Without a shadow of a doubt, a business that is socially engaged online will always get more business than the ones that aren’t; even if they only generate a little more traffic, it’s traffic that they wouldn’t have got otherwise.
But social engagement is more than just generating traffic; it’s also about learning from your market, having conversations with buyers and potential buyers, building a relationship with them, and maybe - just maybe, helping your search engine rankings along the way.
So how does a business become socially engaged?
Here are 6 great ways to become socially engaged.
Do things differently
Think differently – your website might be absolutely professional to the core (as it should be), but social engagement is about having a conversation with your market, and being 100% corporate isn’t always the best policy.
Try relaxing your grasp on corporate speak a little, try having a little fun, talk to your audience in the relaxed way that I’m sure many of them will want to be talked to.
Be prepared to take a well thought-out risk – this will enable you to test and learn. Digital media is ever changing, as a business you need to be flexible and nimble to keep up with it.
Earn your way (by listening)
Listen in social media is really important – remember you’re using social channels to have conversations (not just sell your products and services), so listening must play its part.
Millions of people might be talking about your business, your brand or products and services that you supply; you need to listen to what they are saying so that you can respond correctly (and timely).
Great insights from your market will help you create better value for your market, and therefore better value for your business.
Make social a culture
Don’t make the mistake of sitting one person at a computer and ask them to do social media as well as their current work. Make social a cultural shift within your business by recruiting staff into social roles, report on their activity at least monthly so that everyone inside the business see’s the activity been undertaken and the benefits that are being generated.
Be big and bold
When you start off in social media, it’s easy to fall into the trap that you think no-one is listening and no-one is interested in what you have to say, but they are.
Be bold, talk about topics that are not only important to you as a business but also what is important to your audience. If you provide credit cards or bank accounts then be bold and discuss debt; if you sell mortgages talk about the problem of not been able to keep up with repayments; if you sell software then help people to understand what might happen if that software fails – be brave, be bold.
Creation and Curation
It’s not always about posting topics that you have created in-house or starting your own discussions; sometimes it’s important to comment on other’s work, maybe other similar businesses. Content can come from many different sources, look and listening to what’s outside of your business to see which of it can help you to engage with your market and get the conversation going.
Internal Collaboration
As already alluded to, Social media is a huge role for just one person in a decent sized business; but it is also true that social media is bigger than just one department. Call upon your colleagues in Sales, Customer Services and Support to help facilitate content, topics and discussions; these teams can help provide real-time insights as to what’s important to talk about.
None of this happens overnight, but if you are starting your social engagement journey, consider these points and getting you towards your end game will become much easier.
