What would it take to be a brand your audience wants to listen to on social?
When is the last time you thought about what your audience would want rather than what your boss expects, the numbers you have to hit, or what your competition is or is not doing?
With personalization being so important right now, marketers need to continue to ask themselves,
What does my audience want and what do they expect?
and apply this question to every part of their marketing strategy including social. Afterall social is just that, social, it’s not called selling for a reason.
Active
Everyone debates about how much or how little to post. But what if instead of wondering how much to post you just make sure you’re sharing the right stuff?
No matter what your opinion is about the quantity of posts I think we can all agree that the quality of posts matters. You shouldn’t post content just to have it and you shouldn’t post content just to promote yourself. There should be a reason behind your post and this is why Buffer has created the Golden Ratio for social media sharing:
- Share 30% OWNED content
- Share 60% CURATED content
- Share 10% PROMOTIONAL content
Or in other words for every Tweet that is about your company or for every Facebook post has your blog’s link make sure you share FOUR more of someone else’s.
Wait… why would I promote someone else on my page?
Now we aren’t talking about their promos and PR pieces but the content they have written and shared that could also help your audience.
Why is this important? Because…
- It helps build trust with your audience.
- Your audience will see you a resource and an expert in your field.
- Your audience will pick on up on the fact you aren’t trying to sell sell sell but educate, and appreciate that about your page.
- You Audience might actually start coming to your social pages on their own to get the updates and information they need.
- The Page whose content you shared could return the favor and share your content helping increase your awareness and engagement rate.
Click Here To Subscribe To Our Blog
On Brand
It’s important that your organization has a consistent brand and image within all social platforms.
We believe you don’t need to be on every single social platform. However, you should pick one or two platforms to go all in on. When trying to decide which ones to choose please don’t pick based on what you know and what you are comfortable. Instead, choose the social platform based on where your audience hangs out and go there.
Once you have picked your one or two social platforms you next have to ensure that your audience will recognize them. That means streamlining what is shared and how it is shared so all social platforms and messages fit together. You don’t want to have one image on Twitter and a different one on Facebook because two different people are running them. Instead, create best practices around your social brand to ensure everyone is on the same page and your image stays consistent.
- Visually- Do the images you post match? Are they branded?
- Voice- No matter who is behind your social does your style of voice match up?
- Story- What are you trying to show or tell your audience on each platform?
Click Here To Learn More About Converge
Engaged
Why have a social presence if you aren’t going to be social on it?
Remember, you aren’t using social to sell anymore so now you need to use social to drive engagement and an easy way to do that is to engage with other people.
- What conversations are happening that you can easily be a part of?
- What conversations can you start?
- What conversations are happening about you?
For years, marketers have been stressing the importance of social customer care but many brands have yet to accept it. In fact, Social Media Today says:
- 1 in 3 social media users prefer social media customer care services to telephone or email
- An estimated 67% of consumers now use social media networks like Twitter and Facebook to seek resolution for issues
- Customers spend 20-40% more with companies engage and respond to customers via social media
- Nearly 70% of consumers have said that they have used social media for issues to do with customer service on at least one occasion
If that isn’t the proof you need to start handling customer’s concerns and questions on social then I am not sure what is! This is a great way to build trust, transparency and customer service all in one platform and when it’s done correctly you can have some really awesome results from social.
Wrap It Up
We hope these three tips didn’t frighten you too badly!
Social media is always changing and how and what we do on it will continue to change as well. If you haven’t been doing these three things it is never too late to start. Bring your social media team together and explain why and how you want to make these changes and get their feedback as well. If they are the ones currently monitoring what is happening on social then you can gain a lot of insight into what might need to change in order for social to be a treat!