Spice up Your Social Media with a Little Humanity

by Infinity Concepts | Oct 8, 2013 | Digital

Recently, Forbes released their five tips for humanizing social media strategy. Basically, a short how-to on keeping your social media pages engaging and useful to your audience. There was a strong emphasis on focusing on the human receiving the message rather than just sending a message to your computer.

1) It’s not always about the hard sell. Forbes says your fans don’t always want to hear about YOU… your product and/or services. It’s suggested to talk about your products/services 10% of the time and reserve the remaining 90% to give your brand a personality. Focus on what your brand stands for and how your brand is beneficial.

2) Find your brand fans. So, you’ve started getting a pretty good following and are receiving likes, shares, and comments. Now what? Well, give your super fans a reason to continue. Acknowledge them and reward them. Put them in the spotlight and ask them to share content to your page or host a contest.

3) People want to feel like they’re part of something. You can keep your fans coming back again and again when they feel important. Poll your audience and ask what they want to see on your Facebook page. Not only are you including your fans and making them feel like a part of your brand, but this only benefits you to keep them coming back and potentially attract a new audience. This could make all the difference.

4) Don’t be boring. You’ve heard the ol’ quality over quantity saying before and it can’t be stressed enough. Truly, you will benefit more from having one great post per day rather than five meaningless, boring posts. Take a look at what else your audience is engaged with and incorporate different posts to attract and engage. Remember, your posts do not always need to be focused 100% on your organization. Spice it up. If there is something newsworthy, but totally irrelevant. It’s ok. People are reading about it somewhere, so why not drive them to that news through your social media page?

5) Social media is a two-way street. Forbes suggests posting questions to the group, listening, and applying their feedback. Respond to comments and messages — even if they’re negative. You want to keep your audience engaged. If they don’t feel like your brand cares, they may move on the next.

In conclusion, it’s important to remember your goal is to have a conversation with your audience, not just speak to them. You want your audience to comment, share, and like your posts. You want engagement. In order to create this type of conversation, you must create compelling content that your audience will enjoy reading. Remember, social media is a marketing tool to benefit your organization by selling products and/or services, but in order to do that, you must give your audience reason to believe they are benefiting from you.