Increasing Engagement Through Social Media: Creating the ‘Care to Share’

With the digital capabilities at our fingertips in 2014, things change every day.  As an individual, we each have the ability to ‘design,’ if you will, what we want our digital life to look like and we get to select what we choose to follow in our social media outlets.  As a business, this allows for great opportunities IF you can keep your audience and grow it at the same time.  Therefore, getting your audience to share your message is absolutely key.

Sharing relevant and timely content allows you to reach the top of your current iceberg, but what about the potential below – the friends of friends, the grandmothers, and the customers that are possibly unaware of what your business provides?

As a marketer in a sea of advertisements, what are you doing to get your demographic to keep you as they customize?  How are you encouraging that same audience to share your message?  Apply methods that individualize the message so that it’s worth sharing.   Create the ‘Care to Share.’

I attended a webinar hosted by Marketo called “The Definitive Guide to Social Marketing.”   Sanjay Dholakia, CMO of Marketo, and Jon Miller, VP of Marketing Content and Strategy for Marketo, delivered an exceptional presentation for both beginners and intermediate marketers to get back to the basics of what works.  Marketo notes the five motivations to get your audience to share your message – which is the ultimate goal in social marketing through advocacy and loyalty

Here you will find five methods to guide you to increasing social media engagement and creating a more authentic connection with audiences.

5 Motivators to Generate the ‘Care to Share’  with Your Audience

1. Reputation:  This is when we add value to a reader’s reputation to their personal digital audience – the opportunity to say, “I know this, so I will share it with you.”
2. Access to something exclusive:  This is the Maserati factor – it’s the leg-up; such as a $200 discount to share the message with eight people.
3. Co-creation:  Granting ownership to a reader.  People want to feel like they took part in something that gets attention.
4. Competition and winning:  Who doesn’t want to win?  Enough said here.
5. Altruism:  The recent ALS Ice Bucket challenge is the most obvious and best recent example of this.  People shared this because it was fun, but also because it made them feel good about contributing to a cause.

For the time we spend creating content, we should keep the five motivators in mind to help carry our messages as far as possible .  Stay focused on reaching your audience as individuals as you’re asking them to be on your team and vouch for you.   These methods can be applied across all social media outlets and you will see results as your numbers jump from share to share, click to click.  Create the ability to reach the lower half of that iceberg and beyond.

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