Interacting With Your Audience – The Effort That Will Grow Your Social Network

Interacting With Your Audience – How To Stand Out From The Crowd

Trying to figure out how your post stands out from the rest, connecting with your audience and having a constant battle being top of mind to every post can be a tiring and never-ending story. Being more strategic in your interactions can help in staying the course on social media.

In my previous blog article, we talked about how you can use your time on social media effectively and grow your network. Let’s have a look at one practical step that I recommend to all my clients as a “start doing this immediately”. We have seen the results almost immediately.

On social posting, here’s what you shouldn’t do:⁠
⁠
* (just) Like⁠
* (just) Share⁠
* Say “I’m open to new connections”

Let’s just put this one out there, a “like” is not responding. Simply liking a post does nothing, it really doesn’t. It does not open up the path to the conversation at all. You don’t stand out to that person, because you are one of many that simply liked that post. One step up from just a like would be a “celebrate /insightful/ love/ curious” option. These are right next to the like button, takes a second longer, but makes your button stand out from the rest on most occasions.

The Psychology behind a Button

Let’s take it a bit further and look at the subconscious reaction of a response button. If you are anything like me, I typically go check out who “celebrated” my comment/post. You can see from the below reaction that 1 person celebrated that comment. I don’t look at the 19 that liked the post, I look at the 1 person that celebrated it. It makes me think that I must have said something good that they really thought was good. It also gives me the opportunity to connect back to them to ask what it was they liked, sparking a conversation.

Can you see how that celebrate button stands out from the rest? People will notice and respond accordingly.  This is called “real estate on social media”. Own that space!

Sharing with intention

Sharing without telling your audience why you are sharing that particular post, means nothing. Your audience wants to hear your thoughts. So tell them what you felt was valuable. When sharing a post or article, try and summarize your thoughts. This will highlight you as a thought leader and possibly create the opportunity for your followers to interact with you. Try to give your audience a “take away” by giving them a call to action, such as asking their thoughts will further elevate your post.

You can also tag another individual in your post but be careful to do this with purpose, stating why you have tagged this person. This will then show up not only in your feed, but also in their feed, increasing your post reach. Do this strategically and you will find your reach expand exponentially.  One of my clients decided to test this theory to see if they can get it to work. It has grown their reach to their audience with 450%. Working and constantly improving on this theory is proving to be a fruitful exercise and we continually look at what we can do differently to improve on reaching their audience with intention, maximizing efforts and minimizing time spent.

If you would like to look at how you can increase your reach, let’s set up an introductory call and find practical ways that will work for you.