When businesses approach social media, too often they post hard sales pitches and random stuff all willy-nilly with no real plan. While that may work with your personal social media, it will never work for your business. Remember, the people on your social networks know you, which is very important when it comes to engagement. On your business’s social media, they don’t know anything about your company, so you need to entice them to interact with you.

So how do you do that? You follow the four key pieces of a successful social media strategy. We’ve already covered the first and most important step, social listening, so if you didn’t read that blog, you’ll want to start here before you read any further. If you’re up to speed, on social listening, then it’s time to employ the next tactic: social influencing.

You have the power to influence

Once you’ve gotten a pulse on the happenings of your industry, competitors, and personas, it’s time to use that knowledge to your advantage. Social influencing is all about using what you know to guide your followers’ decisions, beliefs, and behaviors toward specific topics and conversations. Post industry articles, comment on posts to voice your opinion, reach out to other thought leaders, post links to helpful information you can provide – whatever you can do to show you are a leader in your industry.

It’s important to mention that social influencing shouldn’t be entirely based on bull shit. You’re not trying to swindle your followers’ to believe certain things based on misinformation and guesses. Instead, you should be practicing social listening every day, so when you practice social influencing, you’ll genuinely know the most important things people should know about your industry. Social influencing is meant to help and build trust with your followers’ so they believe in your company enough to buy from it.

How you know it’s working

When you just start out with this new social media strategy, social influencing will get off to a slow start, but don’t get discouraged! Over time, you’ll see more people engaging with your posts and commenting with questions and thoughts. If you’re posting links to your website, you’ll also see an increase in traffic and users. People will look at your company as an authority on industry topics and news, and follow you because they genuinely want to know what you have to say. It’s all about starting conversations and voicing opinions to build awareness of what your company is best at.

Need inbound marketing in Philadelphia?

Social influencing isn’t only part of a bigger social media strategy, it’s also part of a much larger marketing strategy you should have for your company. Social media is most effective when it’s used in tandem with other marketing techniques. Need inbound marketing in Philadelphia? This type of strategy is what we specialize in, and we’d love to help. Drop us a line here.