Following on from the knowing your audience blog this post covers relationships in Social Media. Listening to your customers when they have problems is vital to your business right now. I will talk about this in coming posts, but today I write about your business or brand in the future and how setting the foundation is key to establishing and nurturing your online relationships.
Often brands get sucked into the idea that everyone “likes” them, so why not just promote their products? This is pretty one dimensional and soon the audience will disengage.
Posts from influencers would be your prime material to respond to as it would probably have the quickest and most noticeable effect but not necessarily. Why not select a few comments or tweets and reply or post on a subject matter totally away from your sales pitch? As I stated in the George Takei piece, he has fantastic engagement because he doesn’t ram his politics, products or beliefs down your throat. He is just mostly fun and very positive!
The feeling for the individuals in your audience with a direct response or post on subject matter related to them is usually pretty satisfying. I know. When I’ve had direct responses from brands I’ve been delighted. I was even more excited when Robert Llewellyn retweeted me (wish I could find the post though)..
Think about it another way. Did you ever go on a date with someone that just talked about themselves? Did it reach a second?
Using this approach people will associate with you on the same level, but if they, or someone they know, need your brand or service in the future the seed has been sown.