Having a captive audience within such easy reach can tempt many social marketers to make too many posts that diminish their audience members, and too few posts that warm and prime them. Advertisements for products, lots of re-posts of other people’s content and off-topic comments are among the social media communications that should be used sparingly or avoided altogether.
To keep your audience interested and growing, you must provide real value in all your communication (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and so on). Your updates should be:
- Frequent (at least daily)
- On Topic
- Relevant
- Non-Promotional
- Free
- Valuable
Frequent: Posting daily lets your audience know that you’re alive, engaged and interested. Don’t go overboard; updating more than twenty times in a day can get annoying if all of the above factors are not present.
On Topic: What is the purpose of your social presence? If the purpose of your presence is to sell your fitness products, then make 90% of your posts about fitness. If you’d like to make personal posts, create a separate personal page or profile.
Relevant: Who is your audience? Why are people following you? Being relevant is similar to being on-topic. If most people are following you because they want to hear more about fitness from an expert, then give them what they want. Make posts that are relevant to what they’re looking for.
Non-Promotional: This is an area where many social marketers lose much of their audience. Even if they heard about you through your products, no one wants to receive a stream of advertisements about your stuff with “Buy Now” links. Promotional material should be infrequent and sparing, comprising no more than five percent of your social media communications.
Value: I’ll say it again, VALUE! Give, give, give away valuable information about your product, your service and especially about your industry. Give people information they can use right away, whether they buy your product or not. Make yourself indispensable to your audience. When you’ve earned their trust and respect, they’ll start buying your stuff.
