How to Collect Customer Testimonials via Social Media in 2024? 10 Methods

Since the voice of the consumer holds more influence than ever before, gathering customer reviews and testimonials has become a very important task for every business!

However, when collecting your written or video testimonial, you have to navigate to multiple sites and platforms, such as your Google My Business and Facebook business pages. Plus, you should allow your website visitors to leave comments and reviews on your sites and social media channels, and you may also be able to find some on various niche review sites.

That way, you’ll get all the social proof you need to boost your brand’s credibility and online visibility, which ultimately tips over your potential customers to become buyers.

So, let us tell you about all the best methods you can use to get all your customer feedback, the benefits of doing so, and what to do with it afterward.

10 methods to collect testimonials and feedback from social media:

• 1. Create user-generated content hashtag campaigns
• 2. Contact your best customers directly
• 3. Entice followers with gratification
• 4. Cultivate an online social community
• 5. Gather testimonials from comments
• 6. Gather testimonials from tagged social media posts
• 7. Collect testimonials with influencer marketing
• 8. Organize social media challenges
• 9. Run social media giveaways
• 10. Survey your followers using Polls

1. Create user-generated content hashtag campaigns

Launching UGC campaigns is one of the best strategies for collecting customer testimonials. However, running a UGC campaign is much more than inventing a hashtag and calling it a day.

Instead, you need to carefully plan your approach only after you gain a deep understanding of your target group and your brand’s objectives and target audience.

Here’s a practical step-by-step guide about how to do it effectively:

Step 1: Prepare

1. Define your campaign objectives—what’s the campaign’s purpose? Are the objectives following the SMART model (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Bound)?
2. Choose the right social media platform—choose one or multiple social media channels where your audience is most active;
3. Create your unique hashtag—develop a unique and memorable campaign-specific hashtag that will help you collect all the UGC you need;
4. Craft engaging campaign content—create all the visuals needed to promote the campaign (think about reels, story content, posts, and clear captions for all of it).

Step 2: Launch

1. Promote your campaign—launch and spread the word about your campaign across all your marketing channels, encouraging users to participate using the unique hashtag;
2. Consider offering incentives—think about offering incentives relevant to your audience to boost participation (such as discounts, gifts, or exclusive access);
3. Showcase UGC on your platforms—constantly check the campaign’s hashtag, gather the best content, and ask for users’ permission to feature it on your platforms;
4. Engage & interact—make sure you interact with audience members who take part through likes, comments, and shares (try and create a sense of community).

Step 3: Measure

1. Monitor & curate the UGC—after the campaign has ended, make sure you analyze the results in terms of engagement, reach, and brand sentiment;
2. Improve your services—use the insights you gain from your campaign to improve your products and services, thus improving the public’s perception of you.

Pro tip: Don’t forget to go the extra mile by displaying all the reviews you collect on your brand’s website. You can easily do that with a complete reviews management platform, which helps you generate, manage, and display your testimonials anywhere.

Brand example: Spotify with #SpotifyWrapped

Intending to promote its music streaming platform and the value that comes with it, Spotify enabled its users to create a custom summary of their yearly listening journey.

What were the campaign’s results? Over 60 million social shares, 3+ billion impressions, and increased interest in Spotify, leading to new subscriptions.

As you can see, Spotify generates huge interest each year in December with its #SpotifyWrapped hashtag, which becomes the buzz all across social media.

2. Contact your best customers directly

One of the most straightforward ways to collect customer testimonials is to simply ask them to review your products and/or services. Reaching out for testimonials is a simple strategy that surprisingly works most of the time, as long as you write a compulsive request.

Requesting testimonials is a simple strategy that can be surprisingly effective if you’ve taken the time to build a good relationship with your audience. To speed up the process, you can also create a reusable testimonial request template before contacting each customer individually.

3. Entice followers with gratification

One of the best ways to boost participation and engagement is to offer incentives. However, make sure the rewards provide a good enough reason for your audience to contribute and share their UGC content. Plus, you must disclose them to the public for transparency’s sake.

Some ideas for rewards include:

• Early access to products,
• Exclusive brand discounts,
• Valuable gift sets or vouchers.

Brand example: Purito with the Purito Kit Gift

In this example, we can see that Purito’s goal was to collect feedback on a survey, and in return, they gifted four of their products to 20 different participants.

4. Cultivate an online social community

If you cultivate an online community around your brand, you will get an excellent source of customer reviews and great testimonials, as your fans will gladly share their feedback without any incentives or fancy rewards. However, building a community requires a purposeful strategy, dedication, and effort since you have to create a real connection with your customers.

Here are some tips to get you started:

• Engage genuinely—hire someone who will create new content and genuinely engage with your audience (respond to comments, tagged posts, etc.) Brand example: See how The Body Shop does i
• Create valuable content—whenever you create content, think about your ideal customer and whether or not this type of content would be helpful to them;
• Encourage member contributions—actively encourage community members to share their feedback and experience with your brand (run polls, open-ended questions, and start conversations and discussions across your social media channels);
• Showcase your UGC content—make it a custom to constantly showcase user-generated content from your community across official social media channels. See how the INKEY List reposts Instagram posts from their customers as UGC on their Instagram feed:
  

5. Gather testimonials from comments

Another source of genuine customer testimonials is your social media comment section.

Instagram even allows comments to be shared directly as stories, thus making it much easier to repurpose them as social proof across your platforms.

Brand example: Glossier receiving positive comments

Best of all, users can now share others’ comments via Instagram stories. So, Glossier could create a new story showcasing the product in question and add this comment to it.

6. Gather testimonials from tagged social media posts

Once you organize a few contests, challenges, and hashtag campaigns, you will need to start monitoring and collecting testimonials from tagged social media posts.

Chances are, customers will start sharing their positive experiences and tag your account, providing you with a valuable opportunity to create authentic customer testimonials.

When people mention your account, you can use a social media aggregator to automatically collect the post or video and even further embed it directly on your website—showing real-time social proof.

Brand Example: The Balance app

In this example, we can see a post created by a user of the Balance app. Balance could ask for customer testimonial permission and share this on their social media page.

7. Collect testimonials with influencer marketing

Partnering with niche influencers whose expertise and interests align with your brand is great for two reasons: you will receive testimonials, and you will tap into their audience.

These testimonials, coming from respected voices in the niche, carry substantial credibility and can significantly impact potential customers’ trust and purchasing decisions.

Brand Example: Joe Fresh partnering with influencer Valeria Lipovetsky

Check out this paid partnership between Joe Fresh—a clothing brand—looking to tap into the 2.2 million followers of this influencer.

8. Organize social media challenges

Another great strategy to collect testimonials by organizing contests or challenges on social media.

Admittedly, these initiatives take a bit longer to organize, but they help you collect an abundance of customer testimonials. Most customers will be excited to share their feedback and experiences, especially when they are presented with the chance to win rewards.

Thoughtfully executed contests can generate enthusiasm, participation, and loyalty, thus turning your audience into excited contributors of authentic testimonials.

Organizing review contests can be done in three simple steps:

1. Decide on the type of testimonials you need—in which format do you want to receive the testimonials and how you want to repurpose them;
2. Choose a prize for the top contestants—needless to say, customers can be greatly motivated by contest prizes, regardless of their form;
3. Determine the contest details—how long will it last, who’s eligible to participate, which social media platforms will you use, how is the winner picked, etc.

Brand example: Purito unmasking challenge

We will take this challenging example as the perfect way to talk about all the strategies this brand executed.

1. they are promoting a new product with a challenge
2. they are enticing followers with gratification (a peek into the new product + valuable contest prizes)
3. they are cultivating a community by literally liking and commenting on every comment
4. they have a hashtag strategy in place – (the rules are to include specific hashtags such as #PURITOHalloween2023 & #MeltInMoisture & #PURITOPartner & #MeltedMakeup); and lastly
5. they are collecting tons of positive customer testimonials and video testimonials.

9. Run social media giveaways

Last but not least, you can grab a slew of testimonials via social media giveaways.

Similar to running contests and challenges, giveaways require somewhat more time, effort, and attention to plan out.

However, they are a great way to create a buzz around your brand, and also provide you with a valuable collection of authentic testimonials.

Brand Example: Vitality

The example below was executed by the clothing brand Vitality with very simple participation criteria: follow the brand on Instagram, like their post, tag other users in a comment, and tell the company which Vitality BFCM clothing piece is your favorite.

The goal of this campaign was to increase the brand’s engagement rates and awareness with the added side benefit of obtaining genuine customer feedback.

10. Survey your followers using Polls

Surveys can be a great way to engage with loyal followers, to help collect feedback. You can use Surveys to share links in your Instagram stories or Instagram bio links that will redirect users to a larger survey form.

But in case you don’t have some incentive, surveys can usually have lower engagement rates.

So, possibly, consider using native options such as quick Polls.

Polls are a version of the surveys but in a shorter format. They are becoming very popular on platforms like Instagram, X, and Threads, where the option to shed a Poll is as simple as creating a post.

You are also able to send a Poll in the comments and ask people for quick feedback.

Why collect testimonials for your business?

Collecting testimonials comes with a slew of benefits, including but not limited to these:

Authenticity & trust building

Genuine testimonials from real users will help build your brand’s authenticity and trust. After all, it’s well known that potential customers trust peer and online reviews over brand ones.

That is why it’s super important to not only collect but also showcase plenty of user-generated social proof so that potential customers can gain the confidence they need or are “pushed” towards purchasing your products and services.

Continuous improvement feedback loop

Written or video testimonials from customers provide direct feedback about products/services, and this feedback can be used to understand your customers’ needs and pain points and, most importantly, constantly improve your offering.

Budget-friendly content creation

Generating business growth through content creation can be both expensive and time-consuming. That’s where customer testimonials come to the rescue!

By implementing challenges, giveaways, or a combination of the strategies we’ve mentioned so far, you can maintain a consistent flow of authentic content at no extra cost.

This approach not only reduces content creation expenses but also results in content that is more relatable and highly conducive to conversion.

Engages your audience

Inviting customers to share their experiences with your brand will help you create a community and foster engagement., thus strengthening the connection between your brand and customers. Also, you encourage them to participate more actively on your social media channels.

Ultimately, by fostering engagement through customer testimonials and personal recommendations, you’re not only creating a loyal customer base but also turning them into enthusiastic brand ambassadors who actively contribute to your brand’s success.

Wide reach & exposure

Social media platforms have a huge user base, allowing your testimonial page to reach a broad and diverse audience. After all, social media’s global nature transcends geographical boundaries and time zones, allowing your brand’s story to reach and resonate with people everywhere.

In essence, harnessing social media’s wide reach and exposure through customer testimonials is akin to broadcasting your brand’s strengths to a stadium-sized crowd. That way, you amplify your brand’s visibility, leaving a lasting impression on a global scale.

How to use the customer feedback you collect?

Now you’ve got so much customer feedback from comments, mentions, and reposts, but how to collect all of these and re-use it as social proof on your website or marketing campaigns?

Option 1: Make a database of all posts

In case the batch of collected feedback is lower, then you might consider just making screenshots and using the content you create in a spreadsheet so you can store it as a future reference.

Option 2: Use social media aggregator for automatic aggregation

But in case you have tons of content spread across different social media channels, then you might consider using a social media aggregator. This tool can help you set up an automatic generation of all the posts from people who mention your brand or have published the feedback using your branded hashtag.

Key takeaways

Collecting customer testimonials is a powerful strategy for various reasons, such as:

• They boost your brand’s credibility;
• They engage your audience;
• They expand your online and offline reach.

Getting fresh reviews and testimonials can be done via different methods, such as:

• Leveraging user-generated content;
• Fostering online communities;
• Implementing hashtag campaigns;
• Paying for influencer marketing;

In any case, you must harness the full potential of social media to get the most authentic and impactful testimonials out there. This approach proves to be cost-effective, strengthens brand loyalty, and provides valuable content for your marketing efforts.

So, don’t miss out on the opportunity to let your satisfied customers speak for your brand and elevate your online presence through amazing testimonials. Subscribe to a review management platform today. It does everything for you!

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