Having at least two social media accounts is practically a must for today’s businesses if they are to grow and survive. Having social media accounts and posting content is just the start, however. Optimizing your brand’s social media presence and engaging your future and present customers alike in an authentic, meaningful way is the bigger goal. Learn how to make your social media content work for you the way it’s supposed to.
What Is Social Media Engagement?
Social media engagement is a metric for the performance of a brand’s social media account. It measures public shares, likes, and comments. It doesn’t always translate to sales—at least maybe not automatically—but it does signal interest and allows brands to continue communicating with prospective customers.
Achieving Authentic Social Media Engagement
Ticking this box in your overall digital marketing strategy takes a thorough understanding of what your brand is all about and careful content planning.
Here 4 ways to ensure authentic social media engagement:
1. Humanity
Consumers won’t readily warm up to a faceless corporate entity. As people, they will respond better to people. This is why humanizing your brand needs to be a prominent feature of your social media marketing strategy. Among the most significant takeaways from pertinent research into human tendencies and modern commerce mentioned in this Harvard Business Review article is the value of human interaction and the human touch.
Automation, along with other innovations in technology, has stitched virtual transactions into the fabric of consumers’ everyday lives; and it tends to sacrifice human interaction for the sake of seamlessness and snap-of-a-finger speed.
But your audience is a collection of humans, whether they are existing customers or prospects you have yet to get over the line. Balance your automated processes with the timelessness of human touch in all your social media content to sustain meaningful engagement.
These 3 elements should be part of your social media engagement strategy:
Intention
This is crucial for meaningful interaction. Your prospects’ and customers’ experience of your brand should be influenced by human intention and not just out of pure automation. A great example cited in the HBR article is people’s willingness to pay more for handmade products versus products cranked out by machines.
Effort
Make use of your social media content to give your audience a window into your products or services. Other than that, use your social media channels to give both customers and prospects a behind-the-scenes glimpse into your day-to-day operations so they can see the effort that goes into the products or services they’re paying for.
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Tip: It can’t hurt to inject a bit of fun or humor here and there, or a lot of it if your product lends well to some laughs and jokes.
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Authenticity
Increase engagement by using your social media content to show human involvement in your brand. Thus humanizing your brand can help tremendously to convey authenticity and add weight to the value you’re offering.
2. A genuine desire and readiness to help
Because modern-day consumers are value-oriented, be sure to consistently communicate your value proposition in your social media content. Barring the question of when your business is in operation, the best approach to growing your business is to focus on providing effective solutions for your customers—products and services that solve their problems and make their lives better.
Your social media channels then give you a venue to provide added value through tips, pointers, tutorials. That’s how you increase engagement with your brand. People trust brands that genuinely want to help and are showing it.
3. Integrity
Every business needs to make a profit—it’s one of the reasons to start a business, after all. However, for some companies, it’s their only reason, and when that’s the case, they are often not above using dubious methods just to get conversions and make a sale. That can include posting clickbait content.
Conversely, if you have a clear, sincere mission and vision, and a huge part of your purpose for starting your business is to make a difference (see #2), then you will make sure to do all the right things that will get your brand authentic engagement across your social media channels. And your customers? They will see integrity in your content and trust your brand. Trust almost always comes with engagement.
We’ve achieved our pledge to become carbon neutral by the end of 2020.
— EY (@EYnews) December 17, 2020
It’s an important milestone and the next step on our #sustainability journey as we continue to build a #BetterWorkingWorld by driving long-term, sustainable growth for all.https://t.co/Npo5DaYBK7 pic.twitter.com/yS1DsB6WPY
4. User-generated content
Most people on social media, if not all, are on there because they want to establish connections, and they won’t mind the exposure to a broader audience, thanks to you. This is why asking for user-generated content around your product or service is an effective way to engage meaningfully with your audience.
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Conclusion
Social media has been a gift to modern commerce, allowing businesses to reach out to both present and potential customers through various channels. However, number of followers and likes doesn’t necessarily translate to authentic engagement. This is why your brand’s social media marketing strategy should focus on posting organic, authentic content that enriches the lives of your audience.
Ready to start or rework your social media engagement campaigns?
Contact Purple Cow to collaborate with a team of professionals who understand the importance of content that amplifies your brand’s story, mission and vision, and value proposition.
