Break Away From The Pack.
Why Companies Need Their Own Social Community
In today’s business environment almost all companies have accounts on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and LinkedIn. The goal is clear: improve engagement and increase sales. This seems smart, everyone is doing it so it must be the thing to do. Right? I disagree. Companies need to create their own platform. Avoid the added costs of social advertising & in the process create more targeted engagement strategies in your own community. YOU control the relationship.
My company is Go Pro Workouts and I grew tired of how the social players operate. When our Facebook posts started reaching less than 15% of customers on a consistent basis I started to doubt the opportunity from a small companies perspective. We ran brand intro ads, grew a following and for a time reached that following. Then Facebook changed and advertising became the only way a small company like mine could compete for the eyeballs we already paid for. When I see the “promote post” button I literally grow sick to my stomach. When we tweet something and within two seconds have 52 more tweets above it I thought, is this really the way I want to engage with my customer? Then it hit me, these aren’t my customers at the deepest level. They are customers of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and LinkedIn.
The Go Pro Workouts social platform was created as a response to this belief. The message on our homepage is now clear: “Join our community and get a FREE workout”. Customers have to decide, do I want to join or not? It helps us weed through the clutter and has a direct impact on our conversions. We may loose the passive viewer but we gain a real following. In our platform, customers can create profiles, connect and invite friends, challenge friends to athletic events, share photos, videos and schedules and most importantly still access great workout and nutrition programs that we provide.
In just one month (and a beta product) our sales conversion jumped from under 2% to just under 8% with this approach. This increase is directly related to our approach. We offer a niche community that is brand specific. The people who are signing up, want to sign up. Most importantly we can market to these people based on their interest in our products in our own platform and for FREE.
Customers are growing smarter. Their socials are THEIRS not your brands. They care more about the video featuring a dog that can sing and what their friends did last Friday night than what your company is peddling through the Facebook news feed. In creating your own social community you can reach people that are actually interested in your brand. You can engage with them as YOU see fit and not worry about the algorithms of Facebook. A brand specific social platform gives your customer exactly what they signed up for and it opens a unique way for you to communicate with them. Customers are engaging with the exact brand they like, get deals specific to a community they are part of and find and connect with other customers that share the same interests. In the end isn’t that what social communities are all about? They benefit. You benefit. The brand benefits.
