Social media is the process of gaining attention through social media sites.
Back in the days, social media meant dealing with Facebook only, or maybe my space. These days, there are so many different social media outlets- Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Reddit. Social media has become an essential element of online marketing.
In the early days of social media, the only thing that a marketer or our client cares about was how many followers they have. Those numbers are still important; it isn’t the only thing you should be looking at when it comes to measuring a campaign.
Engagement shows a truer metric because it shows that people are interacting with your message. And it also shows that you have their attention. To encourage people-to-people interaction to use Facebook to highlight employees and reach out to fans gets personal on Twitter, use google+circles, communities, and hangouts to create valuable conversations, participate in linked in groups, don’t forget to engage on Foursquare.
Social engagement is:
1) provide high-quality content
2) answer questions
3) participate in conversations
4) provide great customer service to customers and potential customers
5) go offline. in the social media circles, there’s a lot of talk about “conversations” and “engagement”.
“Conversations” is fairly straightforward but what does “engagement” mean –provide high-quality content. If you’re wanted to engage an audience, a great starting point is a content – blog posts, tweets, videos, etc. – that capture their attention by providing interesting or valuable information or entertainment.
Providing useful content sources at a time when there’s so much digital noise will keep people coming back, and in the process, build their relationship with you, answer questions: social media is becoming a valuable resource medium. If you’ve got a question, there’s a good chance someone within your social media ecosystem will have an answer, which makes social media a good alternative to pecking around Google.
If you want to engage, help someone by answering their questions, participate in conversations: social media is also a platform to talk about what’s happening.
- In some respects, it is replacing forums as a place where active dialogue is happening. To engage with someone, have a conversation by offering your thoughts, opinions, and knowledge; provide great customer service to customers and potential customers. When customers have a problem, more of them are going to social media as opposed to calling a 1-800 number. By responding to customers quickly and effectively, you can engage with them in real-time. As well, social media is a good way to engage with potential customers who may not be having an issue with your product or service but will appreciate you providing them with relevant and useful information, go off-line: if someone needs more helps than you can offer via social media, provide your e-mail address or phone number so they can provide you with more details in a private setting, meet in person: for all the power of social media and the digital world, there is no better way to connect and engage with people than by meeting them in person.
- This explains why conferences, meet-ups, `and camps are still popular. Positive word of mouth increase credibility. It helps in business to turn to turn their web presence into a powerful revenue generation. People are more likely to trust a friend’s recommendation than to trust an add.
“Conversation is everything”