If you let me, I’ll talk for hours while walking you through my story along with at least 15 derivative (but imperative) side stories. However, when you’re writing professionally for social media it’s especially important to keep your message clear, and concise.
When I took over my company’s social media profiles in 2015, there was a learning curve. While I was in college when MySpace and Facebook became a thing; the relationship and purpose of social media has evolved significantly. There’s this idea that as long as you regularly use social media, you’ll be great at social media marketing… but I super disagree.
Social media marketing is crazy different than social media for fun-sies!
Here are some of the lessons that I’ve learned about social media “for work” that I think will help you if you’re new to, or trying to break into corporate social media messaging!
Don’t Spam Your Friends
I get it. We’re all just trying to make it in this world. I support all of my friends and their goals and dreams, but there’s a difference between including your friends in your journey and spamming them. Social media has become our first line of communication in a lot of ways. So, why don’t we treat it as such?
Here’s what I mean.
Most of us wouldn’t go on a first date, then skip the dinner and a movie part to cut straight to the … umm… “business”. So why would you cut through the awareness stage of your messaging and jump to the sales pitch?
Just because you know your company and brand, doesn’t mean that your friends do (or want to). There’s always time for warming up the conversation before asking people to spend money with you. I promise you, no matter how enticing a commission sounds; if it feels like a slimy move… then it is!
You want your friends to trust you as a brand rep or a marketer, right? Then behave like someone who isn’t going to turn every interaction into a plea for buyer attention. Be their informant. Be their trusted advisor. Offer value. The sales potential will uncover itself.
When I look back on my first few weeks of social media for my company, I mean… I don’t even know who that writer is anymore. It was all about our products, and how amazing they are, and functionality of the software; and guess what?
No. One. Engaged.
It’s because people don’t care about “how to” information for a product they don’t have yet. Organic follower acquisition was a challenge; and that felt bad. Our communications team is small, but we had to figure it out.
We took some time to question who we wanted to be as a company and a team. What value were we bringing to the table? Why should anyone care about what we have to say?
This exercise helped us tremendously; specifically, in social media.
I no longer had to live this double life of composing tweets and posts that felt bad because I had this perception that it was the right thing to do. We were able to place the focus on themes that were bigger than just our software, and people started to care more. We found a voice that can inform without constantly pitching.
To Be Interesting, You Have to Be Interested
I heard that quote somewhere (probably my dad, or maybe my mom… who knows they’re both so insightful).
While I’m still learning and growing my own practices, I do know that if you want to improve engagement on social, then you have to show interest in your audience. This requires you to be dedicated to your main channels of communication via social. There’s tons of research out there that even supports choosing ONE channel of social media to “win” and I absolutely agree, in theory; but realistically it’s almost impossible to walk away from brand exposure opportunities when your audience is probably split between platforms too.
Also, I’d like to expand on what I mean by “be interested”. Showing interest in your audience in order to inspire engagement is wayyy more than clicking that “like” or “love” button. It’s more than aimlessly re-tweeting or sharing a post without context.
Recently, I had the pleasure of working with one of the brightest young interns I’ve met in my professional career and she gave me a serious reality check on some bad habits that I had acquired. She reminded me that no matter how small the engagement, whether it’s positive or negative, from a potential prospect or not, if we want to increase engagement… then we have to engage with everything that comes our way. That’s why it really is a full-time job; it’s so time consuming!
Be a Real Live Human
Stop posting pictures of your empty conference booth/table. That doesn’t share the message of who you are and why you’ve been chosen to represent the company in person. Companies fight the perception of being money-hungry-mega-operations all day already. When you’re there in person, be a real human.
Think about your own buying experience. Do you ever make a purchasing decision based on someone’s conference table setup? Are you ever like “OMG they had pens and also brochures… I saw the picture online! TAKE ALL OF MY MONEY!”
No. It comes off as a picture that was lazily taken to prove to your boss that you were working. It’s just more noise.
I consistently get the best engagement online when I’m at an event posting about relevant and timely information with hashtags and @mentions that infuse me into the right conversations at the right time.
Don’t ignore these opportunities to make some real progress with your online engagement. It’s all about being a legit person. Be sincere. Show that you’re someone worth engaging with. Be interested!
These are three of the most important lessons that I’ve learned so far. Do you have more to add? Hop over to my twitter page @NichelleBrooke and share your own tips for social media!
I hope this was helpful!
nichelle brooke 