Or is it?
It's a good feeling when you sit back and admire your professional looking brand account with its perfectly measured cover image and striking profile picture that isn't even a little bit cropped because you looked up the dimensions on Google (180 x 180 for Facebook, but it will be cropped to 160 x 160, top tip) but it's no use having it dressed up all pretty and filling it with terrific updates about the work you're doing if you are the only person who cares about it. One of the big mistakes people make with social media is that they think the quantity of their followers is important: It isn't. You can have as many followers or fans as you like, but if none of them are paying attention to you then it really doesn't matter.
Look at it this way: if you had 100 friends but only 1 came to your party, the other 99 are less valuable. They're less engaged.
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| Bless, no-one came to his party. |
So how do we fix that? How do we make those other 99 people sit up and take note of what you're saying and, in the case of social media, become engaged with your brand?
Here's a list of the top 5 things that you should keep in mind when trying to create an engaged social media fan base.
1. Give them a reason to respond. Just telling people about something won't grab their attention. Instead, ask them a question about it, tell them to retweet it for a chance to win what you've done, tell them that if they like your update you'll give them something extra.
2. Ask for their opinion. People like to feel important and too often brands forget that. Make them feel involved with what you're doing and like they have a say in the outcome by simply asking for their opinion or for some advice. 'We've made a new table!' is fine, but 'What do you think of this new table we've made?' is better and will get a greater response.
3. Competitions. I used to run the social media account for a popular brand of cider. One lunch time I asked the fans to like a picture of an empty pint glass over 200 times to see the glass filled up. At the end of the day we had over 1000 likes and received hundreds of comments on the second picture, most of which were annoyed that we hadn't given them a real pint! Just the prize of a picture of some cider was enough to get good engagement figures so clever 'competitions' like that are a good way to go.
4. Unexpected content. The main purpose of your social media presence is to talk about the service or product you offer, but that doesn't mean every update you do has to be about the same thing. Posting something completely different once in a while will catch your fans off guard and mean they're more likely to pay attention. Take Skittles for example, they talk about their sweets quite a lot but their Halloween update was something really off the wall, resulting in even greater numbers than usual.
5. Talk to people like they're your friends. Imagine you're in a shop. The person behind the counter doesn't smile and isn't up for a chat. You're less likely to shop there again. The same is true on social media. If you're cold with your fans they'll be less willing to engage with you, but if you treat them like mates and involve yourself in conversation with them every now and then you'll find they start talking to you a whole lot more often. Once I simply asked a fan base to tell me other words that rhymed with the product I was talking for and an hour or so later our engagement figures for the month had doubled.
This isn't rocket science but it does take time and a bit of imagination. Keep doing it and you'll see the results speak for themselves, or email me and I'll do it for you. Because I am kind.
www.ashbillinghay.co.uk