#AwesomeInSocial - Engage with Your Audience Daily

The key to successful social media campaigns is the engagement you have with your audience. It’s been proven that consumers buy based on emotions. If you’re not connecting on an emotional level, you’re missing out on a key component, and your social media influence will suffer because of it.

So how do you establish that emotional connection?

Daily Engagement is the answer.

You want to become a regular fixture in their everyday lives, and a go-to place of inspiration, humor, and guidance. Coming up with daily content can seem like a daunting task, but it’s easier than you think.

Here’s a short list of ideas to get you started. Mix and match as needed.

Ask Questions

Asking questions is a great way to connect your brand to your audience. You want to get your community talking, and the easiest way to do this is by capturing their curiosity.  It sparks dialogue and gets people interested in you and your content.

Tips:

• Keep your questions simple.
• Try to encourage people to tell their stories.
• Use images to help get people interested in your question.
• Make sure you brand any images you use since it’s easy to lose the origin of content over social media.

Themed Releases

Twitter has #FollowFriday (#FF), and you’ve no doubt seen #ThrowbackThursday (#TBT) on many of your social media channels. You can create a weekly theme for your own social media campaigns. #MotivationMonday is a great one to start off the week. Explore options that are unique to your platform as well. Why not start off your Friday with an Instagram Story showcasing the week? Instagram is also a great place to use color themes. If you have a motivational quote for Twitter that can’t be carried in 140 characters or less, consider using an image.

Tips:

• Hashtags are wonderful for Instagram and Twitter, but they can get obnoxious for Facebook users. The only exception to this is in Facebook groups, as that allows a group member to search by hashtag.
• Don’t feel trapped by your content theme. You can adapt to seasons, new products, or on a whim. Just make sure you engage with your viewers and let them know that changes are happening.

Contests

Contests are an excellent way to get people to interact with your content. While this isn’t something you should do every day, it does bring a little punch to the party. Choose contests that have goals in them. Do you want shares, likes, or more?

Tips

• Choose one call-to-action per contest.
• Think outside the box and create fun and inventive contests.
• Make sure you follow up with winners as soon as possible.
• Keep your contests tied to your brand.

If none of these inspire you, look to your own social media interaction. What content gets you excited? What ideas can you gather from your own experiences?

Here are some final tips:

• Share stories from your audience.
• Reply to comments as soon as possible so that they know you’re listening.
• Your spelling and grammar are very important. Make sure you keep up the quality your readers expect in both posts and comments.
• Be consistent in terminology and voice.

Start your daily engagement today, and you’ll see great results and show us all how to #BeAwesome!

Be sure to Follow us and Let's Engage!

Hollie Clere of The Social Media Advisor is a “#BeAwesome” Developer, Social Media, Brand Builder, Content Manager, Trainer and Author in LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Blog, Google+,YouTube, Pinterest, Instagram and the tools to manage them.

Click here for her Social Media Workshops, Classes and Seminars

#AwesomeEngagement – How Social Engagement Benefits Your Newsfeed

Social media has become interwoven into the fabric of our society. We use it for personal reasons, socializing, networking and for work. Billions of people are using Facebook every day. The popularity of social media has the app companies tweaking their algorithms regularly to keep their offerings relevant. The enormous amount of data available to us each day would be overwhelming if not for this process. However, that also means that we may not be seeing everything that we want to see in our feeds – or, conversely, seeing too much of what we don’t want to see.

How do you make the algorithms work for you instead? You have to invest a bit of time to get the huge payoff in the long run.  It’s SO work it though. Here is a list of things to do on Facebook to improve on the content in your feed and increase the amount of quality, catered to you, posts.

Engage, Engage, Engage

The algorithm tracks how often you like, comment and share. The pages and people you interact with the most are the ones you will see more often in your feed. If you like something but are in a rush, do a quick thumbs up as you scroll. REALLY enjoy something? That’s when you comment and share. You will have to train the algorithm to display the type of content that resonates with you.

Hide Sources

Did you know that you could hide sources? If a friend or business page posts something you don’t feel good about – but normally shares quality content – simply click the arrow in the top right of the post and hide the source. That way you are still seeing that individual or company’s posts but nothing from the source that you didn’t care for.

Unfollow

It can be tricky when a friend or family member becomes a problem on your social media feed. Unfriending someone may seem a bit too extreme and cause more drama than you’d like. You don’t have to unfriend them, however. You can choose to Unfollow them instead. This means you are still friends on Facebook but you won’t see what they post. This can often be a win/win.

Click Cautiously

Our curiosity can often get the best of us and that is why click bait is prevalent in social media. There are multiple issues with click bait – or misleading posts created to convince you to click on a link – but the one we are most concerned about here are related to the algorithm. Not only can click bait be a waste of your time and lead to potential malware issues, but it also informs the algorithm that you were interested in that post and that source. Which means, guess what? More click bait in your newsfeed. Links are great but use some caution. If you are uncertain but still curious, open up a separate browser window and do a search for the topic in question instead of clicking that link.

While this blog post has mainly focused on Facebook, these methods can be effective on any social media platform where you spend your time. It will take some effort on your part in the beginning but ultimately you, and your feeds, will benefit from the cultivation of content that you actually want to see.

Own a business page or social media account and want to encourage more organic engagement? Make sure you are creating quality, consistent content that your audience will actually want to engage in. If you feel like your social pages aren’t getting enough attention, ask yourself whether or not you are publishing content worth engagement.

Want some help with doing a social media audit or suggestions on how to improve your social content? Give us a call. We know exactly how to help you #BeAwesome with your social so that you can make those algorithms work for you, instead of against you.

Want even more detail on this topic? Check out this Buffer post on Decoding the Facebook NewsFeed.

Be sure to Follow us and Let's Engage!

Hollie Clere of The Social Media Advisor is a “#BeAwesome” Developer, Social Media, Brand Builder, Content Manager, Trainer and Author in LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Blog, Google+,YouTube, Pinterest, Instagram and the tools to manage them.

Click here for her Social Media Workshops, Classes and Seminars

#SocialIsntScary - Scared to Curate Content?

When it comes time to tackle social media, the vast majority of options can be pretty overwhelming. All the different platforms, including their strengths and weaknesses, means there needs to be a varied strategic approach. This also applies to curating content for all of these outlets. If the pressure of needing to sit down and curate your own social media content gives you the shakes, don’t worry. Here is a breakdown of how to gather content like the professionals do – without the spinal shivers.

First, it’s important to understand what curation means. Curating content means gathering content of the highest caliber that is targeted to your audience and then sharing it via social media. The ideal way to curate is to create or collect information, graphics, and other content, adapt it to your specific brand and demographics, and then use it to start a conversation. What are some techniques you can use to curate your own content?

Pay Attention

First, pay attention to what the industry experts in your niche are up to. Watch their content stream to get an idea for what inspires the most engagement. Be careful. No one likes a copycat. However, the work of others can be an excellent source of inspiration. Also, their trial and error will help you leap ahead when it’s time to post your own content.

Gather Resources

Do some research on statistics in your industry and then come up with a creative way to use them. Design an infographic. Create visuals with photographs or renderings. Make a video. Add your own spin to the numbers to get the information out there in a fun or more interesting way.

Don’t Ignore Commentary

Use your current audience to curate content. Did someone say something motivational? Share it! Did a comment make a valid point? Use that as a jumping off point to create a new post. Was there some engagement that got a particularly high response rate? How can you spin that into something you can use?

Collaborate

Work with others in your industry or field. Collaborate to create something amazing and then share the content. This not only benefits both parties in terms of saving time but also introduces each of them to the other’s current network and audience. Find influencers with an already established audience and work on something together.

Inspiration

Use the work of others to inspire you to curate content. Attend a fascinating workshop or local event? Use that to create content! Read a great ebook? Summarize the points that really hit home for you and share it with your readers. Enjoy that last Powerpoint Presentation? Take notes and use those as inspiration to share great snippets. There is inspiration everywhere. The key is to keep your eyes open and ask yourself how you can use it to create something interesting.

Tools

Worried about needing to be in constant creation mode? Don’t be. Set aside time to do the work and then schedule out the posts in a tool like Hootsuite. Hootsuite allows users to gather text, images, links in one place and then schedule them out for a future date. No need to be in curation mode every day.

These are just some of the ways you can approach curating content for your social media. The sky is the limit so there is nothing to really be scared of. Practice using some of these techniques this week and see if that doesn’t make curation a bit less painful.

If you are still frightened to take that first leap into content curation, contact us and let us show you the way! Don’t forget to #BeAwesome and remember that #SocialIsntScary.

 Be sure to Follow us and Let's Engage!

Hollie Clere of The Social Media Advisor is a “#BeAwesome” Developer, Social Media, Brand Builder, Content Manager, Trainer and Author in LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Blog, Google+,YouTube, Pinterest, Instagram and the tools to manage them.

Click here for her Social Media Workshops, Classes and Seminars

#DevelopStrategy – Planning for Engagement

All the work put into your social media marketing strategy this month will be in vain if you forget to incorporate the last essential element of the plan. Many small businesses and entrepreneurs end up failing to get any ROI on their social media because they are missing the most vital aspect of their strategy – social engagement.

Sure, investing in boosting and creating ads will help get more followers or viewers, but once you have their attention – how are you planning to keep it? The creation or curation of consistent content is appealing, and even necessary, but it’s not the answer either.

The whole purpose of social media is to be… social.

Followers are not ignorant. They can spot a sales page from miles away. If you are scheduling content and not checking your social platforms for engagement, it will be readily apparent to anyone paying attention.

Twitter is all about the conversation and no one wants to have a conversation with themselves. If you do not have a plan in place to monitor and respond to messages and comments, you are missing valuable opportunities to develop a connection and build a business relationship with your audience. 

Sharing posts on Facebook means little if there is no one around to see it. In fact, if you aren’t actively engaging on the pages of your partners and clients – they won’t even see the Facebook posts you are working so hard to create and schedule. They will simply be a wasted effort.

To grow a following on Instagram, you need to be actively in there commenting on and liking the posts you are tagged in and following the people who have taken the time to follow you.

LinkedIn is a networking site. What is the point of connecting with hundreds of people if you have no plan in place to communicate with them?

Now that you can see the need for engagement, what should your social media engagement plan entail?

Monitoring

Be certain that on whatever platforms you are using that you have notifications set up, both on your computer and on your smartphone. That way you are sent information when your audience is attempting to engage you.

Don’t assume that people will tag you. Google Alerts are handy for rooting out your brand mentions and notifying you. Set up alerts for your company name, your personal name, and the names of your major branded products.

Response Speed

Not only does the public pay attention to how quickly you respond, the platforms will often track and display your response rate and time.  75% of social media users are expecting companies to respond in an hour or less. This could mean the need to be constantly connected unless a plan is developed.

Not a Solo Effort

Keeping up with everything happening online can be daunting task. You don’t have to do it alone. Get your team involved. Make social media a group function.  If you don’t have team, it might be time to hire a social media manager to assist you with engagement.

Many companies understand the importance of social media marketing but neglect the essential nature of engagement. Having a plan in place for this is just another element of developing your social media marketing strategy. Need help or advice? That’s what we specialize in here at The Social Media Advisor. Let us help you #BeAwesome with your engagement!

~ Social Media is changing the way people do business.  Don't get left behind ~ 

Be sure to Follow us and Let's Engage!

Hollie Clere of The Social Media Advisor is a “#BeAwesome” Developer, Social Media Brand Builder, Content Manager, Trainer and Author in LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Blog, Google+,YouTube, Pinterest, Instagram and the tools to manage them.

Click here for her Social Media Workshops, Classes and Seminars.