How to create an online experience
Although the various social media have been around for over ten years by now, achieving success in this field is still a mystery to many companies and professionals. Oftentimes when someone comes in to revamp the social media activities of a company, they’ll put some metrics in place, shove several pieces of content into a blog, and create a fancy Facebook page. In spite of this, concrete successes are not achieved. In the pandemonium of techniques, theories, and how-to’s, companies almost inevitably get lost in the crowd.
The clue to why this happens often hides in the name of what we’re dealing with: social media. Our field deals with scaling up friendly, social interactions to a much broader level and, like any
interaction, the most successful ones are usually the ones that have the best personality. In other
words, to succeed at social media it’s not just important to have a good message – you have to have an amazing personality as well.
To build the right personality for your brand, there are a few things to keep in mind. First of all, you need to know who you are portraying as your brand: what are your values and your business goals, and what is the history that permeates your storytelling? In doing this, you establish who you are as a brand, and why you respond the way you do.
The second step is to create a tone of voice, which is based on more than just the background of
your company. Just like in any conversation, you adjust the way you speak to the person you’re
talking to. So when you develop that tone of voice, you look beyond your own brand: you look at the audience you want to reach, and you figure out exactly how to get their attention. For some groups, this means creating an artificially sweet communication, whereas others can be reached by talking to them in slang. Whatever the tone of voice is that works for your brand, you end up with a pattern of communication that reached the audience you choose in the language they’re familiar with.
As soon as you have developed these two parts it is required that all activities by the company follow these guidelines. This will bring out the best response from the customers to your communication efforts. Not only that, but these guidelines will help everyone who works with customers respond in the way that will be best received by your target audience.
Although these traits and guidelines might feel fake to some, they look better and engage more.
They create a human side to the brand, which might have its own defects and vulnerabilities, and
this human side will appeal to the followers much more than any ‘traditional’ approach to
communication might elicit. Through this humanity, the communication strategy will move towards something bigger, and more elaborate, than before.
These steps, if done carefully and smartly, will create a more humane connection between the
community and the business. It can open up new business opportunities, create immense exposure, and help expand the group of advocates and those who care about the company. By using social media to create a brand personality businesses can find their human touch, with personal communication that will help finding new products and services. It is this brand personality that, through elevating and enhancing the power of the brand, will bring traction to any business goal set – not just by talking, but by truly being social.
