Connect with Your Social Media Audience Online!

Social media channels provide you with an unmatched opportunity to engage with your customers and use digital branding to find your ideal target audience and brand advocates online. By creating a two-way conversation with your online audience you can substantially improve your digital strategy marketing efforts. Many companies start by sharing ideas, solving problems and often use contests to get started. If you’re looking to connect with your social media audience, here are 10 tips to get you on the right track.

1. Go Wide!

While it’s important to determine which social media platform is most frequented by your online audience in order to effectively target your biggest fans, you can gain significant traction by creating a presence on a least a dozen social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Pinterest and Instagram are picking up speed amongst the millennial audiences and using sources like Tumblr and Reddit can extend your blogs.

2. Stagger Content Releases

Regardless of the type of content you choose to share on social media, whether it be videos, GIFs or text, you must ensure that it is relevant and resonates with your followers/fans. The more your audience can relate to what you post, the more likely they will share it with others. To save time, one of the top social media agencies, Catalyze Digital, recommends that you create a content calendar and publish content periodically over time, as well as re-posting your most popular content at least once a month. This will keep your content fresh, keep your audience coming back for more and improve your organic search results.

3. Mobile Friendly Content

Make sure the content your write can be easily read on mobile phones. Parse long sentences into shorter bullets, and make sure any web links are spread apart, so that users can more readily access the links on smaller screens, without the lines running in to one another.

4. Initiate Conversation

Actively solicit feedback from your fans and incorporate it in your future updates. Not only will polls and questions get the conversation started, they will also provide you with valuable insights about what’s most important to your target audience and stimulate new ideas for getting them to take action on your business.

5. Post Photos and Videos

Photos and videos are proven to appeal to customers before text based content so consider sharing photos of your business and products such as how to’s, tips, etc. And if you properly title and tag your images, it can take your organic search results father.

6. Sweepstakes and Giveaways

One of the easiest ways and most effective ways to gain attention from your social media audience is by offering sweepstakes and giveaways. A well-executed contest can generate valuable buzz about your business. It can also create a stir among potential customers who might’ve otherwise never heard of your brand and business.

7. Tell a Story

The top social media marketing agencies link to or share content on how customers solved a problem using products. You could even feature a hometown hero. This can also be blended with the content on your blog and shared on social media channels.

8. Respond to Feedback Immediately

– whether negative or positive, it is important to acknowledge and respond to feedback in a timely manner. This will not only display your professionalism, but also provide you with first-hand information about your products and services. If the feedback is negative, stay positive, don’t take offense and offer solutions to the concerns raised. If it’s inappropriate, delete it. Remember, every interaction gives you a chance to extend your audience’s perception of your brand. Take advantage of the opportunity to serve and educate.

9. Be Transparent

Remember, your audience are people too! Share more intimate company get-togethers and your own company people pics. This will help your audience relate to you on a more personal level.

10. Create Multiple Ways to Share

Last but not least: don’t limit the number of sharing options. This can be done by adding share buttons to your blog’s pages or minimizing characters in a tweet so that a link and a message can be included when re-tweeted.