If you’re anything like me, you love a good metaphor. And here’s one of my favourites – marketing is one big relay race. And just like in the sport, each leg is as important as the one before it and the race is often won or lost at the handoff. If mistakes are made or important strategies are overlooked during the various phases of your marketing plan, you could undo a lot of the hard work that’s already been done.
One area that we see this happen often is in social media and its performance. You’re posting frequently with great content that represents your brand well, but you’re not seeing much traction – your follower count isn’t rising and people don’t seem to be overly interested in your brand. So what gives?
This disconnect can occur because of your engagement strategy, or lack thereof. Engagement is one of the key handoffs in content & social media marketing and it’s often severely overlooked. With constantly changing algorithms, it’s getting harder and harder for brands to reach their target audience(s) and they need to do more than simply post to their feed.
Your social media is a key part of the customer journey and an excellent way to build lasting relationships with your followers. Engaging with them can help you earn their trust, understand their needs, acknowledge their concerns, and prove that you do what you say. If you claim that you have excellent customer service, but you ignore their direct message on Facebook, you’ve officially just dropped the baton. Their trust is broken and they are much less likely to convert. For existing customers, your social media can be a place where they decide to either become an advocate or a critic. Fail to engage with them and they may feel neglected and go elsewhere. But for brands that engage regularly and meaningfully, they often have more than customers, they have a community, a fan base, and that my friends, is how you get the gold medal.
Here are some ways to engage:
- Post meaningful content that doesn’t just sell, it connects with your audience
- Show you are listening by reposting tagged posts, stories, or mentions
- Reply to direct messages and comments (when it’s negative or positive!)
- Reach out and interact with the community. Like, share, comment on other posts
- Share a variety of content (images, videos, stories, interactive polls & quizzes)
- And if it’s on-brand, consider promotions such as giveaways and competitions
When you work with BottomLine, we become a team. If you’ve got questions about social engagement or any other strategies, we’ve got winning ideas. Get in touch today.