Building your Community
This post is available as a podcast too - listen here!
Social Media is awash with digital influencers who will freak you out with the latest algorithm updates and overwhelming to do list on how to grow your audience overnight.
Perhaps you’ve heard you need to create 7 Reels a week?
As well as 7 Tiktok videos a week?
As well as 8 - 10 stories daily?
On top of 5+ posts weekly?
Your head must be spinning with all those numbers as the full weight of content creation crashes down on you.
And that advice is fine if you’re willing to spend 98 hours a week developing content for your digital platforms… These influencers are ultimately recommending you create a heap of content to make the algorithm love you. But we’ve seen that that’s just not the case.
Because we work with a heap of brands across a broad range of industries and categories, we’ve been given a backstage pass to what works (and what’s a waste of time), and we’ve seen 3 key themes work time and time again regardless of industry or business type.
We call them the 3 Golden Rules of Social Media because they’ve proven themselves time and time again. They are the core reasons why people gravitate towards social media - and keep coming back for more after a late night scroll session.
They all also happen to start with the letter “C” which is just so good if, like us, you’re into alliteration… It also makes them that much easier to remember: soon you’ll be rattling them off in your sleep.
There’s a lot to unpack under each concept so we will cover each one in its own right to give each the space and attention it needs.
This week, we’ll kick off our 3 part Golden Rules of Social Media series with the first of the golden themes: COMMUNITY.
Continued below…
Image Shot & Styled by Shout & Co. for Healtheries
As the concept suggests, to make your social media really hum, you need to build a robust digital community around your brand - creating an army of advocates that believe in your offer.
BUILD IT AND THEY WILL COME
To build your digital community, you need to hang out where your audience is hanging out. If they’re on FB, be there. If they prefer LinkedIn, be there. If Pinterest is their club house, then make yourself visible on Pinterest. Being on a platform that houses an altogether different community than the one you’re trying to build is like presenting to an empty auditorium. Crickets. Stick to 1 or 2 platforms rather than many: this will give you the time and focus to really hone in on your audience’s needs and wants.
QUALITY VS. QUANTITY
It’s not about the numbers. Forget about how many followers you have because it’s not about the amount of followers you have but the quality of your audience. 100 random followers doesn’t necessarily equal 100 sales - but 100 engaged and authentic followers could! I would also say not to focus on the number of LIKES your content gets, but there is a point where these LIKES become quite insightful: the more favourable reactions a post gets (versus another post) indicates that this is the type of content that is resonating with your audience. Focus on the LIKES but only to deliver more content like that. They’re a great dipstick on what’s working and what’s not on your feed.
Continued below…
Image Shot & Styled by Shout & Co. for Wairau Cove
GET SOCIAL
Part of your job as a content creator for your brand is to get social with others. On a daily basis, spend some time liking and following (and perhaps even purging - but that’s a topic for another day) other accounts’ content, leaving genuine comments and double tapping posts. Go through stories and leave reactions and messages with people who are clearly putting a lot of effort into their content creation. Spread your interactions far and wide to engage on a broader level.
RESPOND
If you receive a comment or message, respond! It keeps the conversation going and could lead to further interactions. If you’re not able to respond to DMs and messages as quickly as you’d like, set up an automatic reply system with some additional information or pre-determined questions. They make for an effective answering machine of sorts until you are able to get on and respond personally!
ENCOURAGE INTERACTION
This topic is 2 fold: encouraging interaction on your posts by asking questions or inviting feedback / comments on the 1 hand and enabling interaction on your stories through question boxes, polls, sliding scales and quizzes.
SHOW YOURSELF
Sharing a business owner's image and origin story on social media can exponentially increase brand loyalty and trust as well as digital engagement (and thus reach). To build your community you have to be authentic, and in order to do that, you have to show yourself. Don’t be afraid to get in front of the camera and let people know who’s running this brand’s digital show. Building that trust and loyalty is the key to developing your awesome community of advocates.
Our 3 Golden Rules of Social Media series will continue next week with the 2nd of our 3 C’s. Stay tuned to see what that is!
If you’re needing help building your digital community, get in touch. We can help with your digital marketing strategy as well as provide one-on-one coaching to get your socials humming. We offer a FREE Discovery Call to assess where you’re at and how we can help.
