9 Useful Social Media Tactics to Grow Your Audience Social media is an integral part of marketing today, but it can make or break you like the virtual double edged weapon that it is. Reputations, once lost, are very difficult to regain because the story of your ‘Fall’ becomes viral within minutes, even seconds. Here, we present 9 useful social media tactics to grow your audience – and never lose any significant part of it.
1. Dedicated Monitoring Team
Who is talking about your brand, and what are they saying? There are social media management software to give you the data, but what are you going to do with it? You must have a dedicated team ready to diffuse tension and prevent things from getting out of hand. If there is a controversy or confusion regarding any of your company policies or products, get on spot and clarify before some less informed, self-styled expert does it for you, encouraging others to join in. This is damage control by nipping it in the bud, and you simply must have a team for this. When you do this right, you will automatically grow your audience by preventing negative publicity.
2. Matching Their Tone
Neuro Linguistic Persuasion experts often emphasize upon matching the other person’s breathing pattern, smile, gestures and other physical characteristics including voice and intonation. It works in a similar way on the Web, as well. Get NLP experts on your team if you can afford it, or get a consultation. Very often, replying to a question, even a casual one, when done in a manner of language and tone similar to the one who had asked the question, can build a lasting impression.
3. Having a Company Voice
Distribute leaflets with specific instructions for this one – it is that important. Just as you have a brand image, so do you have a brand voice. At least, you should. Again, consult experts where necessary, but build a company voice and make sure your employees know exactly how to talk online when doing so on behalf of the company. A brand, when properly projected, will grow its own audience, and creating a unique voice for your company is one of the more effective ways of doing it.
4. Localising Your Audience
Maintain separate ‘Pages’ for separate sections of your audience if it is possible to divide them on the basis of some logic that makes business sense. Maybe, you could base this on your shipping rates or, perhaps, on the availability of your products. Narrow down and initiate conversation, and you will have better results at growing your audience.
5. The Company You Keep
Find people that matter. This could be from Twitter, or from micro-communities in social media circles – just find a few significant individuals and associate yourself with them. If you can impress them, you can reasonably hope for a certain degree of word of mouth publicity from them which could prove quite valuable.
6. Breaking It Down
You probably have a product, customer support and a sales assistant – virtual or real (or helpful tips in some form) on your site and in your store. Why not break down your social media activities in a similar pattern? Your audience need not know this, but you could keep separate teams for these tasks, and this will definitely increase more audience engagement because of the promptness of response from your part as well as continued support that only a dedicated team can offer. You will probably find a small audience in each segment to begin with, which is perfect to build upon.
7. Offering Beyond Your Products
How about telling customers about their rights? How about telling them where to go and how to file complaints in case they get ripped off? Give them a bit of extra value above and beyond that which brings you profit, and your audience will be hooked – and possibly bring in more.
8. Making It Fun
Reward your followers – send them an e-card or put their mugshot and a small bio on your page or sometimes, even gift them vouchers. This is not bribe – you are making a profit out their publicity of you, and it is only fair that you show your appreciation. Thank them for being your customers or fans, and they will know a genuine expression of gratitude when they see it. This builds your reputation and grows your audience further.
9. Being Fun
A certain female hygiene product brand was criticized on their Facebook Page for not stating in so many words the actual situation women face when undergoing a normal biological cycle every month. The brand replied with a tongue in cheek video – primarily because the criticism was getting far too many ‘likes’ for comfort. The bottom line of the video which addresses the critic by name was that people can’t face the truth and the company is sorry for not divulging the grossest details in their ad campaigns. The fictitious woman CEO in the video ends with a fart (!), apologizing, and saying ‘You did know we do that too?’ This is outrageous, this is funny, and this made the brand more popular than it was before all the criticism began. This is a concrete example of how you can use humor to take advantage of an adverse situation. By all means, think along similar lines when unkind and unjust words are hurled at you, instead of losing your cool.
Well, those were the 9 useful social media tactics to grow your audience – and if you’ve finished reading, go ahead and start growing ‘em now!
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About the author: Robin Fitzpatrick is blogger for SurrattLaw, the Family Lawyer. He likes to write on law, various legal issues related to family law and also on different SEO related topics.
Original Content by SEO Andy @ 9 Best Kept Social Media Secret Tactics to Grow Your Target Audience
