Paul Miser

Social media is a strong force in the marketing world today. By utilizing the power of trust, sharing and interaction, brands can build personal relationships with individuals within a community to help meet business objectives (increased brand awareness, enhanced conversions, amplified customer service, etc). However, social media takes time and diligence to not only engage a community, but acquire and invite individuals to a value-added community.

The first step to a strong social media strategy and presence is the foundational community. Below are tactical activities a brand can perform to develop an acquisition strategy to build the most targeted, highly engaged community base and foundation. Working with a combination of Paid, Owned and Earned Media strategies, a brand will enhance its digital footprint and build the social credibility necessary to acquire the best community members.

Paid Media

Paid media is the easiest and most efficient way to generate a large number of Fans quickly. By using a combination of current traditional advertising and strategic social advertising, we can acquire and build a strong foundation of highly targeted, highly engaged individuals to our community. Below are some steps brands should take to begin integrating paid media into their acquisition strategy.

Facebook
Engagement Ads. Drive awareness and engagement through the various types of ads that Facebook has available. The more engaging and relevant the ad, the more likely the user is to click and interact with it. Be sure to target the audience accordingly and align ad content with the interests of the user.

Twitter
Promoted Tweets. Promote keywords or hashtags within tweets to drive awareness of an idea, theme or account. Aligning keywords with the brand message will ensure connection with the message.

Promoted Accounts. Twitter allows for accounts to be promoted on the “Logged in” Twitter home page. The promoted accounts will align with the content that the user has posted or has within his/her profile. Build the best following base by aligning content with brand messaging.

Traditional
Use all paid and offline activities to increase awareness of the social platforms through traditional efforts. Examples could include tags on TV spots, print collateral, callouts on digital banners, in-store signage, etc.

Owned Media

As a brand, we own a lot of assets — website, micro sites, emails, other social platforms, etc. Through strategic placement and use of these assets, we can deliver a high level of community activation through owned media. Below are strategic examples of how to deliver results to community activation.

On site. Promote the social platforms on all websites with relevant and prominent calls to action on the page. For Facebook, a brand can use the “Like Box” plug-in to allow the visitor to “Like” the brand’s Facebook Fan page directly from the brand sites.

Email database. As with all websites, all email newsletters can have a callout and a link to the social platforms. When launching a new social platform, sending an email specifically announcing the launch will provide a great response and community growth.

Email signatures. Promoting all social platforms within company email signatures is a passive approach to drive awareness and acquisition to the social communities.

Cross-promote. When possible, cross-promoting the various social platforms on the other platforms in the community could be very beneficial. Promoting the content that is provided on the other social platforms could enhance this cross engagement and acquisition.

Incent community. Engaging and incenting the community that we acquire during activation or content activities can enhance reach and social credibility. Creating contests or sweepstakes that ask community members to upload content, share content or reach a certain number of fans has proven to be highly successful during acquisition campaigns.

Earned Media

Use the power of influential voices and social credibility to drive awareness, traffic and activation to a brand’s social community. Below are some activities a brand can perform to build a strong earned media acquisition strategy and ongoing stream of activation.

Influencer outreach. Use the power of influential voices by reaching out and building relationships with key influencers across channels. Develop a strategy to incent the influencers to discuss the brand efforts and drive traffic to the social platforms.

Content. Content is a strong driver for enhancing engagement and sharing, which in turn increases message reach, traffic to social sites and acquisition of new community members. The social credibility that the content interactions create builds stronger relationships with influential people in the community.

Enhance sharing. Engaging content is the first step to sharing. The second is to simply ask for it. With a strong relationship with our community members, we have enough trust to ask them to share content if they like it, which leads to reach, social credibility and community acquisition.

Third-party content creation. While building relationships with key influencers (both on and off of our social platforms) we can ask them to produce content for our social communities. This strategy will continue to enhance social credibility and increased reach through the influencer’s community and network.

Third-party content distribution. Vice versa. Influencers are continuously looking for valuable content for their network. With relationships built with key influencers, we can ask what type of content they are looking to create for their community and provide that content for them to distribute through their network. Delivering messages in this way will enhance our social credibility and will drive traffic and acquisition to our social communities.

Conclusion

Building a strong community is a strategic combination of advertising, relationship building and adding value every day for the social media strategy. Brands should ensure their digital and physical footprint is connected and cross-promoted to allow the most effective sharing of content and passing of information —all of which continues the acquisition of a community and adds value for its members.

Download the PDF:  How to: Grow a Social Community

So, what is reality when it comes to the digital world in which we live? Is it looming somewhere between a status update and a text? Maybe. Are we waiting for holograms and eye scanning augmented reality to take us by storm? Not quite.

All I know is that we are in a world where our digital lives are a key, important role in our real, physical lives. It enables us to become smarter, stronger; almost superhuman. So what is driving this mechanism of digital evolution?

Digital

As we continuously interact, we not only learn efficiencies to produce the best output, but the digital space itself is learning our behavior and reacting accordingly. As we continue to search, browse, and surf the interwebs we are continually providing much needed history and executions of our needs to allow the search and tracking Gods to give us the most relevant content necessary for the fulfillment of our needs. This learning mechanism is spanning multiple platforms and search algorithms to give us the most effective use of our Internet time.

The digital reality that our individualized digital activity is becoming a driving force to our dependence on digital information in our physical, real lives.

Social

Social networks have allowed us to stay in touch with our friends, families, old acquaintances and even our favorite brands, organizations, news, or groups. But this shift has driven our need for content delivery and real time information. During breaking news, we turn to our social networks instead of turning on the TV. We long for the rhetoric our network has on an issue or situation. Coupling the semantics of the digital search with the real time access our social networks and social media provide, we are depending more and more on the most relevant content and information coming to us, where we are, when we want it.

Social has allowed us to redefine what it is to gather. Not only can we meet in person, or have a gathering with people physically with us, we now include others that can’t be there physically. No longer is there a barrier for travel or long distance. We can completely include far off relationships in physical situations and events.

The social reality is that we are no longer dependent on looking for information, content, or relationships. They now find us based on our “opt-ins” and engagements; alleviating the trials and tribulations and time associated with search and relationship efforts.

Mobile

Tired of being strapped to your computer to fulfill your digital realty? Simply reach for your pocket.  Mobile technologies and applications have given us the power of converging our digital lives with our physical, on-the-go, active lifestyles. Including semantic digital experience and social network capabilities, mobile devices give us the power to learn, interact, and engage with our favorite people, information, and news where ever we are in the world physically. Breaking down the barriers of the computer (whether mainframe or laptop), mobile connectivity empowers us as informed friends, family members, consumers, and advocates. No longer do we have to wait to tell people what we did, reach out for customer service, describe an event… just reach into our pocket and let it go.
This connectivity has shifted news sources. Each of us has the power. We are now the news, we are now the content creators and distributors. All we have to do is click and upload.

The mobile reality is the line between physical and digital is slowly blurring. The interactivity of 2d bar codes, visual identification software and location based services will empower us further in our physical life to interact with the beyond, in real time.

Data

How is all this amazing empowerment possible? What is the driving force behind real time and relevance? Data. Every interaction, every interest, every connection, every engagement… every aspect of our lives are being stored and used to provide us with the most relevant information needed to fulfill our requests in the shortest amounts of time. Based on our digital interactions, we can get real time recommendations for physical activities; find out where to eat, what bar has the best bloody mary’s, etc. Each of us become a glorified version of who we are… even though we may forget from time to time, our data keeps us reminded of our interests, likes, and relationships.

The reality of data is just that… reality. What defines us as individuals is our interests, interactions, engagements, experiences, connections. The digital realm is just a repository of that information and catalyst for relevance and time.

Digital is becoming reality. It empowers us.  What is your digital reality?