Strategies to Build and Retain Relationships on Social

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Having your business on social is key, but if you don't attend to your audience well, then that's when things can take a turn for the worse. No one wants that. Your social media efforts will not go far if you can't appeal to your market. You need to put the focus on customer satisfaction because it's the key to any business's success. Sure, you know that. But you might be asking yourself… "how can I make sure I'm staying connected with my target audience online?"

Like any good relationship in life, it needs to be valued as well as maintained. You should interact with your target audience frequently and bring them quality content, so you are able to uphold those relationships and keep them strong. Social media is all about connecting to people, so with all that said we're here to help you out and give you some helpful insight. Take a look at these strategies that will help you build and retain solid relationships on social.

Showcase the Value Your Product or Service Holds

If you believe in your business and the value it brings to people, then find a way to showcase that to your target audience. People want to see value. If they don't, then they won't care about your brand and will easily forget about you. You will need to create and share relevant content that explicitly shows how your product or service can benefit the user in order to truly work on building that solid connection. And you can do this in many ways on social:

Paid Ads

Whether it's a photo or video displaying the value of your product or service on social, it helps to invest in a paid social ad. You will not only get to share the value your brand brings, but you will also be sharing it with new people within your market. Paid ads allow you to filter your audience amplifying your reach and collect market insights. As new eyes are exposed to your brand, this can result in an increase in following as well as bring a lot of awareness to your brand that will create the starting point to building strong, lasting relationships.

Organic Content

On the other hand, organic content is still highly important to build and retain solid relationships on social. It's key to keeping your already existing followers engaged with your brand and can potentially turn those followers into loyal customers or clients. Just make sure you are posting regularly as well. Posting consistently on your social media platforms will keep you top of mind; whereas, posting only once or twice a week is only going to hurt or diminish your relationships.

If you're wondering what types of content perform well - check out two of our other blogs on 2020 Social Media Trends and How To Create Social Posts Amidst COVID-19 to get ideas.

User-Generated Content

When you have a solid customer base, you can really benefit by using user-generated content in your social media strategy. User-generated content is when you use someone else's content that highlights your brand in your social marketing strategy.

This type of content is one of the best ways to showcase the value your brand adds to people's lives. Physically seeing or even hearing about an existing customer utilizing your product or service can be a big gateway to obtaining new leads. And once your audience sees the value your product or service brings to others, they will be more inclined to stick around, follow, and engage with your business, and become loyal to your specific business.

Keep Up With Your Audience's Feedback

Now, one of the most important ways to keep your target audience engaged with your brand and keep the relationship strong is by engaging back. If someone reaches out to your brand - through comments, direct messages, or tagging your brand in their post - you need to make it your top priority to actively listen and respond back in a timely manner. If a problem arises and a person responds back negatively, do your best to fix the issue quickly and efficiently to salvage that relationship and keep from diminishing others. Overall, good communication with your audience will keep your followers happy and reflect greatly on your brand by showing your audience you truly care.

Create An Email List

Another great way to really nurture your audience is to build up an email list. When creating content on social, try directing them back to your website where they will be presented with the option to subscribe to receive your emails. That way when you send out emails, you will actually be sending them out to people who are truly interested in your business.

Of course, you don't want to bombard people with tons of emails coming in constantly, because that can irritate them real quick causing many of them to unsubscribe; therefore, breaking that relationship. But sending a couple or so a week would be beneficial for your brand.

And you shouldn't just send an email, you should personalize it. Adding a little personalization goes a long way. It will allow your business to communicate authentically as well as make your audience feel like you're actually attending to their needs.

Retain Your Audience

After you have obtained customers and followers through your social media efforts, it's imperative to retain your audience. While customer acquisition is important, it's going to benefit your business more in the long run if you retain the customers you already have. Once your business has created that solid, trusted relationship, they will be the main source of your business's long-term success.

Having those strong relationships will also give you quality insight into what content resonates better with your audience. From there, you will be able to create more content that specifically markets to them.

With good customer relationships also come good, positive WOM (word of mouth). When people tend to like a product or service a brand provides, they will speak highly of it. As friends and/or family hear the positive talk about a particular brand, this will most likely lead them to try that brand over another. And if they have a good experience, there you have it - another relationship and continued positive WOM.

At the end of the day, the main takeaways to build and retain solid relationships on social is to make sure you are staying active on social media and keeping up with your audience. Evaluate your analytics, see what is working and what is resonating with your audience best, communicate well, and continue to create engagement worthy content that your audience will see value in.

Feel as though you don't have time in your busy schedule to stay on top of your social media like you need to? That's why we're here - the social media experts! We want to help your business stay in front of your prospects through digital advertising and custom content creation that will begin the foundation of creating solid relationships. Schedule a consultation with us today!