The next most popular social question to be answered for marketers is at the core of what being social as a brand means. How to engage with your audience?
Companies that are new to the social web or that are at early stages in their level of social media maturity often know the answer to this question but simply don’t have the confidence to make commitments.
Some of the most practical things companies can do to learn the best ways to engage with their community in order to achieve mutual goals for customers and the brand include:
Profile your customers with analytics data, social media monitoring and direct surveys. Use that insight to find out the networks they spend time on and the topics that interest them.
Review competitors social media activities to discover anything they’re doing that appears to be working as well as things that are not.
Research and network with influencers in your industry. And not in a desperate “please can you share my tweet or blog post?” way, but in a meaningful way that adds value, “I noticed your question about XYZ, here’s a post on XYZ best practices you might find useful”.
Monitor your community for advocates and recognize them! Nurture and support them, but don’t try to “buy them” with freebies etc.
Seek out questions being asked on the social web that can be answered by your company’s unique expertise. Become a known resource for those topics by answering questions without being salesy. Curate those Q&As into a FAQ in your blog or website.
