Relationship building via social media requires a business owner to be consistent in terms of effort with generating buzz about their brand around the internet. In order to build a relationship, you have to have a clear goal of what you are trying to achieve through your online social media channel.
Use Social Media Relationships to Build Brand Awareness
Are you going for brand awareness when you are marketing through social media channels such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn? In this situation, the goal is to make people more aware of your business, the unique value proposition, and how it can help customers solve their problems. With brand awareness, here are some of the ways people are looking to build relationships:
- Creating highly informative content that may or may not lead to a free gift (whitepaper, .PDF, or something else)
- Listening to the common problems, complaints, or issues that frequently occur, and addressing them in a public broadcast in the form of a Facebook status update, Tweet, or LinkedIn post.
- Hosting some type of contest and rewarding potential participants prizes if they choose to enter the contest. Many times, these contests include participant actions such as spreading word about the brand, a product, or a specific issue that the brand is passionate about solving. It’s a great idea to offer a valuable, highly sought after prize in this situation, as offering a cheap prize will probably not generate a ton of buzz.
- Offer coupons or incentives for people that “like” your Facebook page. This can build a relationship because that person simply pressing the “like” button will change your business dramatically. Essentially their mind will say: “I like this service, and my ‘Like’ is proof of that.” This can establish instant trust with your business, and increase their likelihood of recommending any type of content that you post on your social media page in the future
Building Relationships to Boost Immediate Revenue
Maybe your goal is for people to take immediate action and to increase revenue for your sales. One may wonder, “Why doesn’t everybody do this?” The question is simple. If you are hard selling people after every single interaction, they may find it appropriate to unfriend you, unfollow you, and to eliminate you from their online circle. With that being said, there are more subtle ways to increase revenue for your page without looking like a desperate, money-hungry salesman.
Here are some subtle ways to increase revenue when building relationships:
- If you are just starting out, e-mail specific people and try to ask them questions about their problems in terms of your service. For example, if you are selling GPS dog collars, then you may want to ask people about their greatest fears with their pets. And you can simply offer them a solution after a long conversation. If the product or service fits their needs, then they will purchase!
- Offer to give away free samples of your product or free trials of your service. When people are excited about your product, encourage them to leave reviews on Amazon praising your product or any other site in which your product or service may be listed.
- When posting content, always have a call to action at the end of the blog post if you are looking to boost immediate profits. For example, if you have an article about the scientific breakthroughs of GPS dog collars and their integration with iPhones, you can have a call to action at the end that says: “Are you looking to buy this technology for your dog? Click here for 50% off your next GPS dog collar.”
By building relationships, engaging individuals regularly, and creating buzz through social media, you can build a strong relationship with your audience that can skyrocket profits in the end!
What are your methods of building relationships on social media? Have you looked at Followerwonk, SocialBro, or even Hootsuite?
