How Social Media Influencers Influence Others – A Demonstration
As a demonstration of how influencers influence others, the speaker Tyler Sickmeyer had everyone stand up and clap. He also planted a few people in the audience to stand up and clap to get others to clap. The demonstration gave a powerful illustration of the power of influence that we can have over others. The same translates into engaging your customers.
In Order to Engage Your Customers, You Must Get Their Attention
Anytime you are trying to engage your customers, you are fighting for their attention. Whenever you put your content out to the public, realize there are so many things trying to get your customer’s attention.
If you have ever gone to the store to get milk and buy $75 worth of stuff, completely forgetting the milk, you know what I am talking about. There are so many things to distract you from what you are looking for. The same thing happens to your customers online.
Don’t Be Like the Giraffe – The Toys R’ Us Warning
Bottom line – work to offer a better customer experience or go the way of the giraffe (aka Toys R’ Us). Toys R’ Us kept blaming everyone else for the reason they were not making money (millennials, Amazon, etc.). But they had an opportunity to turn their stores into a more engaging experience. Instead, they stuck with the same way they did business in the past and now their last store is being closed down.
Be Like the Mouse – The Walt Disney Model
If you want to control your brand for social media in a good way, then you want to go towards having a “Be Our Guest” mentality. It is the concept that Walt Disney put into effect when he built Disneyland. They pop popcorn at 9 am, not because people want to eat popcorn for breakfast but because the smell of popcorn is a smell that most people really enjoy. Another business I know of bakes cookies mainly because of the pleasant smell of baked cookies.
What’s in It for Me? The Key to Customer Engagement
WIIFM: “What’s in it for me?” should be taken into consideration in EVERY element of your marketing.
Do you post something to your page just because you need to post something? Before you create the post, you need to ask what is in it for the consumer with what you are posting.
As an example, those of you who are looking at Facebook right now during this presentation are not there looking for ads. You are there to be entertained.
5 Things Your Audience Does Not Want To See
1. Bait and Switch
You cannot bait and switch people. You cannot like a page about puppies and then start trying to sell people life insurance.
2. Desperation
Don’t act desperate. You don’t ask someone to marry you on the first date (ladies can relate to this one).
3. Ignoring Feedback
Don’t ignore your customers’ feedback. If your customers are giving you feedback, you do not want to ignore it because you are being given the information you can use to make your brand better.
4. Being Offensive
Do not offend your customers. Ex: During the time of a major hurricane, The Gap sent out a tweet saying essentially, “Sorry you are in a hurricane. If you need clothes please shop at The Gap.”
5. Hard Sell
Your audience wants to be entertained. People log onto various social media sites to be entertained. No one wants to be sold to. Ask yourself ‘What am I doing to make this an entertaining experience?’
Customer Engagement To-Dos
Keep Your Customers Informed
If you can position yourself as a trusted thought leader people will trust you more.
Advocate For Your Audience
You have to know who you are speaking to so that you know what their issues are. You have to know how to speak to them. Don’t sell out who you are, but align yourself with your customer’s values to bring value to your brand your customers can relate to.
Add Value
What can you do to add value? No one wants another “white paper” about the same old information. People are looking for information with real value. Everyone wants a happy ending.
Stop Selling the Product and Start Selling the Results
For example, if you are running a restaurant, you are not selling food, you are selling an experience.
Get Influencers to Help You Promote Your Brand
Influencers can help quite a bit. For example, this morning, if there were not other people already planted in the audience that started clapping, it would have been difficult to get other people to start clapping.
Make sure the influencers you use are authentic. Using a popular gamer for an insurance company and even if that gamer has a huge following, that is not going to help you if you are working to sell insurance.
Shoutcart.com is a tool used for influencer marketing. You can buy “shoutouts” for your brand.
Make sure your influencer’s followers are real. You can buy fake followers. An agency ran a test and got millions of followers, and soon gained offers from influencer agencies. You need to know if an influencer has real followers before joining up with them to have them promote your product or service.
The Instagram mafia is a real thing. How they work: there is a group on Instagram that will tell everyone to have their content posted on a particular day at a particular time. At that time, a group of people will go in and like and comment on that post, and that helps to get the post on the discovery page. If you do work with them (the Instagram mafia), keep in mind that posts are usually sold to have them up for a particular time period. You would want to negotiate to have your post put up permanently. You can get better results with influencers depending on who they are and who they have an influence on.
Right now, the influencer market is a “wild west” but it won’t be that way for long. Facebook is out of ideas for advertising opportunities. There is lots of money changing hands through Instagram and Facebook is not getting any of it. That will probably not continue forever, and you will see better analytics and regulation. Right now is the best time to get into the influencer game.
Create Personalized Content
Make sure the content that you create is for your audience. It is not what you perceive the brand to be, it is what your target audience perceives your brand to be that matters most.
There are things that not everyone will like, but if your target audience loves it, that is what you truly want to push forward in your marketing. If a person gives you an opinion on something, you have to take into account whether the person giving the opinion is part of the demographic you are marketing to or not.
No one goes into a department store saying, “I just need a candy bar.”
The boost post button on Facebook is more for impulse purchases. Something that you would do to see what people would do if they happen to see your boosted post. In Facebook’s ad manager, you can set the target audience for your ad.
Right now, your organic post reach is like throwing a Frisbee back and forth to yourself.
How to Create Posts That Will Engage Customers
Be Creative
People do not really wish to see the “Have A Great Weekend” type of post over and over again. Everyone wants to see something else.
Make It Easy to Read and Easy to Understand
Write at a junior-high level. Also, do not use slang terms just for fun. Write out whole sentences when possible.
Don’t Ignore Pinterest, LinkedIn or Twitter
Pinterest is a really big thing for firearms-related businesses that can show how to do different things with various weapons. Don’t go into more social media outlets than you can handle, but do use that which is most relevant to marketing your brand.
Use Video
Today your phone has a better video camera than the actual video cameras your parents had when they were kids. Even if you are using a cell phone and a tripod, there is no excuse for not using video (which is why Facebook has a chance of reclaiming its younger audience).
Use Subtitles
Many people are watching videos in places where they should not be watching videos. This means they have the sound off.
Be Authentic
Use people that relate to your target audience.
Tools to Use to Engage Your Customers
Facebook Watch – Running experiments; it is free for now to see what people like.
Instagram TV – A new place for influencers.
Chatbots and Messenger Ads – No one can ignore a notification. That is why texting is still used. Facebook messaging is good as well. You cannot message someone that has not messaged you first. One easy way is to run contests. Have them message you to enter the contest and go from there. Chatbots can help to automate many of these processes.
ManyChat.com – A chatbot company that can help you get set up with your own Facebook messenger bot.
Test Your Tools – You need to see if things are bringing you profits and not just revenue. The following are good tools to use to test your engagement.
- FB Analytics
- Google Analytics
- Local Data Uploads
- Unique Promo Codes
- Early Product Releases
- Free Audits & Other “Trip-Wire Offers”
There are many other AI products that will help to get the data of your customers faster and easier, but they will not replace what we do with the data itself. You still need to be the one that can tell the story to capture your audience’s attention to want to engage with your product.
Creating True Customer Engagement Through Social Media Takes Effort
Customer engagement is not something that happens without a plan. You have to create a social media strategy that incorporates items to engage your audience often and effectively. But when you get it right, it is worth all the time and effort you put into it.
