Social media engagement has and will always be a major factor in generating a solid Digital Marketing strategy. Brands that learn how to interact directly with their market garner huge points when it comes to amassing awareness, maintaining a solid presence, and, eventually, indirectly building a profit. It is one of the most effective ways you can develop a loyal following and is essential for any great customer journey.
At its very core, interaction is all about cultivating customer trust. It is the single most essential element in creating a successful social media interaction template. The decreased need for impression management online leads to freer and more organic interaction. Unfortunately, this also opens the door to unscrupulous behavior (e.g. identity theft, false information, etc.). Your ultimate goal is getting your market to realize that you genuinely care about them as individuals.
This concept may seem to call for strategies that are too idealistic to see implementation, but, fear not, there is a logical solution. Here are a few key practices you can implement to drive great social media engagement for your brand:
WATCH, LOOK, LISTEN: STALK YOUR CUSTOMER
When starting a conversation, always know who you’re talking to. Know everything about your target market, from their morning habits to their favorite brand of cereal. Fall minimally short of full-on stalker mode when it comes to gathering information on your customer. Treat your market like a high school sweetheart and make it a point to know even the most mundane details of their life. This will help you compose conversation topics that are relevant and relatable.
Social listening tools, like Radian6, help you gather mountains of significant information that can fuel your interactions. You can gather share of voice, for example, to help determine how your brand fares on parameters of desirability as compared to competitors. From here you can tailor responses and strategies respectively to drive the results you want.
CHANNEL SURF: PICK AN AVENUE FOR CONVERSATION
Quality and quantity are inversely related when it comes to social media engagement. You can’t impress on all channels at once, you need to master one before adding another to any brand repertoire. Find out where your market interacts, what time they do it, and what conversations catch their attention. That’s where you need to be.
Does this mean that multiple social media accounts for a brand are a no-no? Not at all. You can keep your Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, etc. but aim for quality interaction on a single platform. You can choose to position a bulk of your conversations on Twitter, for example, while still sharing relevant content and responding on Facebook whenever the situation arises.
MASTER THE ART OF CREATING KILLER CONTENT
When creating something to talk about with an audience, you first have to establish yourself as a thought leader within your target industry. This will give your blog or post leverage through credibility. Put a face to the stories you create and maintain this persona when interacting with customers online. It also helps to maintain a sense of consistency when chatting with various people online.
Another way to create interesting topics is to tailor content to current events, while still remaining true to your brand image. Stretch those creative muscles and find a way to factor those events into your content. Image-driven and interactive forms of content are also big winners when it comes to catching the eyes and hearts of your audience.
NUMBERS MATTER: TRACK YOUR RESULTS
It can be tempting to lose yourself in constant social media engagement day in and day out. You have to remember, however, to keep your eye fixed on your target. Are you achieving the objective you determined at the outset of your engagement program? Is your brand of conversation achieving tangible results, maintaining status quo, or driving people further away from the brand?
Set-up a system wherein you can easily view the results of your effort. Fortunately, most social media platforms now offer stats on weekly to monthly basis, tracking the level of engagement you’ve attained. You can also take it a step further and invest in additional software solutions that allow you to segregate your analysis based on specific campaigns for a more in-depth look.
GROW YOUR AUDIENCE: TAP INTO A NETWORK OF INFLUENCERS
The internet is full of people with enormous clout and getting them onboard your cause is a huge step towards driving successful social media engagement. This is more than tapping the next Youtube superstar or top blogger, however. You are looking for brand evangelizers who really believe in what you stand for.
You can start by reaching out to them and offering to write an article or engage in a knowledge sharing enterprise that will benefit you both. Nurture relationships by providing them with exclusive content or firsthand knowledge of company and product developments. Overtime, they will become willing and integral participants in your overall engagement strategy.
Mastering the art of conversation online is all about knowing who to talk to and where and when to do it, as well as building the proper audience and tracking the fruits of your labor. Above all, it is the essential addition of a decidedly human element that will drive the core of your social engagement in the fulfillment of garnering brand trust.
*This article was also on: https://www.afdigital.com/essential-strategies-increase-social-media-engagement/
