Creative Ways to Connect with Your Online Community

As someone who uses social media to grow your business and increase sales, how you interact with your followers and engage your community is critical to your success. While some businesses benefit from face-to-face interactions, others exist only in the online sphere and thus need some creative ways to ensure their customers and clients feel important and heard.

The way you choose to engage with fans and followers online is a great way to showcase your brand identity, as well as build a meaningful connection with customers that will ensure repeat business and support. So what can you do to stand out from competitors and other interest-grabbing social media fads? Explore five methods you can use to improve your social media profile and engage your audience in new and meaningful ways.

Go Live

Studies show that video is one of the most popular ways people want to consume media these days. It’s a highly effective tool for reaching audiences and holding their attention. While creating unique videos and releasing them on your socials after editing is one way to go, you can take this technique a step further when you choose to live stream across multiple time zones to connect with all your followers at once.

When something is happening in real-time, you’re generating more excitement around the content. If your audiences don’t join in now, they’ll miss the video, sale, or opportunity for good! Live streaming also allows you to interact with fans instantly, where you can answer questions, give shoutouts, and even integrate live chat solutions to respond to concerns on the spot.

If you’re nervous about going live, you can always mock up an outline to plan your stream. Hosting a live video on a specific topic can help create guidelines and keep you on track. Whether it’s a Q&A or a product reveal, your topic can keep everyone focused on what’s important.

Advertise your live stream before you start so that all your fans know what’s happening. Post the announcements on your social media platforms and send them out to your mailing list to encourage high levels of participation. Consider reaching out to friends or colleagues for support so that they can pad the audience in your first few sessions and build your confidence with friendly faces.

Friendly Competitions

An online contest is a fantastic way to generate interest in a product release or in your business in general. Contests allow fans to engage with you in a fun, creative way! As you develop a contest that makes sense for your business, consider what’s relevant to your operations. Ask fans to submit ideas for a product name or mascot, or create a video challenge that advertises a new product and allows you to share fan submissions related to your business.

Contests work best when you offer prizes in exchange for encouraging your audience to take on a more active role. Instead of just scrolling through social media, they get to become content creators that win prizes and have access to a larger audience – yours.

Once you have a developed contest idea, create a hashtag that allows you to track entries, as well as generate interest outside of your dedicated fan base. If your hashtag gets popular enough, you could end up going viral! Announcing the winner and their fabulous prize on all your social media channels ensures that your next contest will be just as popular.

Social Media Takeover

Part of what keeps fans engaged with your business is the people behind the scenes. Instead of a faceless corporation, your audience wants to see who actually keeps the company running. If there’s only been one person in charge of your social media campaigns, it’s time to stage a social media takeover. Over the course of several months, you could have different members of your team take the helm, sharing their job, a look behind the scenes, and a day in the life of their position at your company.

With this strategy, you’re generating excitement on both sides—with fans and employees. You’re building personal connections between the brand and the fans, ensuring they see the dedication, care, and attention your company puts into your products and services. You could also let your team speak for themselves through chat moderation with real-time updates, polls, interactive features, and more.

Join in on the Fads

Many businesses keep the same level of professionalism on their social media as they do throughout their company. Unfortunately, this can lead to stiff and boring socials. Your website is where you want to maintain that sense of professionalism—let down your hair and show off a little personality on social media!

Some ways you can incorporate more lighthearted levity into your social media content includes:

• Incorporating Memes & GIFs
• Participating in Viral Challenges
• Creating Posts of Work Pets
• Dancing in Tik Tok Challenges
• Referencing Pop-Culture

Keeping your content brand-appropriate is essential, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have fun.

Keep Communication Active

If someone has already purchased a product or engaged with your content, you want to keep them communicating. Instead of replying with an emoji or a “Thanks!”, keep the conversation flowing with a question. Ask for feedback, get their views on the best feature for a product, and generate a little more back and forth to hold their attention. The longer you keep them engaged, the more you get to establish your brand identity, present yourself as an expert on a topic, and make sure they remember your excellent customer service.

Building Trust

Social media management is all about building a connection and trust with people who may never meet you face to face. Create content that sets you up as an expert, respond to concerns in a meaningful way, and ensure your customers turn to you whenever they need help.