should be going the extra mile to ensure your brand earns the authentic UGC that you envision.

Our Instagram metrics 2022 report is a great resource for your brand to determine how best to leverage and measure your Instagram engagement. (I know this because I wrote it myself). Our market research provides important information about reach and engagement rates for your industry.

In tandem with our other tools, these metrics can speed you on the way toward greater engagement on your social media platforms. And ultimately boost your bottom line.

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Shopper Experience Index 2022

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Traditionally, brands have used a product-based approach in their marketing techniques, by showing how their products stand out from others or how their products are less expensive. But now more than ever, consumers care more about investing in high-value products that offer a specific experience. The problem with product-based selling is that it often relies on the assumption that customers already know the benefits. 

In a solution-based sales approach, brands focus on creating a product that solves a specific problem of their ideal customer. Then, marketing is made easy — the brand shows off how it solves those problems. 

Solution-based selling has been successfully and traditionally utilized by companies that sell intangible products, like productivity apps, or complex, technical, and highly customizable products or services like HR services or cloud storage. 

But all kinds of brands have embraced solution-based selling as of late. From established companies like Cisco and Dell, to up and comers like Planoly and Click Up. Brands that have traditionally used product-based marketing, like beauty brand Pacifica, have begun using solution-based marketing, by marketing products based on the problems they solve, like dry or oily skin. 

Learn how to sell solutions in 3 steps

See how these brands use solution-based selling to advertise to their ideal clients — and how you can implement it effectively in your own marketing. 

1. Figure out what needs to be solved 

The most effective way to figure out the problems your products solve for your ideal customer is to simply ask them. Once you’ve identified your customer, reach out to them and ask them about their pain points. Solution-based selling focuses on listening first before telling your customer what they need, that way you can sell to them based on unique aspects of your product. 

For example, on Cisco’s website the company asks small businesses to answer a few questions before they try to sell them their services, that way they can ensure they are meeting their needs in the sales pitch. 

Planoly knew brands wanted a content planner that easily allowed them to visually plan their Instagram feed in advance. Productivity app Click Up discovered companies most want to save time and consolidate how many programs they use. 

2. Identify who your customers are 

Before you can come up with problems your product needs to solve, you need to identify your ideal client. Identify who will most benefit from the product you’ve created. 

For example, social media planner Planoly knows its product benefits social media managers, small business owners, entrepreneurs, and influencers who want to streamline content creation, save time, and have the ability to visually plan their content ahead of time. 

Cisco chose to focus on providing IT services to small businesses. These are specifically businesses that are big enough to require technical support, but too small to be ready to invest in hiring IT employees. 

3. Advertise an experience that has a solution 

Once you’ve identified the problems your client struggles with, you can identify how your product meets their needs, and know how to sell it as a solution. Instead of focusing on the features of your product, share with clients how the product resolves their problem. 

In its marketing, Planoly emphasizes that it’s a tool that “simplifies social marketing.” Click Up emphasizes how it saves time — touting that it helps businesses “save one day every week”— and is one app that can replace the multitude you’re having to switch between. During the pandemic, Cisco pivoted to market the ways they can help small businesses switch to remote working and manage their employees needs from afar. 

The pandemic has transformed the way consumers spend money. Bazaarvoice research shows that given a turbulent economy and a stressful season for many, customers put value above other product benefits and want to know the ways they spend money will bring them positive experiences. It’s more important than ever to know how to sell solutions instead of products.