Q: What are some of the most effective social strategies you’ve seen to encourage long-term engagement with a brand?
— Jacqueline Clary
A: This is a fantastic question and one I often get asked. I say “often” as not every business sees social media as a long-term engagement mechanism. The amount of times I hear that a company only uses social media because they think they ought to has diminished over the years, but there are still some out there who don’t get that digital is here to stay, and therefore fail to embed it deeply in their future plans.
Defining “long term” within any customer life cycle is tricky and depends on the company and the product or service you’re trying to sell, but with any integrated marketing strategy is needs to start with the brand. You need to know your mission, understand who your competitors are and create experiences that are discoverable, memorable and shareable.
When you have the brand right and everyone in your company is breathing into it, you can use social media as a way to keep authentic engagement going as part of an integrated approach focusing on these three questions:
Related: 3 Social-Media Mistakes That Are Killing Interest in Your Company
1. Are you being agile?
Social-media engagement is real time, so are you set up to respond quickly to any call outs or questions? Do you have a response protocol set up to deal with frequently asked questions and what happens if a crisis ensues? Consumers on social media have little patience, so having the right processes set up to disseminate answers is important before your competition slips right in there and whips that potential customer away from under your nose.
To Keep Your Brand’s Social Engagement Strong, Focus on These 3 Questions
