The number one rule of social media success is engagement.  You can have a huge list of connections but if you aren’t engaging in conversation with them the effort is wasted.  The key to making your social media efforts work is to build relationships with people … there’s more to it then just being social … you need to be engaging with your target market and building meaningful relationships of trust.  In today’s market “Trust” builds businesses and creating an effective social media strategy using engagement with your customers and clients is the first step!

Here are 12 great ways to encourage your Fans and Followers to respond and engage with your posts.  Use these ideas to start the conversation and start building relationships that will grow your business!

• Ask questions~ Learn what they want and need … once you know that you can create a strategy to give it to them!
• Be Personal and Build a relationship ~ Share something great that has happened to you lately and ask others if they have had anything fantastic happen in their life lately ~ be interested in them.
• Ask them to like your post ~ Tell them what you want them to do… it is amazing how many people will do what you request (ask them to click like if they like it…give them a call to action)
• Post something that you know your audience will like ~ know your audience and provide them with top quality information that they can’t help but want to share!
• Post Inspirational and Motivational Quotes ~ Everybody Loves a Postitive Person ~ give them some inspiration on a daily basis
• Post a picture and say “Guess what this is? Or a picture of a place and then ask Where is this?” anything that will spark a conversation or response, make it about something in your life … people really do want to get to know you!
• Use pictures and video often (people’s faces are always more engaging…after all it is called Facebook!) Using video and images with text is always more inviting and interesting
• Do a post that says Click “Like” if you Love…….sorta like the old saying “Honk if you love….” Or Retweet if you are on Twitter.
• Ask people to “share” your post if they like it ~ if it is a great post they will want to share it with their friends
• Have a quiz ~ Keep it interesting, people love testing their knowledge
• Take a poll or survey ~ Everybody has an opinion and everybody wants to be heard … give them the opportunity!
• Hold a contest with a great prize that creates interaction on the page in order for them to win ~ Make the prize something spectacular that will make everyone want to enter … everybody loves Free Stuff!!

Make sure that you are connecting with people, marketing can no longer be one sided … in today’s social world you have to engage, connect, and build trust.  Do those 3 things and you will be amazed at the results!

Do you have any fun ways you like to connect with your readers?  I would love to hear about them .. make sure to share them in the comments below!

To Your Success!

Kate Wilber

The Marketing Momma