Does a bulk of ‘likes’ on Face­book or a large num­ber of fol­low­ers on Twit­ter res­ult as an effect­ive mar­ket­ing strategy? Shouldn’t we focus dir­ec­tion where we are not in the busi­ness of mar­ket­ing, but enga­ging with an audience?

To take a stance where your product is pro­moted via social media chan­nels in terms of telling every­one ‘how good it is’ and a link to a spe­cific page on your web­site is not only det­ri­mental to a brand, but people will switch off imme­di­ately. The focus should be on devel­op­ing a two-​way dia­logue between brands and the cus­tom­ers they serve. The key is build­ing part­ner­ships, not just leads.

When brands put pri­or­ity on engage­ment, this moves from one-​way traffic of ‘fol­low­ers’ as pass­ive receiv­ers of mes­sages to one where there is inter­ac­tion, par­ti­cip­a­tion and the aim to build a dia­logue and cus­tom­ers to become advoc­ates ie. share their experiences.

The key to all formats of engage­ment is com­mu­nic­a­tion. Here’s some examples of engage­ment pro­grammes that build an effect­ive dialogue:

• Giv­ing inform­a­tion. When it’s a one-​way sell of dir­ect­ing to a web­site this has no added bene­fit to the cus­tomer. Inform­a­tion could be in the form of dir­ect­ing to a blog on a par­tic­u­lar topic or provid­ing a report on an area of interest within your industry. The bet­ter inform­a­tion that is provided and more rel­ev­ance it has to a pro­spect, the bet­ter the oppor­tun­ity to con­vert to a customer.
• Con­tinu­ity. Everything that is sent to rep­res­ent your busi­ness has to have con­sist­ency through­out ie. there is a con­nec­tion between the web­mail that is sent out and the mes­sage it relates to. Con­tinu­ity in your brand and com­mu­nic­a­tions is key to build­ing famili­ar­ity and credibility.
• Grow your com­munity. Shar­ing know­ledge within a com­munity builds loy­alty and keeps a con­ver­sa­tion con­stant. To do this, com­pel­ling con­tent needs to be cre­ated and main­tained in order to build col­lab­or­a­tion. As an example, com­mit to a prin­ted news­let­ter to share with your customers.
• Testi­mo­ni­als. Request­ing and obtain­ing what other people say, is a vital way to show how oth­ers per­ceive you. Read­ing someone else recom­mend­ing your product, rather than your­self is an effect­ive way to turn pro­spects into cus­tom­ers and cus­tom­ers into advocates.

Online and off­line engage­ment deliv­ers bene­fits for all. The more engaged a com­pany is with its mar­ket­place, the more the mar­ket­place sees the com­pany as the expert within their field and ‘the place to go to.’ This res­ults in greater cus­tomer loy­alty, bet­ter new cus­tomer con­ver­sion rates and enhanced rev­enue. Set real­istic goals and stick to them and remem­ber to main­tain a flow of communication.