Question: We hear a lot about the importance of social media engagement but do we have to engage with everyone or is there a method you recommend?
I just wrote about how many of the industry (social media) leaders teach the importance of engagement even though they don’t all do it.
Here is the short and simple answer as I see it.
Most companies are on Social Media to sell products and services and most people ultimately buy from people they like.
Therefore, online engagement is about building relationships with people so they can like your products, services and moreover your brand.
I always suggest to treat the online channel much like the offline channel in terms of deciding who to engage and connect with. Of course I like to put a few caveats on it such as:
- The digital footprint is permanent
- It is hard to know without doing some engagement whether or not someone is a prospect.
- It isn’t possible to build a meaningful relationships with everyone that engages your social media so you can be selective.
So when it comes to a method it just isn’t one size fits all, so instead I will leave you with a few things to consider.
- Think about how you build relationships with your customers in any medium, use that to guide your social.
- Shoot for awareness, advocacy and affinity. What does it take to get people in the know about our brand and then ultimately gain their support in sharing your message.
- Fuel the relationship. Meaning just because you have support now, doesn’t mean it is permanent. You have to feed relationships if you want to keep them.
Engagement is important, but more than anything do what makes sense for your brand on social for there is no definite right way.
How does your brand engage on social? Is it a canned strategy or have you figured out something that works well for you?
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Daniel Newman is the co-founder of V3*Broadsuite and is an experienced C-level executive, serving as a strategy consultant for small and mid-sized businesses. He’s also an insight/analyst partner to four Fortune 50 enterprises and previously served as the co-founder and CEO of EC3, a hosted IT and communications services provider. Prior to that, he served as the CEO of United Visual, Inc. in Chicago Illinois.
He is a widely published writer who contributes weekly to Forbes, Entrepreneur, Huffington Post and industry publications such as Commercial Integrator, Sound & Communication and Corporate Tech Decisions. He’s also author of three best-selling business books including The New Rules of Customer Engagement, The Millennial CEO, and just recently Evolve: Marketing (^as we know it) is Doomed.
Daniel has established a reputation as a leading thinker in topics such as Social, Big Data, Cloud and Mobile. He has been named to many top influencer lists in all of these areas, including recognition by the Huffington Post as one of the 100 business and leadership accounts to follow on Twitter. He is also an adjunct professor of management at North Central College.