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It Can't Be A 'Post Whatever You Want Party' If You Want To Matter
September 25, 2012
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According to a recent study by Intel and conducted by Ipsos, people share things online for two main reasons: connection and expression.
For brands, it means social interplay should go deeper than just trying to rack up "likes" using the latest wacky meme post that has nothing to do with the essence of who you are to your fans. You've seen these types of posts:
Too many times, brands apply superficial and/or interruptive, traditional tactics on permission-based social and digital platforms. Then they wonder why it's so hard to get a response – whether it's sharing or retweeting content, clicking through emails or growing a text database.
Superficial behavior contradicts the interactive nature of social and digital platforms and handicaps brands from building affinity - what's really needed to make these different channels work.
By not "hanging out" with the fans, responding to them, and building closeness, brands make it harder on themselves to pull off cool moments with fans or even creating integrated programs for sales.
Developing motivated relationships is difficult, and especially so when you don't know how these social and digital tools are built, why fans use them and what motivates participation.
There are core fundamentals that need to be in place and then applied to each piece of communication with your fans. But sadly – because it costs little to nothing to use digital and social platforms – the misconception lives on that social media is easy to do. And that being a social brand is some kind of "post whatever you want" party where strategic tactics come up short or are missing altogether.
It's just not that easy.
One person who works on applying strategic core tenets in order to help grow his station into a "social brand" is Meltdown, afternoon talent at WRIF/Detroit. He will be the first to tell you it's not easy – but he works at it – spending time focusing on why fans share content without straying from the essence of WRIF.
And by having principles and being disciplined socially, Meltdown continues to do his part to build on WRIF's cred in the community and increasing its reach. Recently, a rare thing happened when one of his posts touched nearly 1.6 million people socially:
This matters for a few reasons.
- Organically, it far exceeded the average 16% reach most posts get on Facebook.
- It taps into why fans share content – to connect and express themselves.
- The visual tells a story that helps shape WRIF socially and speaks to the passion of the fans.
- Speaking of telling a story, it wasn't just WRIF doing so. Nearly 11,000 people who shared this story were also telling WRIF's story - but in the way the station wants it told. (It wasn't a silly toilet paper "over/under" question or a cat video being shared but a real visual of WRIF's heart.)
- When this happens, there is opportunity to take this portion of the station's social audience and pinball them back to the "mother ship" – the FM stick.
This is the start to building affinity and showing why social (and digital) matter to your brand.
When a station or personality is consistent with visuals and thoughts that form an idea of its brand identity, when acknowledgement happens and when you are enhancing, not interfering with the fans' social experience by understanding why they share socially, you're on your way to building affinity.
Connect and express.
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