How many friend and friend details can we possibly track? With how many friends – or brands – can we sustain meaningful engagement? Using a loose definition of “friend” including those whose updates or status we follow on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Foursquare, and other social networks or communities, the attention required to manage all those updates has grown in multiple and exponential ways.
So what does this mean for you if you are trying to a build a meaningful relationship with your target market? Here’s a few tips to keep focused on what is important as more people start using social as a channel and more consumers start tuning it out.
Relevancy
Keep what you do relevant to your followers or groups. People go through peaks and valleys with social media. I’ve seen news lately of people doing what is called “social media cleanup” where they go through and unfriend people they don’t truly know. For you to make the cut you want to make sure you have relevancy. If someone is doing some cleanup within their social network you want them to look at your name and instinctively know they are getting value and something from the relationship.
Value
Focus on delivering value to your target market. Value in information and value in entertainment. This is often overlooked but is important. People spend time in social media to connect and have fun. They will tolerate your interactions as a business only if you play by these rules. So knowing what is important to your target market and what they find valuable will be the key.
Consistency
Being consistent in your communications and delivering what you promised when someone started following is also important. If someone goes through their friends or follower list and starts checking and notices you only interact once a week–that might not be enough for their expectations. If you are consistently giving valuable and relevant information someone will have no reason not to unfriend or unfollow you.
3 Core Elements
While these three core elements are the backbone of any social media campaign they also play a role in the value that someone gets from following you or your company. Focus on excelling at each one of these by understanding the needs and wants of your target market.