The site owners who moan most about social media are often those who understand least about what it is, what it does and why do it! Just like everybody else who attends an offline social networking event, it's knowing the different reasons why each type of person is there, what they hope to take from the event, and what you discover which will help to better inform your future social media campaigns.
The received wisdom is that building up social followers takes time, creating trust, credibility and active engagement takes time - and time is something not many business owners possess in great abundance. As with all marketing strategies they are aware that they should know more about how social media engagement is supposed to work and what the value is to their business.
Instead, they are more likely to rely on old fashioned responses when they see Twitter followers sign off, spam comments left on blogs, negative comments on YouTube, presence ignored on Facebook and no additional traffic to website!
As with email marketing newsletters, direct, offline or online marketing, just 'banging it out there' is not going to work. Especially, with today's highly segmented, niche audiences where each target group will only likely to respond to key triggers. Knowing what expectations an audience has from site content and participation is the key to long term engagement.
Increasingly, the social sites are seeing distinct types of user and by recognising the essential reasons why they regularly appear is invaluable in knowing how they might respond to active engagement by an eCommerce presence.
Undoubtedly foremost, is the 'search and social' category who see a site as primarily, another information source. They do not seek to engage but simply look for tips, tricks, advice and knowledge or for some new, hot and interesting material, mostly within their interest range. Brand identity engagement with this category consists of providing up to date, high quality, super valuable and useful information. Around a fifth of Twitter followers can stop their following of a brand if the company tweets become too conversational or mundane and lack real value. Keeping promotional content to an absolute minimum is crucial.
A second type of regular visitor is the old fashioned 'bargain hunter'! Their interest is to hoover up discounts, special offers, promotions, coupons, prizes, free trials and giveaways in exchange for subscription / registration / signup. This category of social follower can simply take advantage of a one-time offer and never be seen again - until the next special deal! Encouraging further participation can be dependent on running longer promotions, additional interaction beyond the initial sign up / opt-in - and offer advance alerts to forthcoming special deals plus follow ups.
Another highly visible category are those who "Like" or "Follow" a company or content on impulse and without further thought. They just do it! However, they are unlikely to see their action as meaning there is to be any further involvement with a brand and may never visit a company's page again after "liking" them!
However, it is possible to gain their interest again by boosting content. Expanding and enriching with fresh original topic areas can help attract a wider range of audience and helps keep long term interest alive. It's important not to become too repetitive over time and any audience feedback can give insight into determining future content. Posting too frequently on any social network is also to be avoided so only post with genuine, interesting and valuable content.