Businesses must stop thinking of social media marketing from a sales perspective and instead approach it to engage customers. Social media isn't just a place to discover new products and services — 31% of people use social media to follow their favorite brands, while another 31% enjoy interacting with different companies.
Here are some sure-fire ways to improve your social media engagement strategy.
Teach About Your Company
Customers prefer transparency and social media effectively helps you teach customers and share insights about your brand. More than half (53%) of consumers consider brand transparency when purchasing, while most (94%) consider transparency before becoming loyal to brands.
Teaching customers about your industry also demonstrates expertise while providing value to your customers through social media. You can do this by showing customers your processes via:
- Video content
- Employee highlights
- Photos from inside the office, and more.
Entertain Your Followers!
Make your social media feed entertaining and interesting by matching your customers' humor. After all, customers must like to see your posts to use you as a resource, and entertaining them is a great way to capture their attention.
For instance, radio hosts use humor to connect with people on social media. First, there's Pardon My Take's Twitter post captioned "Scott Foster reffing a Chris Paul game in the playoffs," followed by a hilarious WWE clip. Another great example is Lisa Foxx's retweet for the upcoming Dodgers home opener. The clip of a hilarious trio of friends lip-syncing and playing DJ accumulated more than 200,000 views (and counting!).
Sell Indirectly
A business's purpose is to sell, and there is some room for that when advertising on social media. However, you can't frame your posts as trying to get customers to purchase. Essentially, the more you try to sell, the less you will sell.
The reason is simple. Although 90% of people purchase from brands they follow on social media, 43% of people dislike "blatantly promotional and self-serving content," and another 29% say it reduces the brand's credibility.
Are You Engaging with Your Social Media Audience Enough?
Social media marketing is more than a tool to sell — it's an opportunity to connect. It's that once-in-a-lifetime chance for you to reach the right people with your message while building a meaningful relationship with them. Learn more about the importance of engaging customers on social media with our in-house digital agency, Federated Digital Solutions.