Part Three
How do you make your audience want to engage with your brand?
In part one of our three-part series to help you grow your following on social media, we covered how to engage your audience by going above and beyond their expectations online. In part two, we explained our first Don’t, detailing the importance of adapting your content for each social media platform you brand is on. Now, we’ll cover the final tip:
Do: make the user experience easy and enjoyable
How do you make the experience easy?
There is nothing more deterring for a potential customer than a brand’s online profile being difficult to navigate through, so why not make everyone’s lives easier? If you’re a web design company looking to attract a marketing agency, don’t just make your conversion processes easy; make it easy for potential clients to reach out. Spell out where customers can contact you, such as:
- In the about section on Facebook
- Under your Instagram name on the profile page
- Through links and hashtags to follow in your Twitter description
Brasserie Bread makes it easy for clients to get in touch
Perhaps you have realised that people are visual creatures who respond better to sound and imagery than slabs of text.
How do you harness this potential?
Create content on:
- YouTube or Vimeo accounts
- Facebook videos
Personalise, humanise, and show off the functionality of your product or your brand’s story. Just have a look at any of Apple’s iPhone advertisements: they don’t tell you to buy an iPhone, they show you why you want to. But don’t leave it there! Use the description bar below the video and pop ups during the video to reward viewers and subscribers. You could link to:
- Redeem discount codes
- Discover relevant products
- Learn more about your brand through blogs and web pages
Once your customers learn your brand is approachable and trustworthy through your online profiles, the journey from interest to conversion is made easier.
How do you make the experience enjoyable?
Have you ever felt that tug of loyalty or familiarity towards purchasing from one business over another? No doubt you realise that marketing is a very personal experience, one that people react favourably towards when products or services feel as though they’ve been custom made just for them.
Now more than ever you can help your audience feel those ties with your brand through social media like Pinterest, where your audience can pick and choose content they’d like to visit and collate. Maybe somebody has stumbled across your brand through a recipe they loved the look of and found a new favourite cooking ingredient. Here, we have a pastry distributor’s products used highlighted in one of their clients, a café’s, menu items – the company has repined this post to increase exposure.
There are two approaches here!
You can take a blunt approach by telling your followers how they can click through to the product displayed – like a whole grain wrap, or custom auto parts, or desktop software – straight from the app.
Or you can be more subtle by writing an article like ‘5 Fast and Healthy Lunchbox Options’ that includes recipes using your focus product. Or if you’re a sportswear supplier looking to team up with health and fitness institutions, publish a post on a workout routine, and include demonstration photographs highlighting the gear used.
If you take the more subtle, content marketing approach, your audience will be more informed and trusting of what you’ve got to offer, rather than feel they are being blatantly told to buy something. Build your market’s interest in it with not only information but practical uses that show you care. Using the whole grains example, the customer is learning not just about why it’s a great product, but that it tastes great with a variety of different ingredients that they can cater to their own preferences.
Brasserie shares Australian Mushrooms’ video to show the uses of their sourdough bread
Show photos of your product in action with short, engaging captions. Add a call-to-action with the photo – “What is your fail-proof filling?”. Now the customer is thinking about what they would like to fill it with. Caring, right?
And don’t forget to engage, engage, engage! Those who endorse your product LOVE cross promotion, so if you see a business or individual promoting your brand, why not share that post and tag them in it? It’s amazing the power of many eyeballs on one social media platform.
And there you have it – our 3 Dos and Don’ts! Your arsenal of marketing tactics is getting heavier, set to turn your audience into loyal fans eager to enjoy discovering YOU and on any platform they may be hiding!
And when you’re ready to take your business that next step further, get in touch with us on 1300 766 665 to talk all things social media.
