Social Media Strategy: How to Become More Effective as Online Communicators

I recently came across an article titled “Is Social Media Social Anymore?” Now, the author’s intent here is to make people think about how constantly being glued to mobile devices and platforms like Facebook and Twitter can have the adverse effect of making us “disconnect” from the real world. Essentially, you miss life happening while you’re posting, pinning and tweeting.

I completely agree with this point, and would argue that every so often we all need to take a break from the online world, recharge our batteries and pay more attention to the physical world around us. But as a PR professional whose career centers on creating written and visual content for the Web, I also took something else away from this article: we’re actually getting less effective at online communication, too.

The last decade has seen unprecedented growth of social media as a business tool. Platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram caught on with audiences faster than the telephone, television, radio or any other communications and entertainment technology that came before them. Social media is, at its core, a place meant for interactions. Those interactions can take many forms, but the key is that you need both parties to contribute.

In previous blog posts, we’ve discussed the importance of compelling narratives and telling the stories of your customers/users rather than taking a “product, product, product” approach. You can post spec sheets until you’re blue in the face, but if you tell a story that someone can relate to, that’s how you win trust and brand recognition.

Too often, brands throw content at the Web like a fistful of cooked spaghetti at a wall. They figure that if they throw enough, something’s got to stick eventually. Now, there are a great many things wrong with this approach, the most glaring of which is that when you’re so focused on spamming the social mediasphere with as much content as humanly possible, you don’t invest enough time to make each piece an engine for social engagement.

When you post a video on your company’s YouTube channel and then share it across your social channels, pay attention to the comments you get from followers in each of those places. If they say, “Great video,” thank them. If you get some cool and creative comments from a Facebook fan or Twitter follower, give them a mention in your next post. People love it when they get retweeted or a post of theirs gets shared. It’s a little slice of celebrity that they will be grateful for.

It’s also important to craft your content around the interests of your audience. Don’t just fill your content pipeline with everything you think will be interesting. Ask your followers for their experiences, their stories and their opinions. Then create videos, blog posts, podcast episodes and more centered on the responses you get. When you personalize that content, it engenders brand loyalty and engagement that you can’t replicate any other way.

Yes, we all need to step away from the digital world here and there and smell the fresh air. But when we are online, let’s not forget the social in social media.

Social Media Strategy: How to Become More Effective as Online Communicators