Directly address your audience and their questions 2. Keep your tone of writing warm 3. Content that inspires emotion. Jeremy Ellens says it well with “Effective Marketing Appeals to Emotions Instead of Reason”. If someone gave you $1000 and a month to market a product, you’d be well of spending at least 50% of both on.
- Using Quizzes To Drive Engagement On Your Site Without
- Using Quizzes To Drive Engagement On Your Site Website
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- Using Quizzes To Drive Engagement On Your Site Free
- With a little extra effort, you can use Twitter to drive more traffic to your website. Every day, global conversation on Twitter instantly reflects what’s happening around the world. As a result, content creators everywhere can start or join conversations with a specific target audience.
- In today’s workplace, the question is the answer.Managers must cease an anemic reliance on command leading to compliance. They must learn to transform ask into action by using questions to trigger action. Questions engage the brain while “beautiful” questions move the dial on engagement.
- AI is here to make recruiting faster. For the last five years, AI been a buzzword in the world of recruitment. A lot of that buzz (the vast majority of it) is unfounded marketing hype but at the center of this trend is a kernel of truth that every hiring manager should be aware of.
Are you looking for tried and tested strategies to drive engagement with your community?
We’ve heard it time and time again, that the true value of an online following lies not in its size, but rather in its depth of engagement. It’s therefore no surprise that we’ve seen so many companies and brands starting to place community building and community engagement strategies at the heart of their marketing efforts.
Let’s face it. The benefits of community building and community engagement are endless. For starters, it’ll drive more leads, improve brand loyalty and increase user retention. Also, let’s not forget that having an active and engaged community is WAY more cost-effective than having to invest a tonne of cash on Facebook or AdWords to drive more leads.
In a nutshell, community engagement strategies are crucial for building and nurturing your customers, users and/or fans. Although each community has it’s own values, interests and there isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution, we’ve tried our best to distill all the knowledge we’ve acquired from the hundreds of communities we’ve set up into actionable strategies that you can start implementing right now.
1. Give community members a place to express themselves
The most important element of any community is – unsurprisingly – its members. So, keep in mind that a successful community is almost entirely about them, not about you. People love to talk to each other about things that matter to them and this is something you should always encourage. Make it easy for members to tell their stories, share their experiences and grow their passions.
The more your members feel that they are being heard, listened to and valued, the more likely they are to remain on your platform. This makes community building and engagement an excellent tool for retention.
At Disciple, for example, we encourage all our customers to give their community members a place to express themselves through “fan walls” or “have your say” walls. As a result, over 98% of content on our platform comes from community members, leaving just 2% of the content to come from the community hosts.
User-generated content is a great way to show your online community that you care about their ideas. In terms of engagement activities, it supports you by ensuring you’re not the only one posting content for your community.
2. Focus on community moderation
On the one hand, it’s really important to allow your community to really express themselves. But, on the other hand, it’s crucial that you take measures to keep your community a safe space in which members respect each other’s opinions. In other words, you need to moderate the community in order to prevent trolling, bullying and offensive or inappropriate behaviour.
You’d be surprised at how quickly the entire atmosphere of a community can change if a few bad actors are given the freedom to post offensive comments. Many social media networks have failed due to poor community guidelines and an all-too hands-off approach to community moderation.
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We’re currently writing a guide to community moderation. We’ll share it here soon to give you all the community moderation guidelines you’re looking for.
3. Segment your user base for epic community development
As I said previously, there is no one-size-fits-all when it comes to community engagement strategies and your user base is probably very diverse. Which is a great thing! But, how do you approach that and make sure everyone is receiving information that matters to them?
Well, firstly, you need to understand who your most engaged, core community members are so that you can gather them into one cohort – or segment. Then, do the same with members who are less engaged and, finally, create a cohort for members who are not engaged at all.
This is really useful for things such as reward systems and building further exclusivity into your community by identifying your most engaged followers and rewarding their loyalty by giving them special access. Equally, by identifying your least engaged followers, you can encourage them to get more involved by showing them the access that your most engaged subscribers have get.
There are endless ways to segment your user base and create customised experiences for each member. So get thinking. And get creative!
Segmenting your audience is one of the key community engagement strategies
4. Bring your social media following into your own closed community
Most people with a fanbase or following have built that following using social media. And social media can be a great way to start building a fanbase, brand community or following.
However, there are a number of shortcomings when it comes to social media. The biggest of all being the inability to create a closed, exclusive or even paid community. This prevents people like you from building your own ecosystem that people really need to buy-into in order to become a member.
Here at Disciple, we create own-branded, affordable community engagement ecosystems for people, brands and businesses of all sectors. The one thing that all of our customers have in common is community. All of them have a fanbase or following that they’re unable to reach, engage and monetise on big social media platforms. We provide a deeper, more personal solution.
5. Be responsive
Communities are all about interaction. So, none of your community engagement strategies will work, if you are unresponsive.
How many times have you been a member of a group in which hearing from the host or celebrity is like gold dust? Well, whilst that level of exclusivity can be a good thing, your fans and followers should expect to hear from you, from time to time.
So be responsive and get involved with your community. Read what people are posting about, like and share your followers’ posts, comment on them and get to know your followers.
Take it from us, this will be an awesome move for community engagement…
6. Make it fun to be your fan
Community engagement can be a really fun thing when done right. For us, the key is to get the balance right between promotional content and really fun, creative content. The balance will depend largely on the type of community you’re building and the community of people you’re engaging.
But, as a rough guide, try to keep the balance at about 50/50. Roughly half of your content should be purely original, fun and exclusive content. Things like photos, videos, drawings, song lyrics, book excerpts or whatever you’re working on. This will then create the community engagement you need to then set up monetisation opportunities. And that’s when you add your promotional content. That’ll do the trick.
7. Encourage your members to invest some time and effort
There is a common misconception that asking your followers, fans and community members to put in some time and effort will make them more likely to leave the community. Let us dispel that myth right now. The reality is, asking your users to invest time and effort into the community will make them more likely to keep coming back.
Here’s an example. Building out your LinkedIn profile takes time and effort. You think carefully about the right information to put up there and spend a while selecting the photo that shows not only your professionalism, but also your personality. And this is exactly what will keep you coming back. You’re invested and you’ve bought into the idea.
So, how can you encourage this within your own mobile community? Well, you can encourage your users to build out a complete profile. Run a competition for the best profile or the best bio. Incentivise the competition with a really catchy prize to encourage people to spend some time on the task. Et voilà! You’ve got another community engagement strategy bringing your community closer together and closer to you.
8. Welcome new members
Greeting new arrivals to a community is not a new idea, but you’d be surprised at how many community hosts forget this crucial step. Set up a welcome email, use Disciple’s platform to set up a welcome message that lands in new members’ in-app messaging inbox. Just make sure you do something to acknowledge and thank people for joining your community. Make them feel welcomed.
Now that your members feel welcomed and a valued part of the community, they’re much more likely to be engaged and get actively involved in your network. You can also use the welcome message opportunity to explain the purpose of the community and give them ideas for their first post or conversation. This is one of the simpler community engagement strategies, but it’s incredibly effective.
9. Gamify
Gamification is an excellent community engagement strategy. By adding a gaming element into your community you’ll encourage positive competitiveness within your community. That’ll keep your members coming back for more.
One thing we’ve seen working really well is assigning Top Fan Points. Every time a member of a Disciple mobile community likes, comments, shares or posts, they’re awarded a number of points according to each action. Naturally, the more active you are in the community, the more points you’ll have.
And, if you announce and reward the member/s with the most points on a monthly basis, other members will up their game to win next month’s mention and prize. It’s a simple idea and it’s a native element of our platform, but it makes a really big difference to community engagement.
10. Use visual content
Visual content is a must for your community engagement strategies. Videos and photos are so much more engaging than just a paragraph of text. Even if you don’t have an image or video for what you’re posting about, you can use free stock images from places like Pikwizard and Unsplash to make your post more visually engaging.
You’ll be amazed at how big a difference this will make to your community engagement. Visually pleasing content will immediately grab attention and draw people into the information you’re giving them. Video really is the silver bullet for community engagement so use it whenever you can!
11. Make thoughtful decisions with a community manager
When you first set up your community you need to make sure you have a person (or people) who will handle all the decision making. Normally, this person is the community manager and they’ll work hard to ensure the community development happens in the right way.
Whether you’re hosting your community on social media or you have your own online community, the decision making process should fall to someone.
This person will be able to increase online engagement within your community by deciding what sort of content is allowed, how often you’ll interact with your community and more.
For example, your community manager might decide to publish a weekly blog post highlighting the top comments or posts from the community.
They can also make the decision whether your community should be present on other social networks like Twitter, Facebook or even Youtube. Check out some ideas on how to drive engagement on Facebook here.
Are you ready to increase community engagement?
So, those are just some of our ideas for a solid community engagement strategy. Our Community Success team is proud to offer best-in-class community engagement strategies, ideas, and solutions to our customers. Click here to find out more about how we can help you achieve your community engagement objectives.
About the author: Pavel is a Head of Growth at Disciple. He writes about community-based marketing and how it can help brands grow
Some 2.1 billion people have social media accounts, and as many as half of those people are checking out social content more than once a day. With that kind of social activity it begs the question…
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“Why isn’t my engagement higher?”
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Poor engagement is a problem marketers have been wrestling with long before we started reaching out to audiences on social media. The way we try to engage people now on social media, sales and content marketing isn’t much different from the way common people attempted to capture the attention of a passersby in open air markets.
It was a mix of visual stimulation and the use of compelling, stimulating, attention-grabbing words and phrases.
Tip: When it comes to social media marketing, Jeff uses Agorapulse. It’s his social media management tool of choice (that is to publish/schedule posts, to monitor and listen across social media accounts, and to collate reports).
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The Ultimate Guide to Social Media Marketing for Business
The right words can make a difference
Words strike us for various reasons, and they play on our most primitive instincts and hard-wired responses seated around emotion. To that end, words that are the most direct, simple and arresting can have the most profound impact.
Though it’s common sense as well, this idea was proven through extensive study of the human mind by Renvoise and Morin in their book Neuromarketing. What they found is that we, as civilized people, try to engage one another by talking to our “new brains”, or the more sophisticated part of our minds.
But it’s our “old brains”, where our most primitive instincts live, that make the bulk of our decisions. We can trigger that old brain response by using the right “power words”.
In 1963 David Ogilvy, a mastermind in the early days of consumer advertising, published a list of what he believed were the most persuasive words in advertising. These individual words, when utilized within copy, headlines and calls to action, were most likely to capture the reader and score business.
- Suddenly
- Now
- Announcing
- Introducing
- Improvement
- Amazing
- Sensational
- Remarkable
- Revolutionary
- Startling
- Miracle
- Magic
- Offer
- Quick
- Easy
- Wanted
- Challenge
- Compare
- Bargain
- Hurry
Many marketers still rely on those power words when creating copy for advertisements. But power words don’t need to be limited to direct response copy…
25 Power Words for Boosting Social Media Engagement
Think about what an advertisement is: at its core, it’s a grouping of copy – perhaps with images – meant to engage a specific audience to illicit a response.
That’s exactly what you’re trying to do with every social post you make… but without the hard sell. Boosting engagement within your social posts can still benefit from the right words and more persuasive copy, but it takes a more nuanced approach that doesn’t make it feel like you’re trying to force a purchase.
When writing a call to action, one of the most important words to remember is “relevance”. The words you use should be as relevant to the content as they are to the medium in which you post.
Anytime I produce or schedule a post with an aim to maximize engagement, I pay close attention to the context in which power words will be used as well as the audience that I’m addressing.
For Facebook, the words that often grab attention and garner the most engagement are:
- Post
- Comment
- Take
- Submit
- Would
- When
- Where
- Tell us
- Should
- Discount
- Only
- Because
- Now
For Twitter users, the power words you can use to boost engagement are:
- ReTweet
- Check out
- Blog
- Post
- How to
- Top
- Social
- Follow
- You
- Help
- Great
- Share
These were compiled not only from an infographic created by Neil Patel and Quick Sprout, but also from research done by others.
You can see how some of the most effective words vary greatly from platform to platform. That’s why it’s important to understand how to craft content not only specific to your audience but also around the context of the post and the social channel you’re using.
Sourcing the most influential words for your social audience
According to Oxford Dictionaries, there are at least a quarter of a million distinct words in the English language including words that are actively used, obsolete words and derivative words. If we count tenses and the variations in the meaning and inflection, that number would likely close in on a million – perhaps more.
To that end, it’s safe to assume that there are more than 25 powerful, persuasive words you could use to turn the head of your audience.
Gregory Ciotti wrote a piece for Copyblogger in which he researched the top 5 words in English. That list included the words:
- You
- Because
- Free
- Instantly
- New
The research behind the effectiveness of these words can’t be ignored. When used together they have the ability to put the emphasis on the individual and are critical for great communication. Words like “because” are incredibly persuasive because they create a casual relationship.
When you leverage words like “new” and “free” it plays on the concept of loss aversion. Even if you’re not selling something and merely posting about an idea, concept or a new blog post, you’re still targeting the drive in people who want something new, and want it for little or nothing.
The most influential words for your audience may not necessarily be the full list of 25 that I shared above. In truth, the words you use to boost social engagement may come from several examples of power words… or it could be none of the ones I’ve shared.
Because it’s not just about the individual words; it’s about the people you’re targeting.
It starts with your audience
Remember that power words by themselves are meaningless. The way you use them, or the context in which they are used, will play on the mind of your audience in order to achieve a desired result. I’ll use an incident from the life of French Poet Jacques Prevert, as shared by AWAI.
Jacques Prevert saw a beggar with a sign that said “Blind man without a pension”. Prevert asked him how it was going to which the better replied “Oh, very badly. People pass by and drop nothing in my hat, the swine.”
Prevert took the sign from him and altered it. A few days later, he approached the beggar and again asked him how things were going.
The beggar said, “Fantastic! My hat fills up three times a day.”
Prevert had changed the beggar’s sign to read: “Spring is coming, but I won’t see it.”
Prevert had used the right words to trigger the imagination of others, playing on their deeper emotions to inspire action.
We can see a similar example in a speech from Winston Churchill, dissected in a post from Jon Morrow.
While being assaulted by German forces, Churchill needed to find a way to inspire his countrymen. Morrow underlined the power words that Churchill used when addressing the people.
We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many long months of struggle and of suffering. You ask, what is our policy? I can say: It is to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us; to wage war against a monstroustyranny, never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy. You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: It is victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of allterror, victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival.
According to Morrow, “Each underlined word makes the audience feel something. In this case, Churchill intermixes words that cause fear, such as “struggle,” “tyranny,” and “terror,” with words that cause hope, such as “strength,” “God,” and “victory.” The last, in particular, is repeated over and over, practically drilling the emotion into the minds of the audience.”
This is the approach you need to take with your audience on social media.
You’re not necessarily trying to inspire morale in the midst of war, but you are trying to inspire them to interact and take action. Start with the research of others, building on what we’ve established to be the most influential power words that spur an audience to action.
Once you’ve identified the words that work best in context, consider your audience. What will resonate most with them based on their psychographics and demographics – information that’s readily available in your social insights.
Experiment with different language as you post. Mix in words that make people feel safe with those that imply scarcity, exclusivity, and cause-and-effect. Mingle those with words that encourage community engagement – specifically, the 25 that I’ve shared above. With that approach, you’ll immediately begin to see lifts in your engagement, comments, shares and post reactions.
Have you experimented with power words in your social media marketing? What words do you think bring the most engagement from your audience?
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Share your thoughts and tips with me in the comments below.
Guest Author: Andrew Raso is the co-founder and director of Online Marketing Gurus, a fast-growing, award-winning search company working with brands including HelloMolly, Baku Swimwear, and Forcast. Follow him on Twitter at @andrewraso1 or on LinkedIn.
Image Sources:Wikimedia Commons,CopyBlogger,Quicksprout,Oxford Dictionaries