It is hard enough to grow a community around your brand and its products and services. But how should you handle the process when you already have a sizable social media presence? How do you keep them engaged? This is one question that even social media marketing services providers often find themselves asking. Attending to the changing needs of a growing social presence is indeed challenging.
However, these things can guide you in making the most of the community you’ve already built throughout the years.
Ways to maximize your ever-growing social media presence
1) Ask questions
People are keen on sharing their opinion online, especially on social media. It is not necessarily because some people feel bolder when hiding behind their keyboard, but because they feel strongly about the matter. Whatever the reason, though, asking questions is letting your followers know how much you value their opinion. By inviting them in, you also make them feel they matter.
When asking questions, avoid those that are answerable by yes-or-no or one-liners. Instead, encourage them to think about their answers. After all, engagement on social media boils down to exchanging ideas. So craft thought-provoking questions. The better the questions, the more people will participate in the conversation.
2) Ask for feedback
This is by far the simplest and the most effective way to interact with your ever-growing audience. People feel more appreciated if you show them how important their opinion is, more so when those things would affect them directly.
Meanwhile, it doesn’t have to be as ambitious as shipping new products to them. By simply asking your followers what they think the new packaging will do. Ask whether to get Influencer A or Influencer B as your newest brand ambassador. Whatever it may be, asking for feedback and putting the suggestions into practice demonstrate how committed and relatable you are as a brand at the same time.
3) Host a contest
Contests are always fun – and the prizes too! Games draw in many people, especially when a sought-after prize is waiting. Also, contests work best on Facebook and Instagram, though you still need to check with the social media platforms’ terms of service before launching the competition. You want to make sure you are following the rules. If not, Facebook management can take the contest and flag your page for violating community standards.
There are several ways to keep your community engaged through a contest. These are:
- Ask your community to shoot photos or videos while using your products in everyday life and share them on the page. Don’t forget the hashtag for easy tracking.
- Ask your community to complete tasks such as tagging three of their friends and sharing the posts on their timelines. Again, create unique hashtags to see who and how many shared the post.
- Ask your followers to write a song or jingle for a product yet to be launched to the market.
- Ask your followers to create or redesign your logo when rebranding.
- Request to post their unique recipes using your product. Other followers may vote for their favorite recipe. Winners can be rewarded in cash or a three-month supply of your products.
- Caption this! Ask your community to put a caption on a picture. The wittiest/funniest captions win.
4) Conduct 7-day challenges
Until you try, you’ll never know whether your followers or subscribers are up for challenges. Challenges are so versatile that you can engage most of your followers regardless of age and gender. We’ve seen challenges for couples, especially short videos on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok, right?
Further, it could be a one-time or an ongoing challenge that people may participate in. For example, on Day 1, they need to subscribe to your Facebook page so they may receive a message about what they need to do on Day 2. On Day 2, they need to share three posts on their timeline. And so on. For ongoing challenges, the prize is critical. You have to reward your followers based on what you require them to do. Otherwise, don’t expect them to join in on the challenge.
5) Go live
Going live from time to time (or regularly, every first Monday of the month) is an excellent opportunity to share with your followers. This is a social platform’s feature whereby viewers may see the live stream that you should explore.
Today, livestreams are some of the most engaging aspects of having an online presence. Next are previously recorded videos. Both tend to be more engaging than texts or photos. Why? It’s because of the real-time interactions. For instance, the audience may send reactions, comments, and questions to which the livestreamers or the host can read and react. At the same time, your audience would know that there are real people behind the branded posts. So you humanize the brand-community interactions in the process, albeit digitally.
6) Feature community members
Featuring one of your community members every week or month allows social interaction to be more humane. However, if you need to share milestones with them, make sure that it is not all about you. For example, it could be a recent user-generated post on your page that you want to share with the rest of the followers, a question that you cannot answer, or that is so meaningful that others could give their two cents about it.
This is how to promote others before promoting yourself as a brand. When it comes to social media, this is equally important as generating conversions from them. So share and let the spotlight shine on others.
7) Host clustered meetups
Meetups are another vital way to promote emotional connections among community members. Since it is difficult to mount a big crowd, especially today, a clustered meetup will do. For instance, you may meet some followers living in Tagaytay or Quezon City. It’s as simple as having a casual chit-chat at a local cafe or restaurant or an organized dinner party.
Again, it is alienating to know the brand and logo. It makes a difference if your followers know the name of your social media manager, for instance.
Bottom line: Provide valuable content consistently
Demonstrate your commitment to them by providing them with valuable social content – or content that solves people’s problems and pain points. This content can be in the form of how-tos, quick wins, practical tips, or actionable recommendations. The best ones can be applied immediately with easily findable resources.
Furthermore, diversifying the content also helps in keeping the people engaged. It can be a quick poll or a three-minute survey. Whatever you do, the secret is letting your audience take center stage. People like to be treated humanely, and this is true even on social media. This is how you make the most of a highly engaged social community.
Optimind can help in different ways through our social media marketing services. First, we can build a social media presence that your brand deserves, and second, we employ strategies to keep the community engaged. Talk to us!
