Mastering Your Social Media Engagement

Did you know that a staggering 70% of brands do not respond to customer queries on social media?

That’s a scary but sadly accurate number. How many times have you had an actual conversation with a company or brand where you were absolutely sure that you were not interacting with a bot?

Investing in responsive social media engagement makes business sense. Consumers are more drawn to brands or businesses that post engaging and entertaining content on social media and also interact with their audience in a genuine and authentic manner. Just recently, we saw how big brands responded to the Facebook shut down which resulted in tons of social media engagement for those brands. Locally, Nandos South Africa is notorious for witty engagement with social media followers in addition to their quick, hilarious social commentary.

To improve your business’s social media engagement, start with the bare basics before you start responding to every trending hashtag and viral video.

1. Ensure your business information and contact details are correct and meet the basic requirements for each platform.

For example, you need to have a good bio, profile picture, email address, web address and phone number across all platforms. Your location, product or services you sell and headers are also very important to establish credibility.

2. Understand each platform's key engagement features.

Instagram and Facebook have great story features where you could ask questions, start polls and use video to engage directly with your followers. Recently, Facebook has even made it possible to advertise directly in stories by adding product links. You can also engage with followers using good old comments and likes.

Twitter is built on direct engagement. In order to engage with your audience on this platform, you have to be able to balance your need to sell a product or service with the ability to post relevant content that people are already talking about. You can engage with other accounts easily by responding directly to tweets, retweeting authority accounts, and replying to relevant tweets. The key is to ensure that you DO NOT promote your business under irrelevant trending hashtags no matter how many people are doing it or how many RT’s you think you may receive.

3. Be polite when dealing with complaints or criticism.

As a business owner, dealing with complaints and criticism is extremely difficult. If you are doing this on social media, you need to remember that you are representing your brand and you do not want to convey the message that you don’t value your customer's feedback. Be polite and courteous always, even if you made a mistake, don’t add fuel to the fire by insulting the customer or being rude.

4. Don't Always sell.

This might be a bit controversial, but you don’t always have to sell your product or service to people. Sometimes your business needs a group of advocates who have interacted with your business online and had a pleasant experience to drive potential customers to your shop. Make sure you acknowledge accounts that are creative, innovative, and educational in your industry and give ‘shout out’s’ where necessary.

Social media engagement has its fair share of generally accepted do’s and dont’s, but remaining authentic and ensuring that you are offering value is a good place to start establishing credibility and the online presence necessary to build your brand.

Keep in mind that people remember how experiences made them feel and not necessarily a product or service.

At Something About Francis, we help businesses and brands find and keep their ideal clients online. We are innovative, creative, and exceptional marketers who ensure that your business dominates the online and social space with kick-ass strategy, killer content, and tactics that convert leads into clients.

Contact us today to give your digital marketing strategy a boost today or click here to shop for digital marketing products and services.

hello@whoisfrancis.co.za