Using Social Media can be overwhelming for small businesses. There are so many networks to choose from and then maintaining fresh content can get to be a lot of work! Once you are able to keep up with fresh content then you have to engage your customers, but maybe you aren’t sure where to start.
Here are 5 ideas for engaging customers through social media:
Ask a Question:
This is a pretty simple engagement tool. Ask a simple question that relates to your business – Do you prefer wood floors or carpet in your home? Which of these gadgets do you like better – iPhone or Android? You could really come up with any question you can think of, but try it make it fun or interesting. Maybe even a little controversial if you find it appropriate for your fans.
Use Photos:
Using photos is a great tool for helping encourage interaction with your followers. Use photos whenever you can, especially if you use the first option of asking a question. People respond better to photos because they are visually appealing (most of the time) and easy to understand. When using Facebook it can be a great idea to post a photo instead of just using the standard link thumbnail preview. It’s takes a little extra step to include the photo, but most of the time it will get more response fans and have a better reach rate.
Tag people or businesses:
This is a great tool if you work with other vendors or can monitor people asking about your services. A great example is a retail store that carries a specific brand of clothing. It is very simple to post an image or fact about the brand and tag them in the post. This makes the brand aware that the store is promoting the brand, it exposes the store to the brands followers, and it helps the store make people aware that they carry a brand they might be interested in.
Run a contest:
If this can work for your type of business this can be a great tool. Pinterest is a big tool for running “pin it to win it” contests right now. A company will create a visually appealing graphic, containing their giveaway product, maybe their company or website, etc. Then they ask people to repin the original pin for a chance to win that specific product. This gets your product exposed to hundreds if not hundreds of thousands of people. This can get a lot of response from customers and create a new wave of followers if the product is enticing enough to pin.
Ask for customer input:
This is a very broad example and can be spun many different ways. You can create a poll for customers to complete, ask people to submit photos of something, have them decide on a new product name, etc. The possibilities are endless on this one, it’s just a matter of coming up with the most appropriate option for your type of business.
These are just 5 of the ways you can get your customers to interact with your social profiles. Hopefully this will help you to come up with some great ideas of your own and grow your social media presence.
