People don’t make friends with robots: Give your business a personality
By Alexandra Reid
It takes humans many years to learn the intricacies of how to be social. We are not born knowing that it’s inappropriate to put our elbows on the table at dinnertime, talk back to our elders or utter the word “neato” in any party setting, lest we set ourselves up for mocking. It takes a wealth of life experiences -some crushing, others passionate and a few victorious – as well as years of education to teach us about who we are and how we should interact with others in order to navigate our way through life.
Social media rose to prominence in just a few years. Yet, despite its rapid arrival, it has become a rich forum of experiences, thoughts, ideas, opinions and advice as many people learned very quickly how to transfer their life skills over to these online forums in order to develop genuine relationships with others.
Businesses as well as individuals are trying to establish a presence in social media. However, many of them are having a tough time building authentic relationships with their online audiences. Part of the reason could be that they’re not attributing an authentic voice to their avatars. It may also be because they’re only interested in getting fans, friends and followers in the most trivial sense. Or, perhaps it’s because people don’t respond well to brand promotion in their social spaces. To be successful in social media, you need to express the human side of your business and learn about the online communities within your marketplace.
The following best practices present you with an opportunity to make your business stand out from other businesses participating in social media.
Determine your goals
Being successful in life requires you to develop clear goals on what you aspire to achieve. The same idea can be applied to your business’s social media strategy. In order to know if you are achieving your goals, you need to decide exactly how you plan to measure success. What do you hope to get out of social media? Are your goals lead generation, brand awareness or customer service? How much time and money do you plan to invest in social media? All of these questions need to have definite answers before you begin your business’s social media activities. Agencies such as inmedia can help you ask and answer the right questions.
Develop your brand’s personality
It is important to decide how your business’s voice will sound online in order to ensure that your audience develops a positive relationship with your brand. This voice needs to be consistent, authentic and confident. Just as in life, being kind and polite are not requirements, but they certainly encourage good people to want to socialize with you. To maintain consistency in your voice, it’s a good idea to appoint one or just a few people either internal or external to your company to be this voice. inmedia has a community manager that can be this constant voice for your business.
Learn about your community by listening to them
Just as in any real life social situation, people are attracted to those who share a conversation. No one likes the guy who beats his chest, and only talks about himself. At the outset of your social media activity, you should actually do more listening than talking. You need to first determine your point of view and what you plan to contribute to the conversation. Then you can begin to learn about your audience. Determine the social media channels that you should use and design your sites according the audience you want to reach. You need to spend a lot of time listening to the communities in your marketplace within these forums to figure out exactly what they need and want. Once you figure out your point of view and the wants and needs of your online communities, you will be able to provide for them, and they will listen.
How about you? Do you make friends with robots, or do you prefer real people?
