The Art of Social Media

Social media success goes beyond the “like.” While likes are an important initial step in terms of drawing a target audience into a page, true ROI occurs through goal conversions and audience engagement. There are quite a few Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that can be used to measure social media efforts, such as: email acquisition, increased web traffic, whitepaper downloads, generation of sales, app downloads, online magazine views, event attendance and e-newsletter sign ups.

Achieving these goals is not easy, but there are a few key practices you can follow that will help. First and foremost, be authentic! It’s important to focus your attention on your audience, and your audience wants to feel like you are genuine and treating them as you would a “real” customer, so avoid the “corporate speak.” Also, if you want people to have interest in what you have to say, you need to understand what it is that they want as a consumer. It’s not always about you! By doing so, you are keeping your relationship with the consumer more of a personal, intimate one, which will show your audience that you care.

Keeping with that theme, it’s important to understand that you need to be social, when doing social. Social media is a two-way. You should make time for not only generating great content, but engaging with your audience’s reaction to that content. Like, share, tag and socialize. Your audience will feel closer to your brand and therefore engage more often, recommend it and defend it. Try to really open up a dialogue when responding to comments or reviews, use their name and keep in mind that they want to feel like they can trust you and that you are not just trying to sell them on something.

Hardcore selling in your content on social turns your audience off and also decreases organic performance. Once your audience is disengaged, it’s difficult to win them back. So while you can — and should — sell, it should be done in moderation and through candid, genuine content. Keep in mind quality over quantity; the more useful, high-quality content you post the better. And remember, poor content will not only turn your audience off, but will also hurt your ability to grow, and sell on, your social channels.

Don’t forget about social advertising and keep an eye on self-promotion. Today, your audience has accepted that they will see advertising when looking at social media content. Making your social advertising as good as, if not better than, your regular content can yield immediate results. Leverage that to extend your reach and awareness, but ultimately remember to focus on your audience. Too much advertising and discussion about yourself can deter the customer. Keep in mind that you are their resource, and you want to keep it that way.

Finally, be sure to evaluate yourself. Watch how your posts and content perform and how your audience reacts to them. Pay attention to insights, analytics and audience trends and learn from them. Keep in mind that you cannot please everyone, so be ready for negative feedback. Social media makes it easy for your audience to complain, so be watchful and have a plan in place to deal with it. Most of all, avoid mud slinging in an open forum. Have an escalation policy in place to remove a negative conversation/experience.

If you would like more information on how The Brandon Agency can help you elevate your brand and social media network contact us today.