Social Media is what we call a ‘soft’ marketing tool, which essentially means that unlike sales heavy tactics, social takes a more organic and softer approach for your positioning:

One thing we are always really clear of with our clients is that social is very much focused around building relationships with audiences, listening to what they want and are looking for – and engaging with them. As a business, it provides you with a strong and unique opportunity to reach and open a dialogue with audiences that otherwise would be out of reach or simply not interested in your product enough to buy!

So where do you start?

Firstly, look at how you are using social media for your business to ensure you don’t potentially harm your business instead of improving it – if you we’re a potential or engaged client, would you be interested in what you are saying digitally? Are you giving them enough valuable information so that they keep wanting to come back? Are you offering discounts, exclusive looks or other offers to keep them feeling loved? Or perhaps you are giving then insight and tips to keep them interested in the industry alignment or trends?

Consistency is the key to using social media, if you lack in this then your audience will eventually move on. Remember to build relationships before you try to sell.

If you would like a FREE social media audit for your business along with our experts recommendations please contact us on 01246 252855. We would love the help you with your marketing needs!

The post Are you harming your business by not using Social Media correctly? appeared first on Brighter Directions.

All great questions.

In our usual style of ‘sharing is caring’ we thought that in this week’s blog topic, we would take a look at these questions and offer a little more insight and tangible strategies that you, whether a small or growing business can implement, as easy as 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5…

This is what we utilise as the 5 pillars of social media engagement:

Now, let us explain each one briefly…

1. Advocacy – we all know that advocacy is other people valuing your product or service and influencing others to do the same. This is always the strongest of all marketing methods, and most sought after in terms of enquiry generation with all organisations. The way to build advocay online is to not only be ethical and transparent to your audiences, but to provide consistency and value over a long period of time. It doesn’t happen overnight. Nor should you expect it to.
2. Contribution – Doing. Social contribution is essentially the responsibility you have to your community (aka your audience) by being present and valuable within the platforms (sites) and their needs (content). So staying frequent and ensuring you talk about the things that matter, to them.
3. Endorsement – Another form of ‘advocacy’ yet this refers to advocates or influencers actually endorsing and promoting yuor product without needing or having to. This endorsement can come in the way of sharing your news, posts or content across their own audiences. Think of someone opening a door for you as you enter a building, always say thank you and acknowledge the compliment that comes with that.
4. Appreciation – Again, the art of saying thank you. Too many organisations today take digital engagement too literal – social is still very much about people, and therefore the art of basic appreciation and manners is vital, say thank you, have human real interaction and ensure your audience feels valued and understood through your channels.
5. Observation – It’s not all about talking and shouting out, listening is just as vital as speaking, as it is in ‘real life’ listen to your audience and their on-going behaviour and interaction, do they like what you are saying, is it relevant, does it match their desires? Then, act.

I think nowadays far too many people think that digital is another world outside of natural human behaviour, when in fact it’s the absolute opposite. Digital engagement is very much about human interaction, just on a deeper level, where you have to work just as hard (if not harder) through digital screens to demonstrate transparency and ethics, which builds trust. Just like real life.

If you would like to learn more about how you can develop an effective and valuable social media engagement strategy for your organisation, whether you’re a start-up or innovative SME – we’d love to chat.

Call our professional and friendly team today for a free consultation on 01246 252855

The post How to build an effective Social Media engagement strategy appeared first on Brighter Directions.