Connection Builds Customer Relationships and Your Brand
Using social media to build customer relationships creates vast opportunities, including building brand loyalty and increasing your bottom line. Connecting with your audience is one of the keys to success when using social media. When consumers feel connected to brands, they are more likely to invest in that company.
How Connection Leads to Success on Social Media
Just like progress, not perfection, is the key to living your best life, connection is the key to success on social media. Here are five reasons why you should strive for connection instead of perfection to find your social media success:
CONNECTION ESTABLISHES A RELATIONSHIP.
Social media provides a platform for connection, and connection establishes a relationship.
Tell your story, be real, get people to connect with you. Once they feel they know, like, and trust you, they’re more inclined to follow you and believe in your brand. Followers who believe in your brand = SUCCESS!
PEOPLE DO BUSINESS WITH PEOPLE.
Connection is made when people buy into what you do and why you do it.
Ask yourself this: How are you improving people’s LIVES through your business?
As a business, it’s important to really speak to our clients’ hearts – their hopes, fears, and dreams. It’s also important to be honest and really lay out on the table why you do what you do. By doing that, you allow your audience to relate and create the connection point you need to get them on board with your business and your brand.
TAKE YOUR BUSINESS TO THE NEXT LEVEL.
You must be actively engaged and socialize with others to grow your audience. Connection is key! If your followers comment on your posts, start a conversation in the thread. Reach out on their posts as well to share your thoughts and start building that initial relationship.
Write helpful blog posts and share them on social media. This directs your followers to your website, where they can find your contact information and newsletter sign up form.
Encourage your followers to sign up to your email newsletter or join your private Facebook group. You can offer an incentive for doing so!
BUILD A LOYAL TRIBE.
Social media is flooded with new businesses every single day who are all trying to find their audience and be heard. Don’t let yourself get sucked into the comparison game. Instead, celebrate the success of others and embrace your uniqueness.
EXPAND YOUR NETWORK AND INFLUENCE.
When you build your tribe, you’re essentially expanding your network. Not only can you create brand ambassadors, you are creating influencers who will help sell your products or services.
Let Your Inner Perfectionist Go
Business is not solely about spreading information about what you’re selling exclusively. You should seek to share a little of yourself with your audience every day because, after all, we’re all human. And humans crave connection, not perfection.
According to research by the Content Marketing Institute, the vast majority of marketers are using content marketing. Content marketing has proven to be beneficial and can be integral to building trust. But, like most other digital-marketing techniques, content marketing isn’t something you want to jump into blindly.
Much like football isn’t just catching the ball and running, content marketing isn’t just creating and distributing content. It is an entire strategic approach that allows you to attract and engage a clearly defined audience and, ideally, generate profitable customer engagement.
What’s more, content marketing levels the playing field, allowing small businesses to compete with much larger ones with a smart, well-thought-out campaign.
So, how do you create an effective content marketing strategy?
A content marketing strategy must include a few key elements to be effective: brand positioning, owned media value proposition, business case, and strategic plan. Below is a list of steps that encumbers all of the key elements necessary to create an effective content marketing strategy:
Define Your Content Marketing Goal
Research and Understand Your Audience
Set Up Your Blog (If You Don’t Already Have One)
Update Your Current Content (If You’ve Already Been Publishing)
Start Building an Email List and Know How You’re Going to Use It
Brainstorm Content Ideas and Use Keyword Research to Find Opportunities
Decide Which Format of Content You Want to Produce
Outline Which Content Marketing Strategies You’ll Experiment With
Let Social Creative Help with Your Content Marketing
Developing a unique strategy for your brand will save you a lot of time and frustration, and enables you to get the results you ultimately want.
While the methods used to deliver content to prospects are continually changing, the core principles remain the same⎯develop a top-notch content marketing strategy. If you’re interested in our help, call us today. We’d love to help!
To be successful on social media it takes hard work and consistency. With so much content out there, it can be a challenge to stand out above the others. While a social media strategy is one way to rock your efforts, there are other tactics you can implement that will gain you engaged followers and help you publish content that gets your business noticed.
1. Post More Images
Hands down, photos get the most engagement on social media. Next time you post, try to include an image. Need help with images? Canva is an awesome tool that lets you create images that work on most major social media channels.
2. Use a Social Media Scheduler
Consistency is key if you want to grow your social media followers. By using a social media scheduler, you can plan and schedule posts and then forget about them. Hootsuite is a free tool that allows you to schedule posts across multiple networks. Loomly is what we use for our clients, and we absolutely love it. So do our clients!
3. Track Your Efforts
It’s so important to track your social media activities. You need to understand what is working and where you can improve. Hootsuite offers free basic analytics and each social media network also provides analytics. You should measure your efforts on a weekly, monthly and quarterly basis.
4. Mix Up Content
Keep your followers engaged by mixing up the content you share. Post text, images, video and links.
5. Tell a Story
There’s no better way to connect customers with your brand than to tell a story. If you are selling a product, don’t just sell it. Share a story and show people why they need your product. Check out this video from Kleenex. The company doesn’t try to sell you anything, but you’ll surely be reaching for a Kleenex after watching it.
6. Encourage Conversations
Don’t just share content that promotes your business; share content that encourages conversations. This will not only help with keeping your followers engaged, it will also help in creating communities around your brand.
7. Interact with Others
Don’t be that company that just pushes out content. Make sure you interact with your followers and other influencers on social media. Reply to all comments, post comments on other posts and take part in online conversations.
8. Be Authentic
Social media is so popular because it’s real. Real conversations take place online and people share personal details about their lives. Even if you’re a company that sells paper towels, you still have the opportunity to be authentic and genuine. Give people a reason to want to connect with your brand; being fake or too pushy won’t help.
9. Incorporate Hashtags
With organic reach on the decline, getting your content in front of people requires a strategic approach. One of the ways that gives your content a better chance of showing up in search results is by incorporating relevant hashtags in your social posts. Try adding them to your Tweets and Instagram posts.
10. Use Keywords in Your Posts
Social networks have search features that operate just like search engines. When someone searches something on a social media network, they type in certain keywords. Using relevant keywords in your posts will increase your chance of your posts being found by people searching for certain topics in your industry.
Remember, growth takes time and consistency; however, by incorporating these strategies in your social media efforts, you should start seeing results.
Do you have any tips that are working for you? If so, please share in the comments.
Social media is a very powerful tool for businesses. No matter how big or small your company is, if you’re not on social media, you’re missing out on a huge number of potential customers. If you are already on social media, good for you! Now it’s time to take a look at your social media efforts and conduct an honest assessment.
Here are some questions that might help as you take a look at your social media activities:
Do you have a scheduling plan or are you posting at random times on random days?
Do you plan out social media content that aligns with your business priorities and advertising campaigns?
How active are your followers? Do they engage with your content?
Do you monitor your competitors?
Of course these are just a handful of things to consider; however, they will help you understand your current social media efforts and where there are opportunities for improvement.
Whether you’re looking to improve your social media efforts or you’re just starting out, you’ll want to make sure you have a social media strategy. Think of a social media strategy as a blueprint for your social media activities. Without one, you’ll find you lack goals, and ultimately, you may not see the results you hope for. By developing a well-planned-out strategy that aligns with your brand values, your business goals and your social media goals, the chances of success are higher. A social media strategy allows your approach to be serious and strategic.
It Aligns Social Media Activities with Business Goals
If your company sells custom-designed clothing, some of your business goals are likely to be: sell more clothing, acquire new customers and establish your company as the go-to for custom-designed clothing. That said, you’re going to want your social media activities to support those key business goals. Having a strategy requires you to list your business goals and then plan out how your social media efforts will support these goals. Whether it be through content, a customer-service response approach or ad campaigns, a strategy will keep the focus on your business goals and help you stay on track.
It Helps You Choose Channels
It seems like new social media networks are popping up every day. While it may be tempting to jump on the latest trend when it comes to social media, that may be the worst thing you can do for your business. It will stretch you way too thin.
After you assess where your customers are hanging out (which social networks), your social media strategy should include the networks you are going to be active on. If you’re a law firm, chances are you aren’t going to find much success in being active on Instagram; however, if you are an art studio, Instagram may be where you find some of your most loyal customers.
Also, your strategy should include your objectives for each network you are going to have a presence on. For example, objectives for your Facebook page may be to build brand awareness, share a mix of relevant links and promote upcoming events.
It Helps You Set Goals (and Reach Them)
For some people, writing down their goals helps them reach them. The same can be true with a social media strategy. Because it helps guide you and provides direction for all of your activities, having your social media goals in writing, may help you better achieve those goals.
Here are some examples of goals you can include in your strategy:
Define the No. 1 reason you’re using social media.
How will you listen to conversations taking place on social media?
How often will you post on each network?
By including these things in your strategy, you will be able to stay on track and follow the direction you set for your company. The great thing about having a strategy is that if you find you are lacking direction in your day-to-day social media activities, you can always refer back to it.
It Provides a Snapshot of Content You Will Share
Your social media strategy shouldn’t go into detail about your daily posts (that is what a content calendar is for), but it should include the type of content you will share. Let’s go back to the custom-design clothing company. They will likely want to share content that includes custom-designed products for customers, behind-the-scenes moments, new product announcements and even employee spotlights to showcase the company’s talented staff.
Your social strategy can go even one step further and include ways in which you will create that content. Will you use photos, videos, blog posts and graphics? By focusing on the type of content you will share, how often you will post and on which network you will share this great content, you’ll eventually understand what works and what doesn’t.
It Helps Measure Social Media Results
Measuring your social media activities plays a huge role in social success. By continuously monitoring your social media efforts, you can see what is working and where there are opportunities for improvement.
Your social media strategy should spell out the key metrics you want to monitor. From likes, retweets and shares, to comments, new followers and unfollows, you must understand how your followers are interacting with your business on social media. Growing and nurturing relationships with your customers is what will help your success.
You also want to include the ways in which you will listen to conversations taking place on social media, especially those about your brand. Effectively listening to those conversations can be huge when it comes to acquiring new customers or getting ahead of a crisis.
Finally, you will want to monitor your competitors on social media. It’s important to see what they are doing right and what may not be working for them.
Social media is one of the cheapest ways you can increase brand awareness and build relationships; however, it must be done properly in order to be effective. Creating a social media strategy is one of the best places you can start. Remember, a strategy is a blueprint of your activities and will guide you to reaching social media success.
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