What creates engagement in social media? Certainly, some posts and status updates get better responses than others. A part of the equation is simply knowing our audience. We are the creators of written stimulus. Our goal is to elicit a response.

How do we measure that response?

SocialReport provides some of the easiest to use and most advanced social analytics on the planet. You can track and analyze Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Vimeo, Google Analytics, Bit.ly, Meetup, Goo.gl, Linkedin, Yelp, WordPress, MySpace, Digg, Bebo, and Foursquare; all in one place and all using a single tool.

MThe words we post are useless we are creating an affinity for the brand we are representing. For those of us who participate in social branding, our job is writing entertaining, engaging, and informative status updates that create an affinity for the brand we are posting for. Using an analytical tool-set like those provided by SocialReport, we can monitor the number of actions taken on our posts.

What is brand affinity?

Brand affinity is when customers have an emotional connection with our brand and ultimately become our best marketers. Those customers feel a sense of ownership in our brand. (Think Apple Inc. or Harley Davidson.) These feelings aren’t typically based on logic but then again, the majority of people respond or react based on a gut-level and then rationalize their responses later. People will comment, re-tweet, mention, share and reply when they feel something.

MOur job is to stir emotions and direct actions. Ideally, we will create a positive connection to our brand. Making the right word choices with precision is the key. We write for our audience. We are trying to ring a Pavlovian bell and create positive attachments to the brand we are writing for. Social media allows us to build a bridge to our customers and win them over as fans… Fans.  Not just customers. The people who have the deepest affinity for our brand will write about us,  re-tweet us, comment on us and engage with us.

MVery rarely do I see a detailed analysis of how to achieve positive response and actions. There’s a lot of posting, measuring and adjusting in social campaigns followed by tracking and reporting. Again, SocialReport is an excellent tool to help us with just that.

Story telling is a key to creating fans.

We are telling a story about our brand. The story we are telling is told in small chunks of status updates that when connected paint a bigger picture. Making the right word choices is the single most important action we can take when creating status updates.

MThe only way to communicate the feeling behind our words, is to include those feelings in our words. That’s not a task that is easy to accomplish. I’m not just typing in 140 characters, I’m typing in 140 character bursts and 140 character chunks. I use kinesthetic tone and imagery. If I feel that my posts are starting to get boring, I’ll switch back over to first-person narrative mode and remind people that I’m a human being. I will connect with others in conversation. I will infuse my posts with literary devices, imagery, metaphors, and analogies. And I will do so in a way that allows my readers to feel an emotional connection to the brand I’m writing for.

MWhen are readers are in a heightened emotional state, they are more likely to take an action and to remember our message. They are more likely to share, re-tweet and respond with comments. Social media is a people business and our posts should be aimed squarely at human emotion. If we write boring messages instead of writing status updates that spark an idea, stir some emotions, or allows our readers to see a little bit of themselves reflected in our words, we’ll fail to make that critical connection with our readers, followers and fans.

MSo much has been written about Twitter and Facebook… Often using words
like “value”, “engagement”, and “authentic”. I’m not big on buzz words. Mostly because these words tend to be nebulous at best.

MWhat I’m looking for is response. The closer I can come to stepping inside the experience of my audience and ringing that Pavlovian bell, the greater the response will be. I write behind a keyboard but as I write, I tap into my own experience. I’m reflecting on my own thoughts and feelings. I’m seeking to create a connection with my readers.
 
• Sometimes I seek to solve problems
• Sometimes I seek to share my experience
• Sometimes I seek to spark an idea
• Sometimes I seek to entertain
 
I will tell you a truth about Twitter and Facebook. People want to be stimulated. We want to feel something. It can be as simple as something funny that causes us to laugh or something that inspires us to take action. It can be as simple as something that causes us to look at a problem in a new way. It doesn’t matter what we write so much as it matters how we write.

MStir emotions. Provoke thoughts. Share ideas. Be a catalyst for conversation. Listen. Engage. Measure. Monitor. Metrics. Improve. When you remove the human element from social media marketing, you are destined to failure.

MI will expand upon these concepts more in my next blog post. In the mean time: Try SocialReport for free for thirty days and see what the data tells you about your social media campaigns.