Rather than just striving for interactions like likes, re-pins, and retweets, using social media enables you to make and maintain relationships with your followers. This results in a much deeper connection that can be sustained over a long period of time.
Your purpose with social media ought to be to cultivate “cohesive connections” with your devotees – the kind that carries on bearing rewards through time without having to persistently provide “incentives.”
Here are five mental methods to assist you in forming a real relationship with your social media devotees and create a stable communal bond.
1. Put a human touch on brand interactions
Consider recognizable companies that possess unique identities – Old Spice (robust, audacious, brash), Nike (athletic, ready for any task), UGGs (relaxed, stylish, enjoyable) – each organization produces a captivating illustration in your head.
If a company displays its beliefs and values effectively, people are able to make a connection to their personality. And that’s when conversations (and conversions) start happening.
Investigations indicate that the more a company resembles real human characteristics, the less complicated it is for shoppers to relate to them. Robert Cialdini’s “Six Principles of Persuasion” reveals that people tend to respond more positively to those they are friendly with.
Don’t leave that big personality at home. Make sure your company profile on social media reflects its character. Ensure that your brand identity, your messages, and your tone make it abundantly clear who your followers are interacting with.
. Chipotle makes good use of their Twitter account, and each tweet is signed by the person who posted it.
To add a dash of personality to your social media campaigns:
- Use fixed social media assets like your profile picture or your cover image to evoke your brand’s personality. You could include pictures of your social team or a behind-the-scenes look into your marketing “war room.”
- Let your employees connect with users one-on-one with their real names and identities. Beyond putting a face (or faces) to your brand name, this offers employees a renewed sense of ownership towards their work and keeps them more motivated.
2. Use compelling narrative to inspire followers to take action
Instead of requesting users to “like” your page to get a voucher or a free gift, make another proposal. Provide them with a tangible motivation to act according to your desired standards.
Creating an emotionally powerful story is an effective way of inspiring people to act. Showcase the early stages of your business that led to the success you have today, or tell the tale of a charitable cause that you are passionate about.
It fosters a sense of trust and importance when you share with others. Studies by Roy Baumeister and Mark Leary have shown that a strong feeling of belonging and forming connections with others like us is a big source of motivation and emotional energy.
Telling the narrative of your business or a worthy goal draws individuals to consider what you need to say more than when you basically attempt to offer them something – and it encourages them to respond with their own story.
Target conducted a tremendously productive social media initiative in 2013 that recounted the tale of starvation and people who are less privileged than us. It enabled users to get involved with the story by assisting with resolving the need for food.
Target collaborated with the FEED Projects, a non-profit organization, to form an extensive line of clothing and accessories dedicated to philanthropy. Every buying decision contributed to furnishing meals for 35-40 individuals in need.
Target vigorously advertised the initiative on popular social networks, leading to lots of publicity and involvement – which allowed them to generate the monetary resources necessary to provide 10 million meals to those in need.
If you want people to use narrative in your social media campaigns to engage followers:
- Share a story (about your brand or a cause that you believe in) that will strike an emotional chord
- Ask your fans to share their own tales to make it an engaging two-way process.
3. Make it fun and encourage participation
Managers in marketing are often so involved in their businesses and optimizing the effectiveness of their social media presence that they overlook the most significant guideline in regards to communication on social media: It should be entertaining!
Contemplate this: What are the items that your acquaintances and loved ones frequently post on their individual social media pages? Are there any new developments from the finance department of a business? Or is it hilarious jokes, memes and one-liners? My money is on the latter.
If you have a social media account, it’s likely that you see a lot of amusing things in your feed. A study by Ipsos about the motivations behind sharing on social media showed that people were second most likely to share “funny” things (43%) on social media, surpassed only by “interesting” things (61%).
What inspires us to spread things that we view as enjoyable? Humor and playfulness are known to strengthen social ties, as Psychology Today points out, “Laughter can be a unifying force.”
You could contend that your company is serious and not some immature, youthful one to make a big deal out of. Your business surely isn’t as significant as Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), is it?
This summer, celebrities from Bill Gates to Oprah Winfrey dunked buckets of ice water on themselves in support for ALS research:
Those who claim that utilizing social media does not lead to conversions should review the success of the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge.
Since the initiation of the campaign in July 2014, the ALS Association has acquired in excess of $100 million in contributions. Remarkably, over $7.5 million was collected in the same period this year, a significant increase from the $2.5 million raised in the year prior.
Relax and give comedy a try. Do something silly that draws laughs. Even better, challenge your fans to do something fun.
4. Leverage nostalgia to trigger warm fuzzies
Individuals typically view the past through idealized lenses.
In recent research, it has been found that when people have interactions with a brand that bring back memories of nostalgia, they feel happy and have a sense of sentiment towards the brand. It is believed that those pleasant memories are then transferred onto the brand itself.
Do you recall the shared connection that we talked about with our clients? Nostalgia serves as a conduit to connect on an intimate level with supporters, relatives, and the larger community.
Reminiscing brings back powerful feelings that motivate us to interact socially and develop closer ties with others. It can even help with conversions. As Robert M. Brecht, PhD elaborates in his article on nostalgic appeals in advertising:
When shoppers experience a feeling of nostalgia while looking at products, they are more likely to make a purchase of those items.
When Pepsi launched their “Pepsi Throwback” project, they were immensely successful in appealing to people born during the baby boomer era due to their 70s style packaging. Consumers snapped up multiple boxes whenever they were available in the stores. Pepsi Throwback made approximately $41 million dollars in revenue in less than twelve months.
How’s that for the power of nostalgia?
People have such an affinity for nostalgia that images from high-school years on Facebook, along with Buzzfeed compilations about the great aspects of life during the 80s and 90s, have become popular.
5. Leverage social proof by enabling the social media shares counter and get the ball rolling
The concept of social proof causes people to imitate the behavior of those around them. You take for granted that the people around you have more insight into a particular situation and you go along with their guidance.
Many companies display the amount of people they have helped or list a famous name as a promotional speaker to demonstrate their authenticity. There is a long-standing presence of social proof, but it has grown in popularity recently due to the prevalence of social media.
There are many ways to elevate your brand’s visibility and sales by utilizing various types of social proof. To boost your social media involvement, you can cite a quotation from a well-known news source.
You have the alternative of putting in a social media count in all of your posts that would provide people the opportunity to share it on the major social media platforms.
Fewer social media sharing buttons can provide more successful content marketing results, since having too many of them runs the risk of confusing the user so much that they cannot decide what to do.
The location of social media sharing buttons can significantly affect the amount of shares your content gets. After making the “Share This” button more visible, AMD experienced an increase of 3600% in their social media sharing.
It might be worth trying out scrolling social media share counters to see if they can get more attention depending on the layout of your blog. If you are a WordPress user, this post has five suggested social media sharing plugins that you can integrate into your blog to enable people to share your posts on their social networks.
6. The most contagious emotion on social media networks is happiness. Start using it in your headlines
Recall the joy you experienced when you saw your buddy’s profile photo change, because they got married or had a baby? It’s not limited to you.
Individuals exhibit presents from their best moments as well as their most difficult instances, along with all types of joy and sorrow, on their social media outlets. Posts that evoke more emotions tend to be shared more frequently on social media.
It has been discovered that amongst the big four emotions (happiness, fear, sorrow, and rage), happiness has a greater potential to spread on social media marketing than the unfavourable feelings.
On average, posts with a positive tone will receive 1.75 more favorable reactions from one’s contacts compared to other types of posts. Negative posts on social media outlets result in 1.29 more posts with a similar negative tone.
This study provides further motivation to advertise your company’s accomplishments and individual achievements on social media sites. You can post a cheerful pic of your squad the same way Zappos does in the example below. Your brand is strengthened by a personal presence, and joy can be created by creating familiarity. Furthermore, increasing people’s understanding of your brand.
Or show your funny side, like Nutella.
Sometimes, having an effective social media plan will just involve incorporating pertinent smiley faces to communicate joy.
Zazzle media discovered that Facebook posts with emoji get 57% more likes, 33% extra remarks, and 33% greater shares than those without any. The acquisition of these shares will generate effective leads.
Headlines that evoke emotion are most effective when shared on social media. Make an effort to create an upbeat feeling with your headline by incorporating trigger words.
To find out what kind of feelings your title evokes, you can put it into CoSchedule’s headline analysis tool. Then, scroll down to the keyword and sentiments section.
7. Retargeting your website visitors on social media networks will lead them to experience the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon
Suppose you heard someone say SEO. And, suddenly, it started to appear everywhere. Given its recent nature, you would be more familiar with the topic. It will remain in your consciousness and you won’t forget it.
This phenomenon is referred to as the Baader Meinhof effect or the prediction illusion. In addition to acquiring knowledge of vocabulary, the same can be said for one’s individual happenings. If you’re pondering purchasing an Audi, you’ll observe that there are more of them on the roads.
What are the consequences for marketers on social media regarding the illusion of frequency?
As a brand, you can communicate your message to your prospective customers on a regular basis. When the impression of frequency takes over, each ad will create an upbeat reputation for the company and earn reliability from the people viewing it.
It has been discovered by WordStream that conversion rates are improved when a greater number of ad impressions are achieved.
You can use remarketing campaigns on social media networks to target people who have abandoned your website. Ads on Facebook that use remarketing techniques awaken 3 times more engagement than those that do not.
If you are initiating your initial Facebook remarketing effort, you will need to deposit a pixel on your website before beginning. Read this remarketing article for detailed instructions.
8. Focus on what the social media user loses if he does not try your product or doesn’t click on your post
Do you ever assume your buddies are having an absolute blast and having incredible experiences when you look through the pictures they post on Facebook?
Did you experience regret for not using your time wisely or were you disheartened that you weren’t there for the fun they were having? If you find yourself worrying that you might be missing out on something, it is likely that you are suffering from the Fear of Missing Out.
It is likely that fright will cause you to take on more than you can handle and not live up to your commitments. Alternatively, you could avoid making any commitment, in order to prevent yourself from passing up an opportunity that could be very meaningful.
Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) is an influential factor in social media dependence, making it important to understand when designing a social media campaign.
My Life’s research revealed that more than half of all social media users were nervous they would miss out on a significant update or story. They make sure they aren’t absent from their social media platforms for long.
Brands should be careful when they are aiming to take advantage of Fear Of Missing Out on social media networks. Only make promises that you can fulfill. Avoid trying to influence your viewers in order to get more engagement on your posts.
A typical example of using fear is clickbait titles. Phrases such as “do this before you pass away”, “the most crucial aspects of your life”, “if you watch one video today” and the like try to entice you with terror.
Headlines published by BuzzFeed have at times been known to gain attention, even if it is sometimes quite exaggerated and can draw disapproval from viewers. Try these BuzzFeed-style headings for surefire success.
If you have a positive relationship with your Facebook followers, you can ask them to enable notifications for new posts that you make. In this manner, they will always stay up to date on the most recent news from your organization. You could potentially boost your natural reach somewhat.
Conclusion
Social media profiles offer a great way to extend your reach and publicize your brand. They are an invaluable asset for content marketing. Your message needs to make an impression amid the vast array of data that is shared on social media every single day.
Psychology offers a strong way to grasp how the people you are trying to reach think about things.
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