Social Media

Social Media is an essential tool that can either be harnessed or misused.  Often times, businesses see the accumulation of likes or followers as the almighty metric in determining social media success.  The truth is likes and followers are really just vanity metrics that are pretty useless if the majority isn’t engaging with your content.  There is a big difference between actively communicating with people who are in your target market and broadcasting announcements that nobody cares about or responds to.  The social media metrics that matter the most are ampliciation rate and conversational rate.

Conversational rate is the number of likes and comments divided by the number of contributions.  So if last week 3 pieces of content were posted to your company’s Facebook and Instagram pages and together they accumulated 9 comments and 20 likes, then your conversational rate for that week would be 29/3 or 9.7.  The higher the conversational rate, the better.

Amplication rate is the number of shares you’ve received for any given piece of content.  The more your content is shared, the higher the likelihood that it will go viral.

So how do you get your followers to engage with you and increase the social media metrics that matter?

• • First, make sure your followers and people who “like” your page are actually part of your target market.  Understanding your target audience is critical to engagement.  Know how old they are, where they live, what they do for a living and what sort of lifestyle they lead.  Review audioence insight demographics and assess how much of your social media following is WHO YOU WANT to engage with.  If they aren’t, then it’s time to come up with a strategy to attract your target market to your social media profiles.  Example:  if your target market is in the US and you have followers in Australia, then you are attracting teh wrong people.  Social media engagement should provide your business with a return on investment be it generating new customers or retaining established ones.

• • Now that you know your audience, make sure that what you are posting is actually of value to them and is relevant to your brand.  If you are a yoga studio and are posting about the new album from Justin Bieber, you might want to rethink your content strategy.

• • Stop broadcasting.  Ask questions in your post.  Polls are a great way to encourage a response.  Ask trivia questions as long as you can keep it relevant to your brand.

• • Consider creating a branded quiz that is both relevant to your brand but something that has a broad range of interest.  If you can find an overlap there and the timing is right, there can be potential for it to go viral thereby increasing your amplification rate.

• • Don’t ghost them. Nobody likes being ignored, customers especially.  These are people who have either given you money for services or product or are thinking about it. Make them feel valuable and important and give them your full attention!

• • Be nice.  Sometimes customers use social media to vent frustrations related to your brand.  Use this opportunity to connect with them and let them know they are understood.  Remember, other people are watching on the sidelines and how you engage with someone who is being negative could win them over or lose them for good.

• • Be in the loop on what’s being said about your brand.  There are plenty of social media listening tools that range in free to enterprise versions that can offer all sorts of insight on how your brand is being talked about on social media.

• • Encourage user-generated content.  Ask your customers to share how they use your product or how your service has benefited them.  If you are a travel company, ask your clients if they would be interested in sharing memories from the trip that you curated for them.  Be invested in their experience and they will appreciate it.

Stay diligent and be inventive in your social media strategy and focuse on the social media metrics that matter.  Happy engaging.