There’s a big clue in the title “SOCIAL media”, however the majority of businesses just focus on the “media” side.
But why?
Would you walk into a networking meeting go up to the first person you meet, tell them about a great sale you have on and then move onto the next person?
Would you join your friends down the pub, tell them about an awesome new product you’ve launched at work, down a swift half and leave without joining in the wider conversation.
No, because this is not the way to build up a loyal network of friends and work contacts.
It takes time and effort to build relationships, it’s a two-way conversation.
So why do many businesses approach social media in this way?
Many business pages push sales messages out irrespective of the platform or target market, never interacting with their audience. The vast array of automation tools now available often means businesses don’t even have to visit their platform, it’s all managed remotely.
Is there a problem with this approach? Well no, not if you’re driving regular traffic to your web site which results in sales, followers are increasing and your community is building.
However, I suspect the majority of businesses that deploy this method are seeing a decline in reach, followers and traffic to their website via social media.
Social Media is a crowded space and continually changes in response to audience demands. What worked last year, is not necessarily going to work this year due to the continually changing algorithms/ “bots” (as I like to call them) that filter out less active profiles, reducing the reach of unpopular content.
Social media is not a place to push out all your sales messages and hope for the best, it’s not an extension of your website, the content should complement your website messages but be executed in a very different way.
Quite simply you need to treat social media as you would any networking event or social gathering. You need to understand your audience, why they are on that platform and create content that will engage them. It’s not just about posting out content, but following and interacting with existing customers or potential customers content too.
In summary drop the sales pitch and start interacting with your audience in much the same way as you develop personal business relationships………