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5 Ways to Engage New Customers on Social Media
Do you know all the ways to engage new customers on social media? Have you ever found yourself wondering, “What can I do to increase my reach and exposure? The good news is, with a little bit of know-how, entrepreneurs can answer these questions, increase engagement and achieve their social media marketing goals.
Interact with others as you do in real life. Remember, it is “social” media.
Don’t just post one-sided status updates about you and your business. Read others’ posts. Ask questions. Have conversations.
Contacts and friends will likely trust (and buy!) from someone who they interact with, instead of someone who posts impersonal snippets all the time.
As mentioned in Simple Social Media Marketing Tips that Entrepreneurs Love, there are numerous strategies that can help increase your website ranking, including the following:
Be Real
When creating a better social media marketing strategy, it’s important to “be real.” That means don’t just be a person behind a computer screen.
Get out there on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, etc., Talk to your customers. Use all the interactions you have available. Reach out and engage targeted audiences.
People love to talk and communicate. They tend to come back when they feel heard. This alone can help your social media engagement increase.
Importance of Listening
Engagement means “listening”. Identifying your target audience’s preferences. Finding out what’s said about you and your competitors. Listening allows you to source expertise, talent and become market aware.
Yes, it’s that simple. Social media marketing boils down to engagement. The big question is “how do I engage with targeted customers”?
It’s important to remember that these tips take time and you won’t see immediate results. If you are consistent and continue to engage targeted customers, you will have success.
Ways to engage new customers on social media
1. Listen to your audience.
Listening is an expectation. Your clients expect you to listen to their comments. They also want feedback. Social listening provides information that you can use to create new content, do a bit of networking as well as sell your product or services. Once you’ve identified your social listening goals, you can implement new monitoring activities that compliment your social listening objectives, such as:
Smart social listening skills can give you important data about your that you can use to improve relationships with followers. You can use feedback to create new content. It can be used for networking with influencers. Your response can motivate purchasers to buy your product or services.
Once you’ve identified your social listening goals, you can implement new monitoring activities that compliment your social listening objectives, such as:
- Reputation Management – respond to attacks and positive feedback
- Customer Retention – maintain customers and reduce refunds
- Identify Product Gaps – consider changes to items complained about
- Identify Content Gaps – people asking for solutions, build community, based on your content
Keep an eye on your audience’s activities while they are on your page. This is where your social media analytics come in. Facebook Insights, Twitter Analytics, Google Analytics show the types of content that resonate with your audience. These can help you understand your site visitors better and drive more engagement.
This data helps with building awareness and fostering new relationships. Plus, it’s good for nurturing existing relationships. Building trust and rapport are also benefits. Listening opens the door for conversation and brand awareness. When you engage with your audience you make them feel connected to you.
Listening Tool
To learn about what your audience searches for on social media, check the following free and paid listening tools.
- Hootsuite – One of the best free social media listening tools available. It covers multiple social networks, including Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and is well known for its social media management functions.
- Buffer – A platform that manages accounts in social networks, by providing the means for a user to schedule posts to Twitter, Facebook, and Linkedin.
- Tweriod – This tool will help you establish when your followers are online and the best time to reach them.
- BuzzSumo – Provides a one-glance dashboard for top shared content across the categories and companies important to your business. It tells you exactly what content resonates with audiences searching for a particular topic or keyword.
- Social Mention – Analyses data and measures influence with 4 categories: Strength, Sentiment, Passion, and Reach. It displays top keywords, hashtags, and sites.
- Mention – Helps you stay on top of all your brand mentions on social networks, news sites, forums, blogs or any web page.
Sharing More than Once
Of course, business owners have different goals and sharing content more than once across social media platforms can play an important part in achieving them. Three very important considerations successful entrepreneurs use when choosing the right social media platform for their businesses are (1) identifying the target customers, (2) defining the goal(s), and (3) choosing the best ways to reach your audience. Based on a recent Kissmetrics.com study, the more often you share, the more likely you are to get clicks. If your target audience is online at different times of day (or night) you want to give them the value you promised them. If you don’t share your links a couple of times, they may never see your material. The following infographic describes popular platforms and their purposes.
Scheduling your Message
2. Use a social media message calendar scheduler.
CoSchedule, a blog post and social media message calendar scheduler platform I recommend reports “You can get 31.5 times more click-throughs when you share your content on social media more than once.” Just develop a consistent schedule, using various message types, for expanding your reach across selected social media platforms.
An example of a content scheduling plan includes:
- On publish – Social message sent when blog post goes live
- Same day – Initial social messages trickle out to your accounts over the next 2-3 hours
- Next day – Messages are shared again on the appropriate social channels
- Following week – Another series of messages are pre-scheduled and sent the following week
- Next month – Social messages are pre-scheduled for the following month
- Next _____ – Optional messages scheduled for the three-month mark or beyond.
There are different message types you can use, as needed. Here are a few favorites:
- Straight and Easy: Post Title + Link
- The Question: Ask an engaging question to stir conversation
- Cite a Fact: Share a fact or figure that is included in your post
- Share a Quote: Grab a pull-quote from your article and turn it into a social message
- Add Intrigue: Write a teaser message that grabs the attention of your readers
Don’t be afraid to step out across your platforms and spread your message.
More ways to engage new customers on social media
3. Give something away.
This is a fun way to get engagement from your audience. Everybody loves to get free stuff. One great way to increase your social media marketing engagement is by holding a contest.
Jewelers giveaway jewelry. Designers donate t-shirts, stickers. Movie companies hold contests for attention. Like, “Our 100th new follower will receive free stickers.” Or, “The 10th person to share our article will get free promotion.” Usually, people engage with you for free promotions or products. And these increase your visibility and create better social media marketing for your business.
4. Use humor, compassion, and empathy.
If you can make someone laugh, you can make someone listen.
People usually get online for a few reasons… to talk to others, to buy something or for entertainment. If you can get someone laughing often they leave comments, share your content and love your products.
A popular way to get customers talking about your website or business is by creating memes. Popular meme creator sites include:
5. Use Reddit’s AMA (Ask-Me-Anythings).
This social media marketing tactic has started to work for many businesses. The goal is to allow readers and those interested in your company to learn more about you by asking their own questions.
You allow your audience to ask personal questions live. Customers feel comfortable and learn what your goals are right away, creating trust.
Check out Reddit and how they use “AMA,” to increase their social media engagement.
By implementing a few of these strategies, you will engage new customers on social media.
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