Be Engaged: What do Consumers want from Social Media?

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Tick Yes presents… 3 things your consumers want from you on social media (and 3 they don’t)

 

When it comes to establishing a social media strategy, a lot of organisations make the mistake of thinking too hard about the type of platforms they’re going to engage with and not enough about delivering what their consumers want through these platforms. Ironically, if more brands addressed the latter first, knowing how to engage would come a lot more easily to them.

 

 

So here are three things your consumers want from you in a social media setting:

 

1. Interesting content

Nobody wants to read mindless updates about what your staff are having for lunch – unless, perhaps, the staff member in question is Mark Zuckerberg. Consumers engage with a brand hoping they’ll be entertained or informed, so it’s imperative to sort out your content before you begin engaging.

 

2. Benefits

Ever heard the expression ‘friends with benefits’? Make no mistake, that’s the relationship you have with your consumers. More and more, consumers are rewarded in some way for interacting with brands via social media. Whether it’s discounts, exclusive offers or promotions, you need to incentivise your offering.

 

3. To be listened to

Don’t set up a Twitter account and then refuse to reply to tweets making valid complaints. Likewise, don’t set up a Facebook page and then delete comments that say anything negative about the brand. Obviously abusive or offensive comments are out, but those who have a genuine complaint to make are using the forum to be heard. Ignore them at your peril.

 

And what about the things that consumers don’t want? Here are the top three…

 

1. To be patronised

Don’t talk down to people or over-simplify things. And don’t sugar-coat too much. Brands constantly make the mistake of assuming their target market has the collective intelligence of a gnat, which has always been baffling, given what that says about the product the brand is selling. 

 

2. To be bombarded

Don’t make the mistake of cluttering up your fans’ newsfeed. These days, Facebook offers the option to ‘hide’ posts by a certain user, which means that you won’t even be able to gauge how many people you’re reaching based on the number of fans your page has. Don’t give anyone a reason to hide your posts – instead, offer engaging, relevant content no more than once or twice a day.

 

3. To be swindled

Automated posts and updates – or, worse, automated responses – have no place in social media. If your brand wants to use social media, your brand has to be social, which means interacting on a personal level and not from the very impersonal standpoint of ‘the organisation’.

 

A Tick Yes digital and social media blog