Increase Your Social Media Engagement
While just about every major business is increasing their social media marketing budgets, several of these businesses are not achieving the return on investment they feel they should. The reason is that most companies fail to see the difference between traditional advertising and social media advertising. Traditional advertising was based on the selling party broadcasting their message to the masses with the hope that a percentage of those who saw the message would purchase their product or service. The message was generally a one way sales pitch and the more people who saw the message, the more sales that would occur. This message broadcasting approach will not work well in todays online environment unless you utilize strategies designed to help you increase your social media engagement level. Social media is less about advertising to the masses and more about providing interesting content to people that encourages interaction. The following are some simple tips on how to increase your social media engagement to encourage more active participation.
Increase Your Social Media Engagement | Quality content
A millionaire friend once told me that if you want to be rich, find someone who is wealthy that has a need, and create a product or service to satisfy that need. The greater the need and the wealthier the person, the more money you will make. In order to increase your social media engagement, you are required to find the need of your target market and provide valuable content that will satisfy the need. This strategy may mean giving away valuable information about what you do. For example, my friend has a company that specialized in printing handwritten yellow letters for real estate professionals. When she blogs about it, she lists out exactly what her letter says, shows how her letter looks, and provides detailed reports on letter conversion. Most people would think she was crazy to give away this much information about her business. But she knows that her business is built on providing the service of printing and mailing the letters. Even when she gives this information away, she knows that most people wouldn’t have the time to handwrite 25 letters every night, and they will hire her company to provide the service. So if you want to increase your social media engagement and your overall website results, don’t be afraid to provide information about your product and service as this will build your credibility and generate sales opportunities.
Increase Your Social Media Engagement | Comment on other blogs
One of the ways that I am able to find inspiration to write is by reading other articles. If I like the article or blog that gives me an idea in which to write, I’ll leave a comment on that site showing my appreciateion. Many times, if I’ve written on a similar topic, I’ll reference my article or answer other comments or questions in that article as well. For example, I was recently reading an article about how to install the Facebook Send button on your wordpress theme and there were several comments at the bottom from people questioning why another Facebook button was necessary to add to a site. I responded about the benefits of the button and referenced the article I had written. This particular subject was a hot button topic and I received traffic to my site and had a handful of people opt-in as well. This strategy will increase your social media engagement only when you leave comments relevant to the subject matter (don’t blatantly promote your real estate product on an SEO site). Spending a little time on other people’s site and adding quality, relevant content based comments is a great way to increase your social media engagement.
Increase Your Social Media Engagement | Article curation
As I mentioned in the last topic, I like to find inspiration by reading other blogs and articles. If their content is good, why reinvent the wheel? This does not mean plagiarize; rather, quote the person and cite them as a source. I read several articles each day, and there’s generally a great quote or idea that I can mix into my content as well. For example, the article below posted on socialmediatoday.com provides a great definition and example of this concept, know as article curation:
“Think of it (article curation) like this: content curators are like museum curators; they gather only the best content to show off to their audiences… Try combining original content with curated content to establish yourself as the go to business for solutions that solve your prospects problems.” http://socialmediatoday.com/georgepasswater/291537/4-powerful-ways-use-engaging-content-build-business-relationships
Rather than trying to ‘spin’ this person’s article, I just put the entire quote into my article and site the source. It provide relevant, quality content and adds value to whoever is reading this article, which are important ways to increase your social media engagement activity on your site.
Increase Your Social Media Engagement | Conclusion
In summary, if you are looking to increase your social media engagement, you must think differently from traditional marketing. Social media engagement is a two way street that encourages interaction. This type of social interaction will be effective if you are writing and providing quality information about your industry rather than simply broadcasting a sales pitch over and over. If you’re in a rut, find an article you like, quote it, and editorialize your opinion around the quotes. Finally, another way to increase your social media engagement is by posting your comments on other people’s blogs or articles as well. Remember, if you want to succeed in social networking, then you must take these necessary steps to increase your social media engagement.