This is a post I originally wrote for BumeBox.com
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In the first age of social media marketing, companies placed a big emphasis on increasing their social following. Although it is a convenient metric to watch, an audience of thousands or millions of fans will not pay the bills by itself if they are not doing anything to convert. The issue you need to also assess is how to use social media to achieve your business goals. Getting a Follow, Like, or Subscribe is actually just the first piece of a much larger puzzle, and there is big potential in marketing to your fans once you have their attention. The key is building fan affinity to your brand with valuable experiences. I can't share all our secrets, but here are some key strategies to building experiences your fans will love.
Plan Events. The "always on" nature of social media is a vexing management problem. You can flip the equation by scheduling your experiences and limiting the participation window to hours or minutes. This does two things. 1) By scheduling ahead of time you give your fans something to anticipate. 2) Restricting your experiences to a clear time frame implies a certain amount of scarcity, and this will get you a perceived premium from which you would not otherwise benefit.
Brand User Generated Content. Asking your fans to generate content is a good strategy but can be haphazard. Instead, require your fans to necessarily include references to your campaign and it will make the connection between their content and your brand much more strong.
Incentivize Sharing. At a very basic level the power of social media lies in sharing capabilities across vast networks. But just because your fans participate in an experience does not necessarily mean they will share it. Incentivize the share to maximize your reach into the networks of your network.
Empower Advocates. Every brand has it's super fans. Find them and give them tools to help broadcast their message and excitement to their community. It's gives your customer base qualified representatives and brings credibility to your brand.
Limit Friction. Social media is not just for branding anymore. Keep your goals in sight and plan frictionless conversion opportunities that are native to the experience.
Ultimately your social following is useless unless you connect them to your business goals. Give your fans an experience they love to strengthen their affinity to your brand. This is the crucial to driving conversions and more fans in the future.
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In the first age of social media marketing, companies placed a big emphasis on increasing their social following. Although it is a convenient metric to watch, an audience of thousands or millions of fans will not pay the bills by itself if they are not doing anything to convert. The issue you need to also assess is how to use social media to achieve your business goals. Getting a Follow, Like, or Subscribe is actually just the first piece of a much larger puzzle, and there is big potential in marketing to your fans once you have their attention. The key is building fan affinity to your brand with valuable experiences. I can't share all our secrets, but here are some key strategies to building experiences your fans will love.
Plan Events. The "always on" nature of social media is a vexing management problem. You can flip the equation by scheduling your experiences and limiting the participation window to hours or minutes. This does two things. 1) By scheduling ahead of time you give your fans something to anticipate. 2) Restricting your experiences to a clear time frame implies a certain amount of scarcity, and this will get you a perceived premium from which you would not otherwise benefit.
Brand User Generated Content. Asking your fans to generate content is a good strategy but can be haphazard. Instead, require your fans to necessarily include references to your campaign and it will make the connection between their content and your brand much more strong.
Incentivize Sharing. At a very basic level the power of social media lies in sharing capabilities across vast networks. But just because your fans participate in an experience does not necessarily mean they will share it. Incentivize the share to maximize your reach into the networks of your network.
Empower Advocates. Every brand has it's super fans. Find them and give them tools to help broadcast their message and excitement to their community. It's gives your customer base qualified representatives and brings credibility to your brand.
Limit Friction. Social media is not just for branding anymore. Keep your goals in sight and plan frictionless conversion opportunities that are native to the experience.
Ultimately your social following is useless unless you connect them to your business goals. Give your fans an experience they love to strengthen their affinity to your brand. This is the crucial to driving conversions and more fans in the future.
