3 ways to use the power of small communities to promote your brand on social media
Do you struggle with your community engagement? Do you always compare your social media results to those of your top competitors? Is this way of thinking helpful for your business?
Let’s say you are a store clothing brand in the UK. Comparing your social media results with Zara or H&M might not be helpful for your digital strategy. However, it helps to look to them for inspiration, to see what type of content they post and how their fans react to the content strategy.
In this article, you’ll discover three ways you can use the power of your small community on your Facebook page.
#1. Turn your most engaged fans into micro-influencers who share your brand with others.
Let them create the content for your brand. “Most branded content is advertising under a thin layer of information or entertainment. Scratch the paint, find an ad. It’s the brand putting itself first” Andy Crestodina said.
Have conversations with your small community, engage with them in the comments and respond to each and every one, even when they have negative or sad reactions.
How do you do that?
1. Find the most active fans from your community and see if your audience trusts them.
2. Ask your fan if he/she would like to write a story with text, or a photo story with your product.
3. Get your product or service into his/her hands.
4. Promote his/her story on your blog and social.
#2. Transform your fans into heroes, instead of your brand
User generated content (UGC)is becoming the keystone of any integrated content marketing strategy. Engage with your fans on a daily basis, find out their unmet needs and write stories or pieces of content with their help. Transform your fans into product heroes.
“User generated content is ideal for any content marketing strategy. You can take any piece of UGC and use it across virtually any channel, at any time.
The users of your brand create the content anyway, and if you’re not curating it and showcasing your customers, you’re missing out on brand equity.” — Marketing Land
Burberry has an exceptional campaign where it invited its customers to submit their photos wearing Burberry Trench coats:
Visual content — photos or videos — is the most common form for transforming fans into heroes, because it seems more in line with reality. Fifty-four percent of adult internet users regularly create and share photos and videos, according to Pew Research Center, so creating content with them is common and natural.
Drift is another great example of a company creating user generated content with its fans.
User generated content gives social proof to your product or service. Can people see your clients using your products or services? Because nothing influences the buying decision more than being exposed to other people using a certain product. Jonah Berger, a Wharton professor of marketing, described how social proof increases your sales in his book, Contagious, and UGC is gold.
#3. Provide rewards to your community
Cultivate influencer relationships through unique experiences and perks with your small community.
While analyzing the Facebook engagement of 5 UK clothing brands for the first half of the year 2017, I saw that Jacamo, with a small community on Facebook, had an above average Engagement Rate on their Page. How did they do that?
For the first 6 months of 2017 they:
1. offered perks (discounts and free samples) to their community.
2. promoted social campaigns.
3. cross-promoted other brands to their community.
Final thought
Digital marketers are always looking to connect with their audience in ways that build brand visibility, expand product awareness, and strike the right note with today’s consumers. Social media influences purchasing behavior, and we, as marketers, should treat them as more than just a nice-to-have channel.
Before choosing your product, people search for your brand on Google, check your Facebook reviews, and read your Facebook comments.
Transform your social media content with peer-to-peer content and personal storytelling and let your fans share your content naturally and effectively.
This post was inspired by the analysis of Facebook engagement of top 5 UK clothing brands published on the socialinsider.io blog.
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