Engagements between purchases are vital to building customer loyalty. These touchpoints typically occur outside the point of sale, yet they play a crucial role in strengthening customer relationships. Brands that focus on consistent communication and awareness between transactions are more likely to establish customer loyalty and achieve exponential growth. Using Instagram as a social CRM tool attaches a human element to your brand, enabling businesses to manage customer relationships beyond the transactional point-of-sale interaction. With the rise of social commerce, businesses can leverage Instagram as a customer engagement platform to reward and reach their target customers where they’re most engaged online, ultimately driving sales by increasing their customer lifetime value.

From automating responses to personalizing interactions, we explore customer success strategies and business tools that can help brands maximize Instagram’s potential as a customer engagement platform.

A Social CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system integrates social media platforms into CRM platforms to optimize the customer experience. This multi-purpose tool supports marketing strategies, social commerce, and customer service tools.

These CRM systems include features such as social media listening, analytics, and engagement tools. They allow businesses to track and measure actionable insights, manage customer interactions, and interact with customers in real-time. More so, businesses can identify and target key customer segments, manage customer inquiries, and track customer satisfaction effectively.

With seamless integration, no Instagram story mention, tagged post, customer comment, or direct message goes unnoticed. Some CRM platforms offer Instagram CRM integration that allows you to access all these interactions on the platform without having to open the Instagram app.

Instagram DMs as a tool for customer communication and relationship management

Instagram has evolved beyond a platform for sharing pictures and videos; it is now a critical channel for customer service experience. 80% of consumers use social media to engage with brands. Customer expectations have increased, with many viewing social media as the quickest and most direct channel to reach a brand for questions, product issues, and feedback—far surpassing traditional call centers or email forms.

Customer connection is the new currency. When customers feel connected to brands, 57% of consumers will increase their spending with that brand. By using Instagram direct messages as an Instagram CRM tool, businesses can answer customer queries and address concerns in real-time to build stronger connections. This leads to increased customer satisfaction, loyalty, and ultimately higher sales. Additionally, businesses can send personalized marketing campaigns, offers, and rewards directly to customers, further boosting loyalty and driving sales.

Social Commerce: Driving Sales through Instagram Engagement and UGC

A brand’s main goal online is to convert scrolling users into customers and boost ROI. Apps now serve as built-in browsers for product discovery, transforming social media into an eCommerce platform where customers can make direct purchases. This promotion of selling products and services on Instagram, TikTok, Pinterest, and Facebook to drive sales is known as social commerce. According to Shopify, social commerce retail earnings are predicted to reach $80 billion in the United States alone by 2025.

Read More: The Power of Social Commerce 

By leveraging Instagram engagement through social media integration, businesses can create an interactive shopping experience that guarantees revenue growth. Similar to a sales associate in a brick-and-mortar store assisting customers, engaging with customers at relevant digital touchpoints where they can shop for your product provides a seamless experience that maximizes value. Business Insider found that customers are more likely to make repeat purchases from a brand if they have a strong emotional connection.

Examples of using Instagram as a customer engagement platform include:

• Featuring customer reviews and user-generated content (UGC) on your Instagram business account to showcase loyal customers and influence purchase decisions.
• Posting Instagram stories and Instagram Live sessions to host Q&A sessions, product demonstrations, or flash sales.
• Quickly responding to Instagram comments and direct messages to retain customers and increase loyalty.

Personalizing Interactions to Manage Your Brand Ambassador Program

Social media CRM tools are invaluable when managing your brand ambassador program alongside customer engagement to build revenue-generating relationships. Integrating CRM tools into your social media marketing efforts begins by identifying key customer interactions your business wants to nurture.

Customer engagement interactions can include: 

• Commenting on posts where your brand is tagged, such as being featured in a customer’s outfit-of-the-day (OOTD) reel.
• Sending rewards via Instagram direct messages for story mentions or unboxing videos of recent purchases.
• Running exclusive challenges and contests for your Instagram followers to join.
• Recruiting new student ambassadors among your Instagram followers by posting stories with sign-up links.

Once these interactions are identified, businesses can use Instagram CRM integration to automate and personalize these engagements. For example, when your brand is mentioned, an automated message can be sent to ensure you never miss an opportunity to interact—even when you’re out of office. These messages may include thank-you notes, special offers, site credits, or incentives to encourage ambassadors to continue posting about your brand and earn rewards.

Additionally, CRM systems enable tracking the performance of ambassador-branded posts on social media and measuring the revenue generated by your customer program. This data can then be used to identify your most engaged and influential customers and create targeted marketing campaigns as part of your overall Instagram strategy.

The TLDR Takeaway

By leveraging the power of social media as an all-in-one customer engagement platform, businesses can create more targeted interactions with their brand ambassadors to increase engagement and sales opportunities. Using user-generated content in your social media marketing campaigns is a powerful way to jumpstart your customer engagement strategy.

Merge your customer relationships and social media management into one CRM system: request a demo