Small Business And Social Media

Engage is a word that’s used quite a bit when discussing social media marketing. What does it mean and more importantly how can you as a small business owner use social media to promote your business? Engaging your customers simply means getting them to interact with you online. There is a simple equation to engagement.

Awareness + Interest = Engagement

For example, imagine you owned a coffee shop. We’ll call it coffee shop A. At coffee shop A, the coffee is superb. the shop smells delicious, the lighting is perfect, there is free wifi, comfy chairs, nice music, and a friendly barista. All the right elements, right? Coffee shop A should be jamming. But, it’s not because no one is aware of it because coffee shop A is located down a dark alley and has no sign. So, Awareness is critical to the engagement equation.

Now, imagine you own another coffee shop. We’ll call this one coffee shop B. Coffee shop B is located on a main street in a very busy and beautiful town. There is plenty of parking at coffee shop B. Many people walk and drive by coffee shop B every day. However, coffee shop B is a dull gray windowless building with no chairs and tables out front. It has a very plain black and white sign. Although coffee shop B is clearly visible to people, there is nothing about it that stands out or makes it interesting, so it’s empty, no customers, just like coffee shop A but for a different reason. So, Interest is also critical to engagement.

This very simple story highlights that the most important elements of engagement are awareness and interest. The same holds true for your presence on social media. You need people to know you are there (awareness) and you need to be able to give them something they want (interest). They want content that matters. The average attention span of an online adult is 8 seconds. That is not a lot of time to grab their attention and convince them stay, so you need to make it easy for them to find you and give them a reason to stay.

There is another element in this equation and that is one of the key reasons why the social media platforms are so powerful. Amplification. Here is what amplification in social media means. Imagine that a few brave souls discovered coffee shop A. They loved it so much that they told all their friends about it. Those friends tried it out, loved it, and told their friends about it. The cycle continued. Suddenly, coffee shop A is booming because the awareness part of the equation was discovered and amplified by word of mouth. That is what people on social media can do. Amplify their experiences. But, remember amplification can be good or bad. If coffee shop A gave the brave souls who discovered it a very bad experience, they may have amplified it in a negative way. Amplification is a powerful factor in social media providing people are happy about what they are amplifying. This is where excellence comes in, but that’s a story for another post.

Stay connected… Come back soon for more tips on social media for small businesses. If you have questions, you can contact me directly at dw@openclickcommunications.com).