Social Media: More Than Fans, It’s Feedback

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In the early days of Facebook, getting fans was the name of the game, but sheer numbers alone is no longer the measure of social media effectiveness – it's engagement.

Similar to the old comparison between “awareness” and “preference”, the value of having someone “like” you or becoming a “fan" once and never giving you another thought is far less important than developing an ongoing two-way dialog with them even if only occasionally.

In a recent article published online by Advertising Age, Irina Slutsky makes the point that what generates the most positive influence for marketers is not the total number of fans they have collected but what percentage of them they can encourage to become actively connected.

The article lists three ways to make Facebook participation more valuable.

1. Seeding Content - introduce ideas on subjects where you have a significant body of expertise so readers have the opportunity to recognize an issue they want to address and begin to view you as a resource to a solution. Such as healthy recipes from a food manufacturer, answers to common financial questions from a bank or even photos of interior design ideas from an architect.

2. Starting Conversations - connect one user to another so that the experience of visiting your page is beneficial and the expectation generated for future visits is positive as well. For example, posting user-submitted hairstyle questions for other users and staff hairstylists to address. Or it might be requesting and allowing comments on the best user pet stories on a veterinarian's page.

3. Get Creative - use this low-risk tool of user-interest exploration to build simple interactions that encourage more interest and trust over time. This could be a bridal boutique requesting their customers submit wedding photos featuring dresses purchased from the shop. Or a restaurant encouraging fans to help name a new entree being added to the menu.

Obviously there has to be an effort made in the beginning to build the user base to some reasonable size before starting to develop interactions, but the point here is that the value of Facebook and other similar social media tools is social interaction more than audience size.

And the best strategy of all is to use these social interactions to introduce, connect and continuously remind users of the core promise and value your brand offers. To reinforce what you are doing elsewhere and not to compete with it.

Read the entire article for yourself.

And if you're ready to begin building greater user engagement with your brand, contact us today by e-mail or phone 903-534-5220.