engage social media

How To Increase Your Social Engagement

Building a social media following high in engagement can be difficult, but with these tips, you can start moving in the right direction!

Facebook, Google+, & Twitter

What works: Images, videos, calls to action, industry-related content, general share-worthy content.
What doesn’t work: Lengthy content, bland content, poor business/related/share-worthy balance.

Videos and images are best used to catch the eye of social media readers, though video works a little better to hold the reader’s attention. Whether it’s redirecting consumers to your website or online store, or getting them to stop and look at an interesting piece of content titled by your business; Images and videos are your anchor when trying to increase your audience’s social media engagement.

The three best ways to get traction from your readers are to:

  1. Get them to go straight to your website or store.
  2. Get them to like/follow.
  3. Get them to share your content.

Let’s say three people see your business posts about that 20% off sale. These posts are not likely to be shared, so those same three people will see all your posts, and that’s it. 

Once people start liking and sharing your posts, you’ll start to see new eyes on your page. 

This is where industry related/general share-worthy content comes in.

 

social media engagement post example

If you’re an outdoor power equipment dealership, for example, get your readers excited to see and share those maintenance tips! When people are excited to read and share it, you have a better chance that someone who needs professional repairs or a new mower will come across them. Having a good mix of these types of posts is extremely important.

Call To Action

Once you’ve gained the attention of your readers with a photo or video, a call to action is a great way to guide them to their next step.

“Do you like these equipment upgrades? Let’s get started with yours!”

As seen in this above example, calls to action can be used for almost every type of post. Tell your reader to check out your website for a business related post, or tell them to read the article or video you’re sharing. Though industry-related or share-worthy content may not lead your reader straight to your website, the posts are more likely to gain likes and shares, which expands your audience in general.

Packaged in with the importance of shared content is the name of your business. Every time your post is shared, someone new has the chance to see you. That’s brand-recognition, baby! When the time comes for that person to need a dealer or repair guy, they’ll remember the interesting blade-sharpening posts you shared and seek out the name they remember seeing or hearing about. Reaching out in comments and replying to people is also a great way to encourage people to participate.

Work/Fun Balance

On the other hand, lengthy content, bland posts, and a poor balance of business/industry/shareable don’t work well on these media channels. Lengthy content is an especially bad choice for Twitter’s 140 character count limit. As for Facebook and Google+, people just don’t have the attention spans to read posts that are more than a couple of lines long. Keep them short and concise! Don’t post bland, filler content like, “Happy Friday!” unless people have a reason to share it. “Happy Friday, here’s a hilarious meme” can improve brand recognition, but only if shared- use humor to your advantage.

Find your balance between business and shareable content. Too much boring business related posts and calls to action can lead to a stagnant viewer count, while too many meme-based share-worthy posts may lead to your readers not knowing what your business does.

reach your audience with heartfelt content

Pinterest

What works: Images, videos, industry related content, general share-worthy content.
What doesn’t work: Lengthy content, bland content, and it may not suit your vertical.

Pinterest, like Instagram below, is all about the pictures. If you’ve ever been on Pinterest, you know that it’s a very visual sight to behold. The hook of Pinterest is that people are looking for ideas. This will work best for you if your business provides ideas or the means with which to make ideas happen. 

A hardware store can benefit from Pinterest because you may share tree-house building ideas with your store’s name attached.

Don’t forget about brand recognition! 

Once people get the ideas from you, they’ll come into your store to buy the tools they need for the job. The best use of Pinterest includes non-business related content. Show people ideas that may lead them to your business, but don’t try to sell them right then and there. The key social media engagement metric for pinterest is seeing your collected pins saved to their own board – or people following the boards you make. 

However, Pinterest may not suit your vertical, and it definitely won’t prosper with too much emphasis on text. Many verticals such as plumbing just don’t have many corresponding ideas given the nature of the job. In this case, Pinterest can only be used for shareable content and brand recognition. The text attached to Pinterest posts is often ignored, so any applicable text should go into an infographic displayed as an image. 

That isn’t to say that you shouldn’t use any text. A small headline or message will suffice here.

Pinterest is not geographically-focused, so if you’re a small company who doesn’t sell online, this may not be the platform for you.

Instagram

What works: Images, projects.
What doesn’t work: Mostly everything else.

Instagram is a strange beast. The entire point of this medium is to compel readers to follow you and talk about what you offer. This works best for verticals like restaurants or artists because your customers can post images of your food or projects for their friends to see. This can also work for verticals like home improvement. 

In this vertical, your business can post project and progress images of what you’ve been working on. Seeing these images and sharing them can work well to compel the reader to seek you out.

Instagram posts can’t include links, so just like Pinterest, the aim here is brand recognition. Can you consistently post interesting enough images for your readers to stay interested?

 Not every business can.

 

social engagement shop now instagram

Instagram is owned by Facebook, so if you want to put ads on Instagram, you’ll need to go through Facebook’s ads manager. Ads on Instagram do have a ‘Shop Now’ link to push to your website and bypass them needing to visit your Instagram profile. 

Like any Instagram post, the key to getting good social engagement here is to provide an appealing image that motivates people to want to read and learn more about it. 

Since you can target ads, you’ll have a bit better luck finding people already interested in the products you sell, but you have to pay for those. It’s not organic (free) marketing. 

Reviews

Now that we’ve covered the main social media channels, let’s discuss other ways they can be used. 

Facebook, Google+, and other media channels support reviews. Aside from the engagement from posts, reviews can make or break a business. You may be thinking “I can’t control what people rate my business”, and you’d be right. However, you can control how you respond to people. 

You can turn around even the angriest rater by replying to their review in a quick and professional manner. You can also use reviews as a way to look at your own behavior in-store, because people are very quick to respond with a bad review if they think they received poor customer service. 

Social Listening

Forbes discusses social listening as finding where your audience is discussing topics related to your brand. 

People are talking about lawns somewhere, and these are great topics for your dealership. The short and sweet of this is that you need to be researching your competitors and your peers. 

What are people talking about, liking, and sharing, and how can you get in on it? You’ll want to shape your social media strategies around what’s getting the best traction everywhere else. 

If you know what people are already talking about, you’ll be able to hop into the conversation with comments relevant to the discussion, and keep that social media engagement train rolling!

Get researching!

SEO

This likely isn’t the first time you’ve read about the importance of SEO, and it definitely won’t be your last. When you search your business’s name or keywords related to your work, how high on the results page does it appear? 

The more you and your readers are mentioning your name and other keywords in relation to your business, the better your SEO results will be.

Measure Success

Finally, take a step back and look at what you’re doing. Naturally, you’ll want to look for what’s working and what isn’t. Whether you’re counting likes and shares by hand or using Google Analytics to track the information for you, understanding your trends may just be the most important part of the process of engaging on social media channels, so what are you waiting for?

Social Media Engagement can be hard to get right, but it's also the key metric in growing any audience.

Was this helpful? Read more advice and guides on our blog! 

engage social media conversations
online reputation management

You suck! – Why your online reputation matters

A business’s reputation used to be what they said about themselves in their advertising, and how far the voices of their customers could reach. 

Now, consumers are pushing out a company’s reputation and image collectively by providing real-time feedback online through review sites, social media, forums and other channels. Essentially, if it is an online source and a consumer can say something about a business on it, then it is a channel where your business’s reputation should be managed.

Digital marketing and online reputation management for businesses

Online reputation management is a part of a greater digital marketing strategy. This strategy should work alongside review management, business listings, paid search/ads, social media management and SEO to help your business stay competitive and relevant online.

While your business should be managing each of these segments to maintain your online presence and (consequently) offline reputation, many businesses are not.

Four in five consumers surveyed use search engines to find local information from multiple devices to find store address, business hours, product availability and directions.

directery for a higher search ranking

Online reputation management: your business has options

Your business’s reputation can be affected at any time, on just about any source across the web. 

You can use products, third-party services or hire people to cut down on your personal reputation management time expenditure. Even if your business tracks and constantly checks on social media, there may be sources that your business is unaware of such as a new review site from a listing that your business never knew that existed. 

Your business should weigh the pros and cons of conducting online reputation management in-house or outsourcing, but there are definite best practices when responding to reviews that your business should be aware of.

Maintaining your business’s online presence is one of the most worthwhile services you can invest in. 

Why your business’s online reputation matters

An online reputation needs to be backed by reviews and ratings by consumers. Without them, there would be no reputation to manage and quite frankly, it would appear as if no one ever visited the business.

Ready or not, consumers are talking about your business

Whether a business chooses to manage their reputation online or not, consumers are talking about their favorite and not-so-favorite businesses. If a business simply ignores their reputation online, the consequences can be detrimental.

Unmanaged negative responses can create an angry mob mentality and bad word of mouth spreads like wildfire. While a business may not realize how exactly one instance can affect their online reputation, it is possible that only one negative post on a highly ranked site can actually be what shows up near the top of a search results page when a consumer searches for that business’s name.

Consumers Control the Conversation and Everyone’s Feedback Matters

Social media is a two-way conversation — businesses can no longer broadcast the message they want people to see. There is a democratic nature to social, with brands, consumers and everyone having an equal voice in a shared space. Customers can rave about a business or let everyone know they had a terrible experience. Social networks have dramatically changed the way businesses communicate. Today, consumers can converse with brands and vice versa as if they were talking to a friend. As a result, businesses have had to become more personable than simply a business entity and manage their social presence in a manner that reflects as such.
Reputation drives conversion

Power of online reputation

What people see online matters.

Approximately 74% of customers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations—this is a huge shift in thinking that has become more prominent as time goes on. This trust in reviews translates to dollars, as customers put their money where their trust is. A Harvard Business School study found that a restaurant that sees a one star increase on Yelp will see revenues increase anywhere from five to nine per cent.

As discussed previously, many businesses find that cultivating their digital profile on their own is too time consuming. There are reputation monitoring tools that make keeping up with customers way easier, saving time and money. Whatever your business does, it is essential that you are not perceived to be ignoring your customers online. The worst thing your business can do is appear unresponsive.

What makes a good online reputation?

Being present (listed online) and having a good reputation (reviews and reputation management) go hand in hand. Not being listed on a reference site customers use is just as bad as having bad reviews on that site. Building a consistent online presence and a positive reputation is important for both consumers and search engines. Some of the most important aspects of the online footprint include:

  • number of business listings
  • consistency of business listing information (name, address, phone)
  • overall sentiment in reviews
  • frequency or current velocity of new reviews
  • overall volume of reviews
  • social activity and engagement (especially with reviewers)

Customers now view social recommendations and reviews as more authentic, expecting reviews to be a mirror of the actual customer experience that they would experience themselves. This means that maintaining your business’s online reputation is gaining importance as each review is a perceived snippet of what your potential customer expects to experience.

Online reputation management: the main sell

According to Google, 9 out of 10 of local searches lead to action, with more than 50% leading to sales. If businesses have a good web presence, customers will go to them rather than the competitor. Once they’re in the store, 79% of customer use their smartphones inside to look at reviews or compare prices and 74% of them end up making a purchase. Those numbers alone make the opportunity clear: online reputation management is essential for your business to get consumers in the door to make the sale.

 

If you think all this reputation management stuff sounds too complex, or too time-consuming, give us a call! 

Dealers Digital offers Reputation Management services. 

a negative reveiw

Social Media Tips: Responding To Negative Reviews

According to research, most people leave negative reviews to inform future potential customers about a business – not to lash out or get the final word. They want a response, and want it in a public space in order to show future customers what you’re made of. 

How you respond to an unhappy customer shows your company’s values, both to the customer, and all future potential customers. Seeing a company handle a tricky complaint, or offer a reasonable solution suggests that the management is proud of their business, and want to go the extra mile to provide good service. 

If that sounds intimidating, don’t worry – A simple apology and empathy with a customer’s experience can go a long way.

negative reviews response

There are 4 things to keep in mind when responding to a negative review. 

Empathize | Solve Simple Issues | Keep It Short | Stay Private

Empathize

The first step to fixing a problem is acknowledging that it happened, and showing that you understand their point of view.

Regardless of why they’re upset, the first step is to show you understand their problem, sympathize, and avoid being angry or defensive.

Learning you made a mistake and owning up to it, apologizing, promising to learn from it and improve future experiences can show professionalism and an earnest desire to grow. 

Solve Simple Issues

Is the solution to their problem incredibly obvious?

If someone complains about store hours, and you know the day they’re referring to was a holiday, gently remind them where to find your store hours during holidays. 

If their problem can be simply, directly, and politely resolved, it’s smart to get that taken care of. 

If their problem can’t be fixed, sometimes it’s best to just apologize and move on. 

Keep It Short

Don’t ask questions in response to negative reviews. Don’t argue that they’re wrong. 

Ideally, you should only ever give 1 comment to a negative review. If it’s not that simple, bring the conversation offline.  

If you think their complaint can’t be solved, or their expectations are too unreal, stick to the apology and invite them to contact you through phone or email for further assistance.

Stay Private

When a customer is especially angry, or has a complex or sensitive problem, speaking to them offline is a good move. 

Let them know you want to help resolve their problem, and offer a point of contact for them to reach out to you privately, via phone or email. You don’t want to air dirty laundry, and openly arguing about a legitimate complaint or mistake doesn’t look good.

Keep your business’s name and location out of this! You don’t want a search engine like Google showing people all your negative reviews to a new customer who is researching your company. 

There’s also software you can use that pulls all your reviews from across the internet into one spot, so you can respond to them quickly and easily. If you don’t have the time to handle your reviews, or don’t know how, you can also ask us for help!

Dealers Digital’s Social Media Management package offers review management as an essential aspect of keeping your public image a positive one.