November 28, 2022
Last update
11.28.2022
08 MIN.
If you have an Instagram presence, that’s great. But do you collect customer testimonials on the platform to make the most out of it?
Val Razo
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With 1 billion monthly active users, 90% of whom follow at least one business account in-app, Instagram is a great marketing communication channel for companies of all sizes and niches.
If you have an Instagram presence, that’s great. But do you collect customer testimonials on the platform to make the most out of it?
Yes, not all businesses care about customer testimonials, but providing potential buyers with social proof can give you a competitive advantage.
Look:
No matter what products or services you offer to your clients, it’s more likely that you have competitors in the market who also hope for the attention of the same audience. Modern customers have too many choices, so they always buy from brands they trust. As a result, it’s no wonder that 87% of people check out customer testimonials when choosing a business.
What is more, customer testimonials affect the purchase decision. Take a look at the numbers below:
Simply put, customers are interested in a great variety of testimonial examples. Luckily, Instagram can be a great source for brands to get more customer testimonials. In this post, you’ll learn more about the reasons to get customer testimonials on Instagram as well as find out 4 actionable ways to do it with examples.
Instagram is not just about posting photos and communication with friends anymore. It has become a great marketing platform for product discovery and research. Not only do people follow businesses in-app, but they also take actions after discovering new brands on the platform:
This means great potential for business promotion. At the same time, it also means your customers want to communicate with your company on the platform and Instagram is a valuable source of customer testimonials for the following reasons:
The bottom line? Instagram is a great place for collecting customer testimonials as your customers are active on the platform, they are ready to communicate with your brand, and it has all features to make the process easier for both parties.
Now let’s take a look at four ways to get more customer testimonials on Instagram.
Did you know that 96% of people who discuss your company online don’t follow your profile on social media? This means it should be easier for your customers who visit your brand profile to understand that you care about their feedback.
Thus, it’s important to provide visitors about the demand for customer testimonials in your bio section. Why? It’s the first thing they see when visiting your profile, so it’s more likely they pay attention to it.
Here are two actionable ways on how to make the most out of your bio section.
As a business owner or a digital marketer, you must know about the importance of Instagram hashtags. Using hashtags is a great way to organize conversations on the platform and help users find interesting content with ease.
Most brands know that specific brand hashtags help them stand out from the crowd and reach the right audience. If you want to collect customer testimonials, it’s important to create a unique hashtag that your customers can share on their personal Instagram accounts when sharing customer experiences. For brands, this means an opportunity to gather discussions with ease.
Here’s how Frank Body promotes its brand hashtag for gathering customer experience on using their products:
To encourage more people to use your brand hashtag on the platform and therefore get more customer testimonials, you can also include a call to action that tells your audience what they should be doing with this hashtag.
One of the best ways to understand your customers better is to ask them to fill out a customer satisfaction survey. Most companies send them via emails, but modern users get hundreds of emails daily, so it can get buried in their inbox.
Having an Instagram presence, you can also spread the word about your customer satisfaction survey. And if you want to turn visitors into survey participants, it’s important to make it easier for interested people to fill it out. How? Link back to it!
No matter how many followers you have, every Instagram user has an opportunity to include one clickable link in the bio section and it’s your chance to include a link to your survey. Check out an example below:
Luckily, you can also use bio link tools that give you an opportunity to create custom landing pages for your Instagram bio where you can add several links at the same time. For example, not only can you add a link to the survey, but you can also promote your newsletter, show off your lookbook, or tell how to contact your live chat. All these tactics help to provide visitors with relevant information and increase website traffic. Perfect, isn’t it?
Happy customers are the lifeblood of any business. Customer satisfaction affects customer loyalty and therefore encourages people to buy more from you. What is more, happy customers are valuable promoters who help to turn their friends and family into your customers.
When it comes to customer testimonials, it’s also important to show your happy customers to set an example for other people so that they could be interested in sharing their customer feedback with you. There are several ways to show satisfied customers and get more customer testimonials.
Customers trust other customers. When they see peers’ recommendations, they are more likely to make a purchase decision or get inspired to share their feedback, too. As a result, user-generated content is a form of social proof that has gained in popularity.
According to the State of UGC 2021 Report, 93% of marketers claim that customers trust fan-made content rather than brand content and 75% of marketers say that UGC makes content more authentic.
Here’s an example of using UGC on Instagram from Lulus:
User-generated content serves as a form of customer testimonials for the main reason: only satisfied customers will produce content for you which means people are happy with the quality of your products or services. Plus, you tag a person so people can be interested in making fan-made content for you in exchange for getting exposure.
Another great tactic to get more customer testimonials is to create a separate Instagram Story highlight album with customer reviews so that followers and visitors could read all reviews with ease. Why? Story Highlights appear right below the bio section, so it’s easier for customers to discover relevant content without scrolling the whole feed.
Check out how Clek did it:
The best thing about this tactic is that you can feature customer feedback screenshots, repost user-generated content, or create short videos with customer reviews to gather all of them in one place.
And to create similar cohesive Instagram Story highlight album covers that match your brand identity, you can rely on a graphic design tool like Crello or InstaSize to use professionally-made templates or make your own.
Practically every website has a customer testimonial page where customers can share their customer stories with businesses and other consumers. To get more customer testimonials on Instagram, you can turn these customer reviews into Instagram posts to set an example for your followers who can also share their feedback with you.
Moreover, there are many ways to do it. For example, you can take screenshots of customer testimonials and share them on Instagram, just like Milk Makeup did it:
Or you can learn from WHOOP and use stock images as a background to repurpose customer testimonials for Instagram Stories:
The attention span is shrinking, so it’s no wonder that modern internet users prefer watching dynamic video content. Not only does it keep the audience hooked and engaged, but it also helps to include all relevant information your viewers should know in a short video post.
What is more, video customer testimonials look more authentic than text or image reviews, so it’s a great idea to use Instagram video for maximum impact. Moreover, there are several proven ways to do it.
Back in 2018, Instagram launched its TV channel (IGTV) that allowed users to upload long-form video content, up to 60 minutes in length. For marketers who want to get more customer testimonials on Instagram, it can be an alternative way to set an example for customers and encourage them to share their stories. How? You can share video customer testimonials on this channel to increase brand loyalty and trust.
Check out an example of this strategy in action:
Want to know the best part? There’s no need to create an IGTV customer testimonial video for your channel if you have customer testimonial videos on your website. You can simply record video and upload it to your IGTV channel. It helps to save time, money, and effort.
Live events are extremely popular among internet users. Being available for a limited time only, they create a sense of urgency and therefore it’s easier for marketers to create engaging Instagram live videos that keep the audience hooked.
Here are several ideas on live events that help to get more customer testimonials:
To get more video views, it’s important to announce your live event in advance so that interested viewers could plan their time and join your session. The best way to do it is to write an Instagram post with all important information about your live event, just like The Inkey List did it:
If you don’t have an opportunity (or desire) to invest time and effort into video content creation, you can make Instagram video Stories that appear on a separate feed.
Instagram Stories are available for 24 hours only, so there’s no need to create professionally-made videos. Moreover, people love authentic content and 500 million accounts create or watch Instagram Stories daily.
For example, ASOS invites customers to share their thoughts on featured items and then publish these reviews as Instagram Stories, adding an emoji slider to give viewers an opportunity to support the claim:
What is more, there’s a great variety of features that allow marketers to gather customer testimonials in-app. Here are several options to use:
Most people don’t share their thoughts about your company as they believe that you won’t consider their thoughts. It’s proven that implementing customer feedback substantially, makes your customers 97% more likely to be loyal to you. This means you need to show your interest in their thoughts and encourage them to do it.
Here are three ideas that motivate followers to share their customer experiences:
As a marketer, it’s more likely that you know about the importance of Instagram influencer marketing. Since modern customers follow opinion leaders on the platform and they trust their recommendations as much as real-word friends, Instagram influencers can encourage your customers to share their thoughts about your product.
The easiest way to do it is to send your brand freebies for product reviews, ask influencers to share their customer experience with the following, and ask their followers to share their thoughts about the products.
Every person wants to be heard, so writing comments that show their thoughts is a great way to interact with their favorite influencers while showcasing their preferences and ideas. Thus, most influencers who have a higher engagement rate are able to generate more customer testimonials after asking their followers about their thoughts. Here’s how it works:
You can also create an ebook for your social media marketing team to write down all influencer marketing tactics that work well for your company on what customer testimonial examples to ask and how to collaborate with opinion leaders to get more reviews.
Sometimes a small incentive from your brand is the best motivation for your customers to encourage them to produce customer testimonials for your company. When it comes to Instagram, you can reach a wider audience of your customers which means you can get more customer testimonials. How? Organize an Instagram giveaway like in the example below:
But if you want to get more customer testimonials with an Instagram giveaway, you can ask your social media specialist to put ‘fill out our customer satisfaction survey’ or ‘create fan-made content’ as participation requirements.
As a marketer, you should know that running a loyalty program is one of the best customer retention strategies that keep customers coming back to the same company. Whether you offer a discount, reward points, or free delivery, customers love getting incentives and it encourages them to make purchase decisions.
However, promoting a customer loyalty program on Instagram, not only can you increase in-app sales, but it can also encourage people to produce customer testimonials for you as loyal customers are more likely to create customer testimonials if you ask them to do it.
Instagram is a powerful marketing tool that helps businesses reach their target audiences, deliver brand messages, and even sell products in-app. However, Instagram can also be a valuable source of customer feedback if you know how to ask your followers (and visitors) to share their thoughts on your company and its products.
To get more customer testimonials on Instagram, you can give the above-mentioned tips a try and find out what works best for your followers. As a result, not only can you gather customer feedback on the platform with ease, but you can also increase user engagement and brand loyalty as people want to be heard.
Val Razo is a freelance SMM consultant who helps SMBs establish social media presence and interact with potential customers on social media platforms. Val also writes for digital marketing blogs like
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