Once you have discovered social media and the power it can give your brand profile online, you will then be seeking new and successful ways to improve your presence and community recognition. There are of course many things to consider in order to build trusted and respected accounts on social media platforms though once you have succeeded in this the following steps will help you to really powering forward with the likes of Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.
Here are some key stages and things to do in order to build your community:
- Study the activities of your target audience, when they are active and which platforms they are using.
- Look at trends on social media platforms, especially towards topics and subject working well in attracting conversations / engagement.
- #HashTags are now a dedicated search term on social media to include Twitter, Google+ and Facebook. Look out for these and use them as part of your updates. Also, study #HashTags that are community focused such as #NorthEastHour, #ColchesterHour, #HandMade hours etc which are running to support local communities / business sectors. If you can, look to run your own #HashTag drive that relates to your community and build it’s profile to reach out across social media.
- Adopt outside softwares to drive community growth on social media such as a leaderboard which will gather data from social media account activities to calculate results on to a weekly / monthly league table. Estate and Letting Agents in the UK will be familiar with the #EAUK100 and #ZPP100 lists on Twitter.
- Work with your community by educating locals and those researching your area to what is going on. Blog about local events and news so that your agency is seen as a source of reliable and factual information and importantly, make sure you share this across the relevant social media platforms.
- Competitions. These can be run on a regular basis to attract engagement with the local community, though make sure these are target to locals rather than anyone as many people search to enter free competitions online. If you are giving away prizes think about charity donations to a local charity or that the winner has to collect their prize from your office.
- Think outside your industry and network with others in your community. Be in a position to recommend other local businesses and share this drive by connecting with these companies across social media. If you spot content interesting that is posted by a local business then re-share it.
If you are to be successful in building a community then at all times you must consider what is in it for your audience. Make sure you are active frequently enough to be taken seriously. Share educational, entertaining and engaging content. Be social on social media and look to share content that others have posted, especially from others in your local community.