Ask yourself (and your audience) this.
How long could you spend talking to a brick wall?
Three… maybe four minutes? Maybe not even as long as that. The trouble is, the brick wall doesn’t respond. In fact, there’s no connection or involvement whatsoever and that’s where it stops being fun.
If you want your audience to connect and engage with your brand, you must connect with them on an emotional level. Use these 18 tips to connect and engage with your audience:
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People, not robots
Never forget! Your audience are people, just like you and I.
Stop writing for search engines and start addressing people as individuals. When creating content for your online channels write as though you are speaking to your mum, dad or friend down the pub. Consider the personal involvement in those conversations and how you can replicate that with your users.
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Be authentic
Make sure you are unique. Don’t simply follow trends, set them!
The excitement created by authenticity is contagious. Your users will engage at a much higher level if you offer unique content.
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Get emotional
Humans connect on an emotional level. Use humour, compassion or empathy to build relationships and to help your audience relate with your brand.
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Ask questions
Encourage involvement by asking questions of your audience. Try to make your users think. Test their knowledge or ask them questions of their experiences. This is a great way to get them engaging with you.
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Address problems and pain points
Help your audience solve a problem or address a common pain point. Put yourself in their shoes, and ask, “What’s the #1 problem I’m struggling with right now?” Even better, ask and/or listen to find out what your audience’ pain points are. Make it your goal to help them solve them.
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Show them how to do something
Provide practical hands-on advice for your audience. Simple how-to guides or step by step instructions to help build knowledge. You’ll drive greater involvement by offering something useful.
You never know, your users may even thank you for it.
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Encourage and inspire
There’s no greater feeling than inspiring others. Use the skills and expertise of your organisation to inspire your audience and industry. You’ll see engagement levels jump if you start to truly inspire people.
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Your opinion matters
Remember your audience have come to your site so show them what you think. Sharing industry information is great, but it’s not always your own. Share what have you learned over the years, perhaps you are the only one that can.
Once you start posting content your audience actually wants to engage with, great things start to happen. Your audience grows to trust and rely on you, and turns to you when they need help or information.
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Quality not quantity
Before sharing anything with your audience ask yourself does this represent me and my brand in the best way possible? If the answer is no, you’ll be doing yourself and your audience a favour by hitting delete.
No one wants to connect with a low quality brand.
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Be beautiful
The internet is vast. Create a beautiful place for your audience to spend their time. A good looking easy to use site will be rewarded with higher engagement scores.
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Stick to your brand promise
Your brand promise is what you guarantee to deliver to your customer every single time they interact with you. If you’re going to promote a specific brand promise to appeal to your audience, you’re going to have to make sure you stick to that promise every time, otherwise the consumer will lose faith in you.
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Be transparent
Respect your audience by being 100% open and honest with them. They will respect you in return. If you can’t be completely transparent with your audience expect them to be loyal to your competitors.
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Be provocative
To get your audience engaged with your brand you first need to get their attention. Try to be provocative to encourage your audience to take notice of you. There is a line here so remember not to go too far or you’ll lose them forever.
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Know your audience
When you see your friends you don’t ask them what they do for work, you ask them how work is going because you already know what they do. This is the difference between knowing your audience and not.
The importance of this cannot be stressed enough. The best way to appeal to your users is to know what they like, where they are, what they do and who they are. Once you know all of this, you will be able to have involved conversations like you do with your friends.
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Be interactive
Create the right circumstances and people love to get interactive. Don’t just create a friendly brand, be a friendly brand. Respond in real-time on social channels or by email. In knowing they can instantly interact with you consumers will place far more trust in your brand.
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Consistency
This is key. You must present the same face across all channels. Build a personality to your brand and let it show in everything you do. Your users will engage with the assumed personality and will be put off if they are met by a completely different character in your newsletter to the character on your social channels.
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Respect your audience
Respecting the customer, showing a sense of empathy and meeting their needs is crucial if you want people to engage with your brand. The customer doesn’t want to be treated like a customer or a consumer, they want to be treated like a person.
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Ask for feedback
No matter how much you know now, things can change, so it’s always wise to encourage continuous feedback from your customers.
So there it is, 18 ways to connect and engage with your audience.
The methods listed above are far from exhaustive. Why not keep the list going by adding your techniques in the comments box below?