3 NEW SOCIAL MEDIA CHANNELS THAT WE WOULDN’T BE COMPLETELY SURPRISED TO SEE IN 2016

2015 saw a great deal of new social media platforms rise, fall, and smolder in their own rubble. Many of these tragic cases didn’t even rise high enough to attract any significant attention. Lo and behold, we’re still waiting for the next revolutionary development in the world of social that will assuredly shake the very industry to its core. So, what will 2016 bring us that will challenge, and possibly even replace, our beloved Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram? Here are some hypotheses on what the world of social may present us with in 2016. 

BRANCH

Branch is not just your average social content sharing platform. What makes Branch a revolutionary social media concept is its true 1:1 model. For every one of your friends/followers who are looped in on your content, one of their friends/followers (who is not within your social network) will also see what you’ve decided to share. That’s right! There’s no need for privacy settings within Branch. Every post will be randomly shared out across concentric social circles far beyond your own, increasing the overall impressions of each of your posts and ultimately garnering more exposure for each piece of your content you choose to share. But wait, there’s more! With Branch, you’ll be forced outside of the comfort of your carefully crafted social circle. Why? The creators of Branch want to return us to a time when our actions carried consequences and we were held accountable by others. By Branch-ing out, you’ll be urged to recall the vulnerable openness of truly human exchanges! In short, Branch will remind folks that they’re not the centers of their own universe, the reality of which we expect to pleasantly surprise the network’s users. Knowing your audience just got a little trickier!

HONK

It’s no secret that everyone loves to share a piece of their mind in the social sphere, but just how factually accurate that piece is, however, is an altogether different matter. Honk offers users a chance to urge their fellow human beings to reconsider their confident diatribes about why T Swift opted out of Spotify, whether or not Adele’s “Hello” can really quell family disputes, and the like. Honk is strictly about providing a fact-checking service via the myriad users actively Honk-ing at one another. The best case scenario might involve a user being relieved of a misconception and directed, politely and patiently, toward the fact of the matter, but, as we’re all well aware, honking in traffic is hardly ever that productive or constructive. However, should a user get a bit of social road rage, other users will be absolutely entitled to Honk at a misguided Honker, correcting that individual’s misconceptions or bad facts whenever they should present themselves. It’s all about keeping the waves clear of misinformation and, in turn, providing folks with the most accurate, fact-based truths, rather than a sea of increasingly polarized opinions. Honk if you’re right!

TROLLIO FROM HONK

Sick and tired of people Honk-ing at you when you were, in fact, correct, or at least when it comes to light that they weren’t? Well, now, thanks to Trollio from Honk, you can exact vengeance by way of a companion social platform designed by the people who might bring you Honk. Trollio gives users the opportunity to challenge unruly Honkers to a Trollio duel, during which an affronted party and a misguided individual are engaged in an antagonizing battle of wits. Once entangled in a Trollio duel, the instigator will write an initial post, and then each party will go back and forth (within a 15 second time cap, so the duel of trolls will look something like a disgruntled park bench chess match). A duel will go on as long as it has to for both parties to experience reconciliation, or at least for one party to be outmatched and leave. Despite the best efforts of the folks who may or may not design Honk, there will inevitably be false accusations and a general misunderstanding of what the platform is designed to accomplish (i.e., the sharing of better, more knowledgeable and accurate information). In response to this certainty, Trollio will serve as an in-app companion platform, checking and balancing the whims of Honk users everywhere. So, if you’re going to Honk, you better be prepared to troll for your life! 

There you have it. 2016 might well be filled with new, wonderful and even more improbable social media channels than ever before. It’s the future, after all, and, as such, it’s inherently uncertain, but amongst all of that unknown is an almost infinite plethora of potential just waiting to be realized. So, for those of you who are already at the edge of your seats awaiting Branch, Honk, and, most fervently, Trollio from Honk, we wouldn’t recommend holding your breath, but you just never know, now do you?
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Why You Should Jump on the Instagram Ads Bandwagon Now

Instagram ads are here! That’s a headline you might have heard a couple of times in the past few months. The truth of the matter is, each headline was marking some milestone in a patchwork roll-out of the Instagram ads platform to business’ Facebook accounts. It’s for real this time though, Instagram ads are now available to everybody. So you should jump on board! 

Hold on. You might be wondering if this whole Instagram thing is worth it. After all, it is, at its core, simply a different presentation of Facebook ads. Let’s dig a little deeper. 

It’s still early going, so there’s not a lot of data. But, preliminary reports are showing that Instagram ads are seeing higher engagement than standard Facebook ads. In fact, for web click conversions, Instagram ads are seeing an average 1.5% click through rate, versus a 0.84% for a comparable Facebook ad at a similar cost per click (Source: Fool). There are several reasons that this could be the case. 

1) Instagram ads are new. 

Don’t underestimate the power of novelty. The reason people are clicking these ads more could be because it’s simply interest. I’ve never seen an Instagram ad before! What happens when you click this? This is refreshingly new. (Or, you could be getting the accidental clicks of the confused). Of course, the novelty will wear off, which cuts into the value proposition of Instagram ads over other social media ads over time, but it’s also an argument that you should jump on board as soon as possible and ride the wave while you can. 

2) Instagram ads are big. 

One of the original selling points of Instagram itself was the simplicity of the platform. It’s just one big square picture after another. While other social media networks struggle with cramming as much stuff into its feed without cluttering the user interface, Instagram has remained simple and minimalist. The ads slide in seamlessly, and with the exception of chronology and a small “Sponsored” tag, they are indistinguishable from other posts. For consumers who might have a negative reaction to conspicuous advertisement, this could be more favorable.

 3) Instagram ads are higher quality. 

The reason the click through rates are so good could be because up until recently, it’s only been a select few larger brands that have been advertising on Instagram. These companies, with the resources to create sleek ad campaigns, are creating higher quality ad campaigns than the general populace, and juicing Instagram's early numbers. Unfortunately, this doesn’t help you (although I’m sure your ads are better than average). 

Maybe it’s not exactly definitive whether Instagram ads are more effective than Facebook ads based on the raw early results. You also have to factor in the fact that Instagram ads are only widely available in three of the nine objectives available through Facebook, Clicks to Website, Video Views, and Mobile App Installs (Source: Instagram) which restricts the flexibility you have to create more effectively specific ad campaigns in other objectives. 

However, there’s one big stat points to why Instagram ads have the potential to be superior to Facebook and other social media ad platforms. Instagram, compared to others, skews younger, more diverse, and richer (Source: BI and Pew). In a world where businesses are always trying to chase that particular demographic, especially when business support on social media lags behind the cutting edge of current trends, it pays to at least be as far forward as possible. 

Combine that with the knowledge that overall, Instagram is not as small as you might still perceive it, at around 200 million users it’s catching up with Twitter, and that its users are more engaged because its feed is less saturated (Source: SMT), it’s worth your time to get your business on Instagram ads as fast as possible. 

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5 ways to use Google Analytics to find social media topics

Here's how you can use Google Analytics to come up with interesting and relevant discussion topics that will resonate with your target audience on social media.

Coming up with new, interesting topics for posting on your blog or social media channels can be challenging when you’ve been at it for a long time. That seemingly endless stream of ideas can run low and topics can feel stale after a while. When this becomes an issue, Google Analytics is a handy tool for getting inspired and basing your ideas on data.

Here are five reports in Google Analytics that you can use for generating new topics.

1. SEO keywords

The terms people use to find your site can tell you a lot about their interests, especially the longer-tail keywords. A great place to start is by looking for questions among the keywords. Start off questions with phrases like:

• "What is...?"
• "How to...?"
• "How can...?"

These types of queries can tell you the exactly what answers searchers are looking for when they land on your site.

However, you don’t have to just stop at questions. Look for other terms frequently used by searchers to understand what they are most interested in.

Let’s say you’re a high-end furniture store selling everything from sofas and armchairs, to rugs and decor. You may notice that a high number of people are coming to the site when they search for terms related to coffee tables. By writing about coffee tables - with topics like the merits of different shapes, sizes, and materials, how a coffee table can tie the room together, or what type of coffee table best fits your lifestyle - you know you are hitting on a subject that is of interest to your audience. 

Where the find the report: Acquisition >> Search Engine Optimization >> Queries

2. Site search

Similar to the SEO keywords, you can look at the terms people are using once they get to your site, to learn more about what interests them. However, the thing to keep in mind here is that these users are already on your site, and they are digging in further for more information. Oftentimes these terms will be more product or service specific. But you can still gain insight into which products or services are more popular and, in turn, make for interesting content topics.

Where the find the report: Behavior >> Site Search >> Search Terms

3. Interest categories

If you’ve enabled demographic insights in Google Analytics, you can learn some pretty fascinating things about your site visitors. One especially insightful report for developing content is the Audience Interests report.

As you can see, there are several different interest or behavioral categories that your audience fall into, like:

• Movie Lovers
• Home and Garden
• Travel Buffs
• Arts and Entertainment
• Real Estate 

Use these categories to help you match your products or services to those categories to find content topics. Going back to the home furnishings example, if you see that a large portion of your audience are also movie lovers, you could write a post about how popular movies have used furniture and decor to set a tone, or pick a furniture designer and list every movie their pieces have been shown in.

Where the find the report: Audience >> Interests

4. Pages with most engagement

See which pages on your site are being viewed the most and for the longest time. This goes for static pages, such as categories, products or resource pages, as well as blog posts. Notice if there are any themes of interest across these pages. Are the pages getting the most engagement all about coffee tables or different type of furniture? Is there one particular blog post that continues to receive a good deal of traffic months or even years after posting?

Creating other pieces of content based on these popular topics allows you to write about things you already know are interesting to your visitors. If it’s blog content we’re talking about, think about how you could repurpose that content into other formats. A top 10 blog post could be turned into an infographic or video, or you could expand on each item and come up with ten new blogs in one go!

Where the find the report: Behavior >> Site Content >> All Pages

5. Links from other sources

When other blogs or social media posts link to your website, it’s called a Trackback in Google Analytics. By viewing trackbacks, you can learn what other bloggers think you are credible enough about to link to, and you can also see how many people click those links to visit your site. Note what these blogs are about, and why and how your site is mentioned within the article to determine if these would make for good content topics on your social media channels.

Where the find the report: Acquisition >> Social >> Trackbacks

To sum up

Brainstorming topics for social media content can’t and shouldn't stop with a white board. Google Analytics is great resource for providing inspiration and validating that these topics will be of interest to your customers.

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Is This Working? Creating a Social Media Strategy That Brings Results

The only way you’ll reap the best rewards from your social media marketing is to have a planned, organized and applicable strategy in place. However, many individuals and organizations struggle with this process. Even with all the evidence supporting strategy development, people still struggle with creating and maintaining one that brings positive results.

That’s where these tips come into play. Give these 5 steps a try to see how they can help you develop a strategy that leads to a higher social media ROI.

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1) MARKETING AND SALES DEPARTMENTS DISCUSS THE GOALS AND STEPS TO TAKE FOR BUILDING AN EFFECTIVE STRATEGY.

Businesses will not thrive these days if the marketing and sales departments don’t work together. Marketing supports sales, but if the social media staff don’t know what’s bringing in sales leads, how can they know what to publish?

Have your marketing and sales teams meet regularly to build a strategy that leads to increased sales. By doing this, the marketing team will know what to publish and how to act on social media to increase its ROI.

2) THE STRATEGY FOCUSES ON THE SOCIAL PLATFORMS WHERE THE TARGET AUDIENCE IS MOST ACTIVE, NOT NECESSARILY THE POPULAR ONES.

If your audience is on Twitter more than LinkedIn, focus your attention on that platform. Even if you learn that LinkedIn is more “popular” for B2B, if your specific targets are not there, you shouldn’t be either.

Your social media strategy should specifically address which social platforms you’ll be active on based on the buyer personas you’ve created from your target audience. All the other platforms are secondary for if you have the resources.

3) SOCIAL MEDIA RESPONSIBILITIES ARE FORMALLY DELEGATED PER EMPLOYEE POSITION, BUT THERE’S ALWAYS ROOM FOR MERGES, IF NECESSARY.

To avoid potentially disastrous confusion between your staff, you should include a delegation process in your strategy. Give each role to specific staff positions so that everyone knows what they’re responsible for and nothing gets missed.

Unfortunately, there sometimes comes a need for downsizing your staff, so make sure your strategy is able to compensate for that. Leave room in each employee’s responsibilities for additional work in case you need to merge positions.

4) YOU’VE TARGETED THE NECESSARY METRICS AND OTHER MEASUREMENTS, AND STAFF KNOW HOW TO APPLY WHAT THEY LEARN FROM THEM.

Your strategy is not a strategy if you don’t have an end goal(s) in mind, and you can’t determine whether you’ve reached it unless you know what you’re looking for. By thoroughly analyzing how you’re going to measure your results, you give your strategy a way to prove itself.

However, there is no point in measuring the different results you receive if you don’t know how to learn from them and apply that new knowledge. If you see that a specific content type is earning more engagement than any other type, apply it to your future activity. The same goes for struggling content. Don’t keep using it if it’s not working.

5) THE STRATEGY IS COMPLETED IN WRITING, SIGNED WITH LEADERSHIP APPROVAL, AND LEAVES ROOM FOR FUTURE CHANGES.

Your strategy is an essential document for marketing, sales and your business as a whole, so it needs to be written down. Better yet, put it on company letterhead. Get a stamp of approval from company leadership. Give it a date so that you know when you need to update it.

Always remember that even with a confirmed strategy, you’ll need to make changes to it regularly, especially considering how often social media trends change. Make sure your strategy allows room for such changes and is flexible for future social advancements.

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With the ever-changing nature of social media marketing, you cannot afford to ignore the need for a formal strategy.

1. Give your marketing and sales teams a chance to work together on something crucial to your business.
2. Designate the right social networks to focus your attention so that you don’t waste resources and miss opportunities.
3. Assign each social media responsibility to a specific company position to ensure every aspect is covered and there’s no confusion.
4. Confirm that all results are properly analyzed and applied to future activity so that your teams learn from their successes and failures.
5. Ensure that your strategy is established and approved in a formal document, allowing for future changes and improvements.

Keep in mind that your strategy must be a fluid, flexible document, needing regular updates to align with social media advancements.

There will never be an end to your strategy, and there will never be an end to its essential role in your overall business structure.

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5 Powerful Ways to Use Social Media for Lead Generation

Clued-in business owners and marketing managers aren’t just using social media to boost brand awareness — they’re also leveraging these platforms in order to generate leads.

By stirring up interest and encouraging users with a call-to-action, sites like LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter can all be used as powerful marketing funnels to capture potential customers’ email addresses.

Here are five simple yet highly effective ways you can gain leads through the use of social media.

1. Listen to Social Needs

So much emphasis is put on promotions and sharing content, you can forget about the most important aspect of social media: listening to your audience. What are the hopes, needs, fears, and dreams of your target market? Listening to your ideal customers and clients enable you to serve them better, craft more compelling content, and ultimately improve your opt-in rates.

Pro tip: Where should you listen to your customer targets and eventually interact, joining in the conversation? Check out LinkedIn Groups.

2. Create a “Pink Spoon”

The “pink spoon” refers to a freebie, such as an e-book, audio file, webinar or digital course, which can be viewed or downloaded when someone enters their email address in an opt-in form. We also call these “lead generation offers.” Ensure your “pink spoon” offers great value and helps to solve an issue for your target market. Promote your “pink spoon” on your social media networks, and link back to your website to capture new leads.

Pro tip: It’s not enough to promote your freebie once or twice. Schedule several different social media “teasers” multiple times over the course of several months to get the most from your offer.

3. Host a Webinar

Online seminars not only provide a way to build on your brand’s expertise, they also hook in customers and capture hot leads. Use a combination of paid LinkedIn advertising, LinkedIn updates, paid Facebook ads, Facebook posts and promoted tweets to market your webinar and build your list.

Pro tip: It can take 40 hours or more to plan, write, rehearse and conduct your first webinar. If you decide to go this route, then you can also use the content from your webinar as blog posts, helping further fuel your social media efforts.

4. Integrate All Platforms

Every single one of your social media accounts should link back to your website. If a visitor wants to connect with your business but they can’t find where to go, you will have lost yourself a lead. For continuity and professionalism, use the same usernames across all of your social media platforms.

Pro tip: You may want to consider linking to your LinkedIn profile from your personal social media accounts. Because you can see who views your LinkedIn profile when you visit LinkedIn, you can see who might be interested in doing business with you.

5. Monitor Your Success

Use Google Analytics to measure the stream of visitors coming from social media sites, the number of opt-ins, and the effectiveness of your paid social media campaigns. Split testing allows you to control and tweak landing pages for the best conversion rates, continuously improving your tactics in order to get the best results.

Pro tip: We use HubSpot to publish and monitor social media because of the analytics we receive from the software. Scheduling social media in HubSpot saves us several hours each week, and we can get interaction statistics to find our most popular messages, too.

Do you have any questions about using social media for your lead generation efforts? Leave them in the comments below.

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10 Tactics to Build Quality Social Media Presence – Startup Tips

Someone on Twitter asked this:

What would you recommend to #startups looking to build social media presence?

Startups are highly results-driven. Well, every business is (and should be). With the so many “experts” and “gurus,” where should you begin? It’s a jungle out there, and information can be overwhelming.

I wrote this article for:

1. Startups who wanted to jumpstart their social media presence;
2. Any business that is new in social media;
3. Business owners who are not keen on simply “winging” their social media presence; and last but not least,
4. The startup company that asked me the question.

10 Tips to Build your Social Media Presence

Your goal should precede your concern over choice of platforms | Tip 1

I often come across businesses who ask which social media platforms they should use. Doesn’t that seem like putting the horse before the cart? It is a reasonable question to ask, but concern for such should not overtake concern over your goal.

Be clear about your purpose for using social media marketing.

Having an explicit goal to focus on is like driving. The brain, if you notice, has the tendency to cause the car to swerve toward what the driver is looking at. You observe what’s around you, including the competitor, but your eyeballs should be primarily toward your destination. You can navigate through traffic or take another route, but that does not change the destination. .

Question for you to answer: What is YOUR goal for your business startup?

I cannot stress enough the importance of knowing the answer to that question. A defined goal helps your team plan strategic & measurable steps; while, in the process, you also keep resources in check as you strive to reach it.

It can be used as a tool to achieve either of these goals:

• increased email subscribers
• grow profitability
• get leads
• more website traffic to your website
• improved customers service
• increased brand awareness

…and more!

Understand that each goal may have different actions or call it tactics, if you will, that your team might need to develop. That is why with the reality of having stringent resources and the desire to have to scale it, you have to be clear about what you want to achieve. One way to do this is by determining your key performance indicators. You can take a hint from Facebook to establish what may be your preferred key performance indicator or KPI to reach a marketing objective for your business success.

Facebook has the following, as an example:

1. Book Now – For if you would like people to book appointments with your company;
2. Use App – This is ideal for technology startups who would like people to try your app;
3. Contact Us – This is if you would like people to contact you directly if they have any question. Get a live link to your website’s “Contact Us” page.
4. Shop Now – This is a perfect option if your startup business has an e-commerce site where your fans can purchase your product or service;
5. Sign up – This is if you would like to get more subscribers and if you are building your mailing list. Did you know that 50% of site visitors NEVER return to your site? So if you are paying ad to drive traffic to your site. The best bang for your back is to marry that up with your mailing list.
6. Play Game – This app is perfect if you have a game that you have developed.
7. Watch a video – This is perfect if you like to increase visibility about your product and services.

Determine who you are selling your products or services to | Tip #2

While everyone can be potentially your client, not everyone is a customer. You may have several segments of your audience, or just one. It can be by geographic location, age, job, title, etc.

Why is identifying audience is important?

One reason is that different age groups have different habits, expressions, and social media platform preference.

comScore released this social media networks demographic. What it is telling us is that the various groups hang out in different platforms!

Age Distribution of Top Social Networks | Who’s in what?

Another reason is, depending on resources and extent and depth of your approach in marketing, you may need to prioritize which social media tool you have to be on first or spend more time on.

Know your audience.

Know the language they are using, the type of social media message they like to follow and content they like to read. Some social networks give you the ability to get a glimpse of what they like, what they are reading and in some instances info can be granular.

Marketing to an identified group with a targeted approach can potentially help cut costs, and yield better results because you can manage and focus your efforts more efficiently.

Tip for your Success: Go and find your ideal audience and engage with them. Add value to the conversation. If you are uncertain on how to jump in on a conversation without appearing like a spammer, check these tips on how to join social media conversations from pros.

Invest in a social media monitoring tool | Tip 3

There is no such thing as perfect social media monitoring tool, but there are useful tools out there. Determine what you like to monitor and see if any of the solutions out there has all, if not some, of the features you need for benchmarking.

I would suggest you to try either of these Hootsuite, SproutSocial or Buffer. (I am not an affiliate of either).

Measure for success | Tip 4

From the Social Times:

“Measurement provides marketers with results to iterate and evaluate business decisions. By continuing to learn from measurement results, you can more effectively inform your campaign strategies, whether those strategies are more tactically driven or strategic to the brand.

It is always great to have a benchmark. It is not just about showing up every day. You’ll find that soon enough if you start benchmarking your efforts. You can argue and reason that data shouldn’t be so, but numbers don’t lie. Numbers are great indicators of what is working and what is not.

Take stock of what the data is trying to say, and use that information to develop appropriate strategies or change existing ones to achieve your marketing objectives.

Be consistent | Tip #5

I posted a tip on consistency on Instagram, which I later shared on Twitter. That brought up the question above from one of our Twitter followers.

Be consistent with your message. Keep your posts on-topic You don’t have to be in social media from sun-up to sun-down. Mix up your posts without straying from your objectives.

Aside from your message, be consistent with your relevance, make posts appealing to your audience.

Be consistent in engaging with your audience. It is “social” media, remember? Respond to relevant conversations.

Be consistent with your presence. Don’t show up one day and then gone the next. Be there regularly.

Every click, every mention, every retweet, every share will add up to your reputation as a business. Everything you do is like raindrops; rain makes puddles. If the rain is non-stop, that could cause a flood. In a way, your digital activities are like that. You will reap fruits of it in due time.

Be tactically strategic | Tip 6

With the so many digital distractions surrounding target audience nowadays our efforts should be not only tactical but also strategic. For ANY tactic to be strategic, it has to meet a particular goal. Begin by understanding who you are as a company, what you want to become and how you will achieve it.

Ask yourself: “Why am I doing what I am doing?” As an example, “Why am I posting this [breakfast]?”

 Really.

Your growth may correlate with what you are putting in social media | Step 7

If you want to go slow, do it the organic way. Expect to spend plenty of man-hours to achieve satisfactory results. If you wish to scale growth, pay for ads. I recommend that you do a combination of both. If you don’t have time to “experiment” this get a consultant who knows what he/she is doing and is not learning on your dime. Whether you choose to grow the organically or by paying ads, both aren’t free.

Grow slow, organic; grow fast, pay ads.This is assuming you have a clear goal, AND objectives in place.

Posted by Your Social Success on Tuesday, October 13, 2015

Social media is not a silo | Step 8

Social media on its own can be hit or miss.

According to JD Power in 2013, “67% consumers use social media for customer service and 66% stopped doing business with a company due to poor social customer service.”

Social media touches other facets of your business. Use it not just as a vertical but with a wider lens. You can use it together with your other marketing investments to attract, engage and acquire customers. Therefore, it is necessary to map your social media objectives back to your business goals.

Ask business start-ups for tips | Step 9

Elizabeth Dodson, the co-founder of HomeZada, a cloud-based home improvement, and organizational software startup company, is sharing these tips to startups like HomeZada.

HomeZada stumbled when it first launched its social media presence due to a lack of knowledge about the platforms and lack of understanding of what mattered to their audience. After carefully reevaluating and educating ourselves on social media, we understood what needed to happen in order to embrace and support our followers. For any startup looking to build a social media presence, I would recommend that they first do their research about the platforms and what will interest their audience. Second, I would suggest understanding the time allocation needed to commit to social media and determining what time is available to manage this initiative. Moreover, finally, I would look at the social media platform or platforms that most resonate with your business. If you are a B2B organization, then LinkedIn might be your best forum. If you are a B2C, then maybe Facebook or another platform. Once you secure your platforms, understand what information is valuable to the audience on each platform. Republishing the same pieces to all the platforms may not resonate with your audience of one platform, but may resonate with your audience of another.

Hire a social media consultant or get a coach | 10

Each social media platform is different. As such it has different audience and nuances. There is a learning curve involved in the process. That includes trying to catch up with the constant changes that go on with each platform.

If you want to manage it, get an experienced social media coach, *cough* we do that, whom you can check in regularly about what you are doing if you’re on track – or not.

If you don’t have time to run social media yourself, hire a social media consultant who is not learning it in your dime. Stay clear from anyone who’d promise a quick result. Social media does NOT work that way!

What would be your tip to build a killer social media presence? Leave it below.

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10 Ways To Continue A Conversation With Someone On Social Media

Social media is commonly used as a platform for marketers to promote their content and products. Millions of businesses use social media to communicate with their customers every day. These conversations are typically one-sided. Business accounts send out tweets but don’t bother responding to their customers.

Businesses and individuals need to have more conversations with their audiences. It is conversations that allow the strongest relationships to occur. You don’t get long-lasting friends that matter by having one-sided conversations with them. You need to have a conversation with someone if you want to build a strong relationship with that person.

However, the conversations that create friendships are more than the wave, the greeting, and then the departure. Conversations that build strong relationships need to last for a long period of time. In order to continue a conversation with someone on social media that turns into a strong relationship, follow these 10 tips.

#1: Wish Your Followers A Wonderful Week/Weekend

At the end of many of my conversations, I wish people a wonderful week or weekend depending on the day of the week. I do this for two reasons. The first reason is that I do want these people to enjoy their weeks and weekends. We have the right to enjoy our lives. The second reason is that this ending encourages the conversation to develop. Many of my followers also wish me a wonderful week/weekend depending on the day of the week.

#2: Ask A Question

Questions are great ways to continue a conversation. After one of my followers wishes me a wonderful week/weekend, I ask that followers what he/she has planned for the week/weekend. Many people respond telling me all of the things they have to do for the week/weekend. I follow up with a list of things I have to do as well. Asking this question allows me to learn what my followers do. If I find a pattern, I may create a product around that pattern.

On a simpler scale, you can start a conversation by asking what your followers’ favorite books are. Asking these types of questions to all of your followers will start up multiple conversations.

#3: Have Multiple Conversations With The Same Person

Just because a conversation ends does not mean you and the person you were talking to will never have another conversation together. You can talk to the same person again and again, just like a real-life friendship.

#4: Thank Your Followers For Sharing Your Content

One of the best ways to start a conversation is with an act of gratitude. I constantly thank the people who share my content with their audiences. I have thanked the same people multiple times. Many of the people who I thank either say something like, “You’re welcome,” or “Thank you for putting up the content so I could share it.” If you get one of these two responses, you should continue the conversation with that person.

Most marketers are so focused on sharing and creating content that they forget to thank the people who appreciate them. Some of the people who share your articles will feel so grateful that you thanked them that these people will continue sharing your content. When you do this, it is important to avoid abusing this power (don’t use this to manipulate your followers), and in the end, your followers will only share your content if it is valuable.

#5: Include Pictures In Your Posts

Social media posts with pictures have been proven to get more engagement than social media posts without pictures. If you include pictures in more of your posts, you will start more conversations with your followers. Some of the people who engage with your pictures will be people who have had conversations with you in the past. You can continue interacting with these people to strengthen the relationships and interact with other people for the first time to start new relationships.

#6: Only Talk To The Right People

Not every social media user is created equal. Ideally, you want to talk to the people who are interested in the content you share on your social networks. These are the people who would be more likely to share your content and be grateful for your insights. You want to build an audience of like-minded people so that, when the conversations do take place, you are talking to the right people. In addition, when you hop onto a conversation, make sure the people in that conversation are the right people to talk with (like-minded people who share an interest in your niche).

#7: Respond Quicker

You can’t have much of a conversation with someone else unless you respond. The longest conversations that take place are the ones where people quickly respond to each other. Most of these conversations are real human interaction without any technology involved. On social media, you need technology to communicate with your followers. However, you can make those conversations last longer by responding quicker as if you were in a real conversation.

I make it a policy to get back to my followers within a day. Depending on when the conversation starts and when I log in, I may get back to some people within a few seconds or close to 24 hours. By responding quicker, your followers will be more likely to remember the conversation when they see your response.

#8: Quiz Your Followers

Quizzing your followers is a great way to start more conversations. You can quiz your followers by giving them a clue to identify someone, something, or an event such as, “Who was the 33rd President of the United States?” The answer to that question is Harry S. Truman. Of course, some followers may choose to look that up, but you get more interaction.

The best quiz questions are the ones that require a guess. Think “How many pieces of candy are in the box” type of questions. You can offer a free prize to the first person who guesses the right answer or is the closest to the right answer.

#9: Poll

Polls are another way to start conversations. Facebook has an especially great feature that makes poll creation easier. For any social network though, you can simply list poll choices like this:

What should my next product be about?

A. Pinterest

B. Twitter

C. Facebook

D. Blogging

E. Productivity

In less than a minute, I just created a poll that could be put on any social network, including Twitter with its 140 character limit. This type of poll would allow me to know what products my followers want. Having this knowledge would allow me to make better decisions when I create my future products. You can ask any poll question such as, “Which social network do you like the most…” Not all of them have to be related to your products or expertise.

#10: Thoughtfully Contribute To The Conversation

When you contribute to a conversation, you need to thoughtfully contribute to that conversation. In human interaction, we don’t have as much time to think about what we say. We say what we think of. Sometimes, we say thoughtful things while at other times, we say things that we should have thought about before saying. On social media, you have time to think about what you say. Utilize the extra time to think before you post something on social media. Then, you will have a better reply to a conversation that makes the conversation build.

In Conclusion

Conversations are important on social media because they allow relationships to build. Some of these relationships may turn into sales, subscribers, and people who promote you for a long time. However, most conversations on social media are either one-sided or do not last for a long period of time. Everything you post is the start of a conversation. It is up to you to post the type of content your followers would be encouraged to engage with. Then it is up to you to keep those conversations going so you can build stronger relationships with your followers.

What are your thoughts on having conversations on social media? Do you have any other tips for making a conversation continue for a longer period of time? Please share your thoughts and advice below.

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