By Alex Mardikian

Social media and digital signage are a perfect match for one another. Yoked together, these two tools of information can deliver much more than what one may think. In this partnership, one plus one does not equal two; it’s eleven.

The big similarity with these mediums is that personalized communication can be effectively carried out with both. Integration of social media with DOOH enables cross-platform communication and effective use of combined analytics.

By the end of 2018, more than 2.5 billion earthlings will be on social media – Facebook, twitter, Instagram, WhatsApp, Pinterest, etc. This is a sizeable population that chiefly uses smartphones to access social media. Now, these people and brands can reach their social media destinations via digital signage kiosks and also VODXS faucet ads systems.

Customer engagement in a store is high and can be further fine-tuned through interaction between the brand and the individual via digital signage. It could be a questionnaire or a simple message with the suggestion to share online.

Your customers are on social media. They value information obtained from peers online. They make purchase decisions based on social media posts. Brands maintain a presence on social media to resolve customer grievances and boost brand recall, brand image, and ultimately sales.

Social media is participative, and you can encourage participation on social media. The efforts benefit from a force multiplier effect when you throw DOOH into the mix. Inform people about a contest being run online via digital signage, enable in-store participation via DOOH, declare results on digital screens.

Something as simple as running digital feeds of a brand’s page for waiting queues in grocery stores, malls, or airports can serve to entertain, inform, promote brand recall, and make the waiting time pleasant. Everybody loves an ego boost. A customer in queue who gets to see his tweet or Facebook comment get highlighted is going to love those 15 seconds of fame.

The good karma that you accumulate through DOOH will drive action on social media and offline. Online, your content will get shared. Your brand will earn positive reviews. Your Facebook page will earn more followers. Customers that provide insightful feedback play a role in building a brand’s value. You can drive otherwise cagey and reticent customers to open up via digital signage.

With this integration, your brand reaches in front of a wider audience, and the ones already informed can learn more through the personalized setting of a digital signage kiosk or VODXS tap. When a brand is perceived as making efforts to inform customers and engage with them, it gains respect.

With a content strategy in place, you can take advantage of events, anniversaries, holidays, and occasions to push information forward through DOOH and social media.

User generated content on social media that is flashed through DOOH across a brand’s outlets helps buyers in making impulse and considered purchase decisions. And when you use user-generated content, you have an endless supply of fresh material. You actually save money, because you don’t have to generate content in-house. Social media posts are seen as genuine and not as marketing adverts. The trust factor is very high. This can be used to inform, prime, placate, and coax shoppers inside the shop.

Use the metrics available with digital signage and social media to find out about the type of content that does well on either and both platforms. Use this information to create more such content and target a relevant audience. Targeted marketing saves you money, and when you target an existing customer with great information, you increase the chances of retaining that customer. And as every marketer knows, retaining an existing customer is far cheaper than acquiring a new customer.