How Engaged Are You with Your Social Media Communities?

Working with clients concerning their social media needs, I’ve learned that many believe just connecting with others via social media is enough.

They’ll say “Happy birthday!” and “Congratulations!” for every annual anniversary on LinkedIn and believe that they’re engaging.

Others feel that if they eventually get around to replying to queries and comments on their social media that they’re engaging.

I’ve got news for everyone who has these practices, they don’t work! You’re not engaging!

Let’s discuss this!

First, what is engagement?

For me, engagement is showing your communities that you care about them…

That you’re the subject matter expert (SME)…

That you’re there for them.

Sounds simple enough, now, how do you do this?

You show your engagement to your communities by being proactive.

Being proactive means that you’re commenting, liking and sharing the content of others, asking questions, and supplying your own original content.

You show your engagement to your communities by being there.

Being there means that you regularly and predictably participate on social media channels, reply promptly to queries and comments, add value, are relevant, and your message is appropriate to the channel (i.e., You don’t use LinkedIn like it’s Facebook!)

You show your engagement to your communities by being the expert.

Being the expert means that you are current and staying on top of your area of expertise, you know the other SMEs and aren’t shy about sharing their work and giving them credit for it, you practice social selling (you spread around what you know), and you know the issues and trends affecting your area.

You show your engagement to your communities by being promoting yourself on social media and your blog.

Promoting yourself means doing all of the above on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, your blog, and whatever other channel may be appropriate for your area of expertise.

Don’t forget to track yourself either to measure your progress with community engagement.

Establish a baseline for the key metrics and review your progress.

What’s working and what’s not working?

What are your Klout score and LinkedIn Social Selling Index?

Constantly keep working at this!

Only you can do this for yourself.

Yes, it takes time and effort but the results are well worth it.

Don’t boil the ocean.

Start small and gradually increase your engagement efforts and measure your progress.

Soon, you’ll be engaged with your social media communities and the results will show in your business or your career!

That’s it for now!

Please check-out my 8 step approach for developing a social media program to get some more ideas on how to use social media.

Also, never forget to reach out to either ask questions or to ask for help from someone like myself!

In the meantime, thank you for following and reading my blog!

I look forward to any and all comments that you may have. I will reply to any comments made to this blog post as promptly as I can.

And, remember!

I do this for a living and if I can be of any assistance to either you or your organization, please feel free to call on me. Our initial discussion will be of no charge to you.