06 Feb Ways to Better Engage with your Social Media Followers
A wise man once said social media is a cocktail party. A lot has changed in social media in the nine years since that book was written, but one thing certainly has not: engaging with your fans matters. Here are five ways to better engage with your social media followers.
1) Understand your audience
Everything we do on social starts with the people to whom we’re trying to reach. Before we can engage with fans, we need to know a few things about them, like: What do they like (other than our brand)? What social channels do they frequent? When are they likely to check their channels?
Once you have a better understanding of who your audience is, your chances of garnering meaningful engagement will be much higher.
2) Treat your audience the way they want to be treated
Everyone wants to laugh on social media, right? Well, maybe not. Being funny or clever is a great option for many brands based on their audience. However, there are some audiences who prefer a more direct, straightforward type of content.
It’s important to speak to your fans the way they speak to each other. Listening to them is just as important as speaking to them.
3) Ask for what you want
This one sounds pretty simple, but it’s ignored far too often. Depending on the goal of your post or campaign, asking your fans to take a specific action is imperative.
If you’re looking for more downloads of a brochure, format your post and write copy to motivate them to click the link. Want to know how fans use your product? Ask them to share in the comments of a photo.
It’s also important to keep the call-to-action simple and easy to do. If you’re looking for fans to record a video and upload it to a site, that may be great, but the number of steps involved is likely to drive participation rates down.
4) Make them feel important
Once you’ve understood more about who your fans are, knowing why they follow your pages is key. Some may want to just stay in touch, but others may want to feel like they’re rewarded by your brand for following you. Throw these folks a bone. Not literally, unless you sell bones.
Your social channels are great places to unveil new products, run contests, or even surprise and delight them with seemingly random giveaways.
5) Make every comment matter
This one sounds so simple, and the great news is that it truly is simple. As community managers, particularly on high-volume pages, it’s easy to start cherry picking the best comments to respond to. However, this ignores the dozens, hundreds, thousands (?) of other fans who have taken time to write to your brand.
Yes, the person who writes a glowing paragraph about your products warrants a great response. So does the person who simply says “I like it.” Addressing even the shortest of comments with a genuine response goes a long way to fostering a great community of followers.
Looking for more ways to engage with your social media followers? We have plenty of solutions for you. Drop us a line, we’d love to chat!
