Maximise Customer Engagement – Essential Social Media Tips For Your Business

Social Media is one of the most powerful marketing tools for businesses and organisations in the modern age. Social media allows you to learn about and target your audience, get referrals, expand your reach and receive feedback so you can understand what is working and what isn’t even on a very limited budget.

Well maintained and updated social media accounts can also help you build search rankings – the more social media shares you have the higher your ranking. You can personalise your customer service and create a bond with your followers and friends and keep them up to date with the most current information.

Here are some tips that can turn you from a novice into a superstar

Talk to people in your industry

Network! Connecting with industry leaders can help you become an industry leader too. Reach out to the kind of businesses you would like to emulate. Focus on the quality of the conversations and personalise them.

Make your posts more visual

Use videos and photos to make your posts more eye-catching. Text alone isn’t cutting it anymore – with 87% of the most shared posts on Facebook containing a photo, and the inclusion of a photo increasing retweets by 35%.

If you’re stuck for visual content you can include photos of team members, behind the scenes photos or images from industry events and even infographics. Photos of your happy customers enjoying your products can also increase engagement and help promote your wares.

Cross promote

Follow key influencers in your industry and link back to them. Instead of ignoring your competitors, try and learn from them. Sharing other businesses’ content no longer has to mean you are diverting customers away from your products. Adopt a more collaborative approach. Follow the brands you sell and re-post their posts, start a dialogue and relationship with them.

Consider paying

Most paid options on social media networks are quite effective and engaging. Often you are paying for access to a more targeted audience that may have a stronger interest in your products or services.

Google AdWords PPC is a very powerful service that places the ad for your product in a prominent position on a search page and is usually very successful at getting clicks, you only ever pay for clicks you receive so you will quickly find out what is working and what is not.

Keep the promotion to a minimum

It might seem counterintuitive, but if people are overexposed to your promos, they’ll inevitably switch off. Of all social media content, promotional material is the least engaging.

To foster real engagement post about lots other things too – industry news, articles on people you admire, events you are attending, cross-promote influential people, share blog posts and most importantly, interact with customers.

Always include a call to action

Tell your audience what you want them to do at the end of every post, engage them by asking them to tell you what they think in the comments, be as specific or general as you like – from “what are you up to this weekend?” to “what do you think about the latest Game of Thrones episode?”. Provide them with a quiz they can take.

Proofread, preview then post

Review your post before you put it up, check your spelling and grammar, check the format of your photos, if someone is around that can help get them to proofread it.

Make sure your wording is in-keeping with your brand’s personality and that it is thoughtful and considerate to your audience. It’s important for your audience to see that there is a person behind the organisation.

Use monitoring tools

It’s important to know what people are saying about your brand and how you’re perceived – Lots of these tools are free and will help you better understand your online reputation through ‘social listening’ so you can track brand mentions, key industry terms, competitors and relative keywords. (Google alerts, hootsuite, BrandMentions)

Keep it relevant

Find timely, topical content. Special events and holidays are great excuses to post content on social media. Easter, Christmas, April Fool’s Day or Grand Final day are all good opportunities to have a bit of fun and connect with your followers. Comment on current events, set up google alerts on certain relevant phrases, search on other social media sites and read articles. Doing this shows you’re engaged and present and gives your followers even more opportunity to chat with you.

Social media is a wonderful instrument to help you engage with your audience, and using it is becoming more and more necessary if you want to keep ahead of the game. It is an easy, cheap way to keep your customers and clients up to date with your business’ news, and a way to involve them in your future growth.

Taking the time to interact with your customers will help you establish brand relationships and personalise your service. Good social media strategies have a huge positive impact on businesses and are an excellent way to set yourself apart from your competitors.

Keeping a regular schedule and finding things to talk about on social media can sometimes feel a little overwhelming, at WebAlive we have a team of social media experts who can help you with your social media campaigns.

We can help you decide which platforms are best for your unique business needs and build and maintain a presence that will enable you to easily keep in contact with your clients and customers, and manage your page so you can hopefully meet some new ones.