How to Connect with People on Social Media
Though the name should say it all, it’s outright shocking just how many brands on social media refuse to be social. Some try and fail, obviously, but many simply don’t try in the first place. They enter business to make money, and depending on how much they spend on ads and how often they plaster their image around, they might end up being successful despite a cold, robotic-like image.
Odds are, however, you can’t afford to be anti-social as a brand on social media. You need to build connections with people in order to build trust, loyalty and to reach a larger market. When you’re ready to connect social media is the place to do it. These few tips should help you make those personal connections.
Tips to Help You Make Connections and Keep Them
1: Bring the Personal to the Business
Most social sites have different options for brand pages and personal profiles, but that doesn’t mean you can’t inject some personal into the brand page. Now, it’s not about giving your life story as an individual here. You don’t need to give your children’s names and birthdates or anything that drastic. Try some simple personal information that allows people to see the real side of you.
Post photos of live events and gatherings
Post a bio about yourself and your employees
Tweet and post with some personality and humor
Speak to people like they’re people, not just targets
Learn people’s names and address them personally
Link to your personal blog or profile
Create videos that display you and/or your employees
Make the brand synonymous with your name, not your product(s)
2: Speak for All, but Only to Few
If this seems misleading, don’t worry; it’s incredibly simple. While you want to always target a specific, narrow niche because those are the people most likely to connect with you long-term, you still want to speak in a way that caters to everyone.
Do not speak in any way that may offend or alienate. People are very sensitive online, and rightfully so in many cases. A negative campaign could cripple your brand.
3: Seek Conversations More Than Linking Opportunities
Many tips-based articles you’re going to read on this very subject will suggest a spam-like approach to “connecting” with people. Stuffing links into emails, into ads, onto every corner or every profile you own, into anything you can. But does having someone click your links actually equate to a connection? No, it doesn’t, nor has it ever. Besides, one click from an interested party is worth one hundred clicks from random people who found your links due to volume.
The moral here is to attract those most likely to become loyal fans, and hopefully loyal customers. This starts with social conversations, incentives that you offer people, and engaging tactics that keep people coming back time and again. You connect with people in social media by engaging them, not by constantly throwing links in their faces.
4: Keep Your Audience Informed
Let’s use a different example here of something socially popular. If you’ve heard of the game Skyrim, then you may know that it’s one of the most popular games in the history of PlayStation. Bethesda Studios didn’t earn this notoriety based solely on the game-play, however. They created different forums for players. They asked about ways they could improve, and they followed up on it. They informed their base of the new DLC additions. They listened to the complaints and created patches for their game.
Extrapolating this and using it in a social media campaign setting, you can create an array of avenues that allow your audience to remain informed. Through this a conversation is born. You keep people apprised of what you’re doing on our end, and these people will let you know if there are any problems, what you can do better, and other bits of useful info. From there, you just need to listen and act. That creates trust and loyalty; that creates connections.
5: Take Things Offsite
Building a large fan base on social media should give you plenty of email addresses, perhaps some mobile numbers, and maybe even a few live addresses when you earn customers. So, these people are already connected, obviously. Best to leave them alone and stop fostering the relationships further. Right? You better hope you just said “wrong.”
Once you have this type of general connection, you have the perfect opportunity to create a deeper, more meaningful connection. Instead of posting niche-specific material on your FB or Twitter profiles, you can send targeted mobile messages and emails to people. You can send a hand-written “thank you” note to a good customer. You can go beyond what’s expected of a business and reach out to people with deals and discounts, reminders, thank-you notes, or even quirky jokes or memes. Creating these deeper connections is great for your brand.
Before the mom ‘n’ pop stores went on the endangered species list, one of the most appealing factors of shopping there was that these places knew you. The owners and employees spoke to you and asked how you were doing. If you were a regular, you might end up in a conversation about your family. You’d probably even get a line of credit that worked on an honor system. And what do we have today? A Wal-Mart door greeter and a high-interest store credit card. It’s not the same, at all.
Dare to be different as a brand. Take things back to the days of Main Street by actually connecting with people on a personal, emotional level. Don’t be the billion-dollar aloof brand; be the shake-their-hand, ask-about-their-family brand.
Image Credit:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mkhmarke...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jasonaho...
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