Social media marketing isn't your average marketing approach. With traditional marketing, you focus on telling people about how your brand can benefit them. Mostly, you have the chance to talk to your target audience about yourself.
Social media marketing doesn't work that way. Instead, the key to really successful social media marketing is to build communities of people who are engaged with your brand. From there, those communities spread the word about your brand organically and naturally.
You are going to find that the way to create those communities isn't actually to talk about yourself all the time. Instead, try these strategies for creating an engaged community through social media marketing.
Create social media engagement by delivering great content.
One of the goals of social media marketing is to get people talking about your brand. If they are sharing your Facebook posts, retweeting your ideas, commenting on your thoughts, and answering your questions, they are probably also spreading awareness of your brand to their networks. That means you get to enjoy greater brand awareness, and, hopefully, more website visitors and conversions.
One way to get people to have these conversations is to deliver really great content through social media. We don't mean going on and on about your latest store remodel or your team's last team building activity. Remember, it's not really about you on social media. Instead, great social media content does the following:
- Solves a problem for your consumer
- Engages interest
- Relates to the audience
- Is interesting to read
- Encourages action
- Demonstrates thought leadership
Great content, for example, is the difference between listing your funeral bouquet options and posting a first person account of the difference a bouquet made for a someone who lost a loved one.
Create social media engagement by engaging.
Think of social media as a relationship with your target audience. No relationship can form unless both parties are actively communicating with each other. To that end, you can use social media marketing to build an engaged community by engaging with your target audience yourself.
For example, when people comment on your social media posts, you should take the time to respond thoughtfully. What if they said something nasty? Respond kindly and offer to discuss the issue in private. What if they have a complaint? You definitely need to address it. What if they simply want to add their two cents to an article or an opinion that you shared? Now is the time to enjoy a conversation around the idea that clearly sparked their interest. The more you engage with your target audience, the more your social media marketing campaign will become the kind of active community you want it to be.
Use social media marketing to build engagement by not talking about yourself.
We have touched briefly on this already, but one of the keys to building a community with your social media marketing efforts is to not talk about yourself all the time. People will get very bored very quickly if all they hear about is how amazing you think your business is. And don't even think of pitching your brand every time you comment on someone else's social media. Not only will you turn people off to your brand, but you might just be asked to keep your comments to yourself.
Instead, take the time to engage with other people's thoughts and opinions. And, make sure that what you have to say is valuable and builds up the community of which you are a part. Respond to posts. Retweet other people's ideas. Share relevant thoughts of your own, and see where the conversation takes you.
Create ways for people to engage with you.
You can also use social media marketing to build an engaged community by creating ways for your target audience to engage with you.
For example, polls, contests, and giveaways are great ways to use social media marketing to build engagement with your audiences. People love to give their opinions through polls. They really like to win, and they especially love free stuff.
Why not offer them a free bouquet when they like your page? Why not run a contest for most creative bouquet and have people post pictures of their entries? The more you invite engagement, the more engagement you are likely to receive.
Building an engaged community through your social media marketing efforts is a great way to earn the attention you need from your target audience. In order to create this community, you need to deliver great content, engage with your audiences, not talk about yourself all the time, and create ways for people to engage with you.
If you want help creating this kind of vibrant and effective social media marketing campaign, reach out to Distinct Web Design. We can help you to implement social media marketing efforts that will improve your audience's perception of and engagement with your brand.
