These days, the world of social media is populated with millions of different brands, each striving to get their share of public attention. To stand out from this crowd, you need to grasp the most important concept of social media “etiquette”, which is humanizing.
When it comes to promotion a biz across social media, you should understand that it’s NOT the place where traditional internet marketing techniques work. Here you use different means of building the following of your loyal customers. And the prime elements of marketing on this type of media are being social and acting like a human.
If while acting under your company brand you manage to preserve a human face, you will turn social media into a powerful tool that will let you:
- Drive targeted traffic to your website,
- Engage with your potential customers and clients,
- Manage your brand’s reputation across various Internet channels.
Read on to learn how to use social media for promoting your biz the right way.
1 Research Your Audience
It’s essential to know what kind of audience you are targeting. Do you know who is on the other end of your screaming offers of exclusive bargains and great deals? Do you know who is listening to your brand? Is there actually anyone on the other end?
The first steps of any SMM campaign should be figuring out who your current audience is. You should take time to research, listen, and understand people who follow (or may prospectively follow) you.
Remember, that good social strategists always turn their ear to what their audience says and needs. Research your audience’s interests and moods, find out what they actually want to get, and then shape your SM content strategy based on what your current following needs.
2 Reach Out
Engage with people who are listening to your brand. Like, share, retweet, participate in discussions, be an active member in various communities, start trending topics, participate in chats, hashtag conversations, etc. Doing all that will let you expose your business to a wider audience and reach out new potential followers and fans.
Above all, it’s important to connect with the industry’s influencers. If you manage to build good relationship with those who are usually on top of industry news, that will help you with newsjacking and spreading the word about your company, product or brand.
It’s great to connect with:
- Influential bloggers of your niche
- Other bloggers who may accept your guest posts and promote your biz
- Popular website owners who run sites on the same or similar topic
- Influential people of your sphere who are popular on the Web.
That will let you find new channels for reaching more potential followers.
3 Means on Communication on Social Media
Some SMMs automate their campaigns to an extreme degree. That way, one can get tons of followers overnight, automatically send out lots of friends requests, but, in the end, they will end up with poor engagement rate and low level of interaction with the audience.
That’s why you’d better avoid thoughtless automated posting, meaningless automating comments, automated following/sending friends requests, etc.
Try to act like a human:
- monitor what people say about your company or brand;
- join them in various communications;
- establish your professional authority;
- demonstrate your profound knowledge of your business sphere;
- be helpful and assist people in solving their issues.
Yes, it may be quite a challenge and require more time and effort, but in the end you will build a dedicated following that will be loyal to your brand.
Luckily, there are some advanced SMM tools that can spare you the need to search for your brand/keyword mentions or the necessity to switch between multiple sources when monitoring your communications. So you can do those tasks all in one place.
BuzzBundle can be of great help in managing the above mentioned activities.
Check out this video to learn more about how to use the tool for managing your SMM activities.
4 Keep Your Audience Interested
Don’t bore your audience with monotonous repetitive posts dedicated solely to your biz. Try your best to get your followers interested in what you post. You know, social media is the place where one can not only find some useful info, but also have fun or find some inspiration.
Diversify your posts with funny stuff (memes, videos, games, life hacks etc.), interesting stories from your business sphere, case studies, etc.
Another way to grab people’s attention is to ask for their opinions on different topics (not related to your biz). Thus you will spark interesting discussions and involve people in communication. Doing this will also bring fun into your social media communities and help you establish yourself as someone with unique perspectives.
But don’t exceed the limits. If you represent a serious brand, you should be selective about the content you share in your community.
5 Use Different Styles of Social Media Management
Try to manage your community in different manner. Don’t be just a promoter of your biz, be a thought-leader, a resource, an entertainer of your fans and followers.
Also, as your audiences grow (and you see that it’s getting diverse), you will need to choose the “voice” and tone for each group on each of the different social media platforms.
Using different styles of social media management will help you connect with people on various levels, which can be a lot stronger than a mere business connection.
6 Show Your Human Side
Each company is made of humans, who have their own feelings and emotions. That’s why showing that you are human will help you build close and more intimate relations with your audience.
That is an example by West Jet AirLines.
Try to humanize your ways of communication on social media in the way described above, and you will see who quickly you will raise engagement rate in your online communities and increase your social following.
What types of things are you doing to humanize your ways of social media communication? Have you experienced difficulties of challenges with that? Feel free to share your experience in the comments.
