One of the great things about doing business in the social media age is that customers are invested in helping the brands they love the most succeed. They know that their reviews and recommendations are powerful.

[Tweet “Altruistic Millennial shopers love to spread the word about their favorite businesses online! “]
Spreading the word about your business, particularly on social media, is a way for your best customers to feel like they’re helping you out- an important consideration to altruistic Millennial shoppers. For best results, it’s good to make it exceptionally clear that you value their help and make everything super simple. Here are six super ways to encourage your customers to talk you up online:

1. Put Social Share Buttons on Your Product Pages

   People love letting their friends know what they’ve purchased – or what they’d love to purchase, if they all of a sudden won the lottery! Aspirational customers can be powerful advertisers for you- particularly if they’re on Pinterest. Make sure you have social share buttons on your product pages – particularly prominently on those items you’d like to have most associated with your brand.

2. Invite People To Share Your Landing Pages

   Landing pages are used to promote in-store events, offer downloadable guides or other valuable incentives, and more. If the offer you’ve put out there is interesting to your customers, odds are it’ll be interesting to their friends. Give them a mechanism to share the page via social media or email – and make sure you have a highly visible call to action on the page that encourages them to do so.

3. Sharable Coupons

   Everybody loves saving money. Sharing a coupon code is a way for friends to build bonds – make it fun and simple, with a well-designed share the savings coupon. Consider having a friends and family sale during a slow time of the year. Sharable coupons also work well formatted as invitations to girls’ night out type of shopping events.

4. Email This Article to a Friend

   Extend the reach of your content marketing strategy by adding an “Email this article to a friend” link. In the B2B world, you can format this as “Email this article to a colleague” or even “Email this article to your customer.” Sharing your expertise makes your customer look like they’re really smart as well.

5. Reviews & Recommendations

   Ask your customers to leave reviews and recommendations, both on your website and on relevant sites to your business. We’re often asked about Yelp. Yelp is problematical – if your customers aren’t regular Yelp users, the odds are high that your customer’s review may never be seen. If they’re regular Yelp users, however, great reviews on Yelp are great news.

6. Introduce Us!

   A very simple and very successful campaign is the Introduce Us! Campaign, where you ask your customers to bring in a new friend who’s never shopped the store, or have someone new sign up for the email list in exchange for incentive coupons for both parties.