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Engagement & Your Social Media Marketing

For businesses in certain industries, it’s easy to lean toward jargon-filled, informational posts on Facebook and Twitter. Whether you work in the medical, legal, engineering or architectural industries, you will need to fight the urge to bore your followers. Yes, people do like to know the various surgeries that your hospital performs, but they can find that on your website.

Social networks help to build a sense of community. This relationship leads people to your business, as they learn to trust you as a human, or as some semblance of a human, through jokes, fun, etc. In a way, posting purely entertaining content can humanize your brand. If you find yourself reading a Facebook post and thinking, “This has no information regarding my business whatsoever,” then that’s probably doing you more good than if you thought differently.

So, here are several types of social media posts that foster engagement and humanize your brand:

Visually Stunning Photos

This really works for architectural companies, as you can find or take really interesting photos with simple captions like, “What do you think?” or “Would you like to live/work here.” For other companies, vast landscapes, astronomical images and the like tend to inspire people, for whatever reason. So, the inspiration will encourage people to comment, share, etc.

I should stress that, if you can produce original photos from your business or even your personal life of this nature, do so. Anyone can look up “Andromeda Galaxy” and post the photo from Google images. However, if your company constructs really interesting looking buildings, of which you post photos that get shared or “go viral,” then you will have created original content, garnering an authorship status on the internet.

Funny Jokes, Photos, Memes

Even more than visually appealing images, humor really draws in a crowd. People love to laugh, and they tend to respond quickly if they appreciate the joke. So, make sure to utilize awkwardly timed photos, good new jokes or memes related to your business. Similar to the visual-oriented photos, if you can craft original humor that gets shared, you are definitely in a better place than if you share other people’s jokes. Of course, we aren’t all comedians, so sharing is definitely on the table.

Easy Questions

Any question that requires one word to answer, or little thought in general works very well to start conversations. Posts like: “Do you like brownies?” or “What’s your favorite season?” get responses and, often times, will get followers to ask additional questions. When you have comments on your updates, you get the chance to respond to your fans, answering questions or giving opinions. This sort of interaction is crucial for your social media marketing to really work. The more people think of your business as a ‘friend,’ the more likely they will be to turn into customers, returning customers and (hopefully) life-long customers.

 

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