The Easiest Way to Boost Your Customer Engagement and Social Media Buzz

This is no magical fix to all your social media woes. You probably won't even notice any empirical results. However, this is a simple way to give your Facebook page a little extra push.

The default setting for a Facebook page is to show your posts only. However, this robs you of so much potential buzz and word-of-mouth. Consumers will never trust your biased promotional jingles over the raves of impartial fellow consumers.

If you want to truly take advantage of the fanbase you've worked so hard to build, showcase all the positive things they have to say. In addition, this is great if you interact well with your customers.

To switch the setting to show both your posts and your fans' posts, simply go to your page while signed in and at the top right, you should see a button that says "edit page". Click this. Now there will be an option called "Wall tab shows". Select all posts and you're all set.

You just made your Facebook page 1.5% more engaging.

The Ultimate Guide to Creating Social Media Buzz: A Word-of-Mouth Portal

Intertwined in our nature is this inherent need to share. We need to talk to people about the weather, what we had for breakfast, and what we did over the weekend.

Now, the main goal of a social media marketer is to capitalize on this irresistible urge to talk. We hope to harvest brands that are resonant enough to talk about, then convince our customers to chatter away.

First of all, the buzz generates great brand recognition . More importantly though, you can spend millions on traditional advertising but no matter who you are, consumers trust what their friends say about your brand, more than what you say about your brand. When a customer talks positively about your product on Facebook, they tell 500+ friends that buying from you is a sound decision.

As soon as your brand harnesses the power of sharing, you are able to showcase your best characteristics to the entire world. Here are The Art of Glow's best posts on promoting social media buzz:

1. Making Customers and Supporters Proud to Share Your Brand
2. Creating Funny and Interesting Experiences that Translate Into Good Stories
3. Using Tangible Rewards and Incentives to Promote Word-of-Mouth
4. Making it Easy for Brand Advocates to Share

An Easy Way to Boost Social Media Word-of-Mouth

Customers are lazy people; there are not many of them who will go out of their way to aid your brand, unless there is a large enough incentive to do so. We've taken care of the incentive in previous posts about making customers proud to support your brand and creating experiences that translate into good stories. So let's move onto the easier portion: removing the part where the customer has to go out of their way to support you.

Clearly, more people will share if you make it convenient for them. For example, Nike+ GPS, Nike's latest running app, allows users to automatically share the details of their latest run. So users feel the pride of publicizing their fitness and it's easy for them to do so.

On the other hand, while automated sharing can be convenient, status updates or tweets that sound canned do not resonate. Allow users to customize their sharing, in order to let their own authenticity shine through. If this is not practical, add a little bit of flair or personality to the automatic sharing.

Once you integrate some programming that makes sharing easy, you'll be well on your way to achieving the buzz that you've been looking for.

For more posts on promoting social media buzz, go to the sharing portal.

Creating Social Media Buzz with Tangible Rewards for Sharing

Tangible motivators are popular amongst today's "social media experts" for a few reasons.

First of all, there is a clear and definite correlation between the value of your reward and number of "likes" or "follows" your brand gets. If you guarantee users who "like" your page, a coupon or voucher, naturally, more people will "like" your page. Don't get too excited though because with these extrinsic motivators, you zap the element of engagement from the "like". You do not forge an emotional connection with the person, robbing you of precious brand loyalty and advocacy. In fact, if the customer is actually captivated by your brand, an extrinsic reward downplays the value of this relationship. It's almost like your friend paying you to do a good deed- it takes away all of the intrinsic value.

Also, tangible rewards require little creativity; it's just coupons, a "chance to win an iPad", or access to content. I'm not saying that innovation cannot exist in tangible rewards; it's very possible. However, it's not very abundant in today's social media situation.

Despite all this criticism that I have, tangible benefits do have a place in social media marketing plans. Tangible rewards are effective if they are given to loyal customers unexpectedly. This unexpectedness does not render the customer relationship meaningless; if they are unexpected, they are more like gifts of thanks for being loyal, rather than benefits to remain loyal. Also, these unexpected gifts can be combined with exclusive closed groups to maximize their power.

Moreover, a short-term campaign based on tangible rewards, can be viable for small brands that need a period of viral buzz. If executed correctly, this can explode brand recognition. On the other hand, be careful with this sort of campaign because customers may become "addicted" to your reward and flock away quickly if it is withdrawn. To combat this, ensure that your rewards are short-term or offered on an infrequent basis. As well, during and after you withdraw the rewards, present another meaningful way for the customer to connect and reap benefits from your brand (some sort of an engagement campaign).

Last but not least, occasionally, businesses need to boost the number of "likes" their page has, in order to "legitimize" the page. A tangible reward can do this very quickly.

All in all, it is generally a good idea to stay away from tangible rewards but every once in awhile, they may be able to supplement more meaningful marketing.

For more posts on promoting social media buzz, go to the sharing portal.