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Knowing what to do with social media has a lot of businesses scratching their heads: Should you be creating a Facebook fan page? Tweeting? Pasting links in forums? Or not bother with social media at all (because it’s all just hype)?
Well, as my recent experience of buying a tent shows, the fact is that people are sharing opinions on all sorts of products, services and brands online. Someone somewhere might be writing about your business right now, this very second. So you need to be able to engage with the online conversation if you want your voice to be heard.
Here are four steps for engaging with social media:
1. Join the conversation
Rather than go to the library or pick up the phone, the internet is now the first port of call for many people when hunting for information. They want answers to problems, not sales pitches; your marketing can feed this hunger for info. This is one of the reasons why you always hear marketers preaching all the time on why you should be blogging.
Instead of writing about what happened in the office, your blog should focus on providing customers with useful information. This can include product guides, industry insight, case studies and as a forum for answering the questions that regularly crop up when customers place an order.
Similarly, Twitter is another tool you can use for sharing relevant links, product tips and other useful titbits of information.
2. Find your networks
With a bigger population than Russia or Japan, you’d think Facebook was the only social site worth bothering with. But the fact is people are visiting all sorts of forums, review sites and social networks to discuss their shared interests and passions.
The internet is, after all, a vast place. If you imagine the internet is like the sky at night then constellations represent the different groups of websites where your customers might congregate. To track them down, setup Google alerts to notify you whenever your brand, product or service is mentioned. You can then plot a course and zoom into where the most relevant conversations are taking place.
3. Earn trust and positive attention
Once you’ve found your industry’s online community, you’ll need to make friends with the natives. So make sure you’re engaging in a helpful, useful way, rather than assaulting them with sales messages the moment you arrive.
Answering people’s questions, objectively responding to criticism and offering useful advice in an authentic, transparent manner is the only way you’ll become a valued member of the community. The key is to focus on being helpful and contributing to the conversation, rather than tiresome self promotion.
4. Finding success
Some marketers might fear what impact the spread of reviews and opinions will have on marketing when people can sidestep your sales pitch to find out a product’s true value. But there are benefits to engaging with social media.
Feedback, and even criticism, can be harnessed to improve product design and find out which areas your services are lacking. The other side of the coin is that superior products, which receive better reviews, will be easier to sell, with customers acting as (dare I say it) ‘evangelists’.
Offering useful content, whether it’s in your blog or commenting in forums, will build closer relationships with your brand. People are inherently inclined to repay generosity, and the brands and businesses offering value in the way they engage are more likely to be regarded as valued members within social media communities and rewarded with increased sales.
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BDA (Buckingham Design Associates) blog – real people giving real opinions, and a complete lack of agency waffle. BDA deliver an exciting blend of design and creative marketing for the Oxford, Milton Keynes, Northampton and London region.