How can you build trust and engagement with your audience using social media?

Being authentic and transparent means being true to yourself and expressing your genuine beliefs. It's not about oversharing every aspect of your life with everyone on the internet. After all, not everyone needs to know your every move, right? Building trust online requires intentionality. You need to decide what you want to be known for and consistently talk about it. If you're a techie , dive into tech topics. If you're passionate about makeup, talk about it all day, every day! Social media can be overwhelming with all the noise and distractions, but when you're intentional about what you share, you cut through the clutter. You become purposeful in your actions, and success is no longer a happy accident.

The first thing you need to do is provide quality content that is of value to your visitors. This impacts how long visitors stay on your website and how much they engage with you on social media. Posting great content shows your brand is an authority and is about more than just making money. That is the base to start off when you want to build audience’s trust in social media. To become an authority in your industry and provide content that will be appealing to your target audience, you should: Identify who your customers are, what they want, and why they want it. Identify your competitors, what they say in their content. Provide better content by filling the gaps left by competitors and aligning your content to consumers’ needs.

Make sure your goals for social are aligned with: (1) the broader business goals (e.g. customer acquisition, customer loyalty, etc.); (2) what your customers do on social. For example, if you’re trying to acquire new customers on social but your customers only use social to complain about issues, then it’ll be harder to acquire on that channel even if you have a great paid or organic social content.

Social Media Residency: Similar to an artist-in-residence program, consider a social media residency where you invite a guest (an influencer, a thought leader, a happy customer, or an employee) to take over your social media account for a set period of time. This can bring fresh content, perspectives, and followers to your page while keeping your current audience engaged.

Relevance. Procuring and posting content that applies directly to your contacts and target market. Know your platform, curate content. No one likes an "over poster".

Empower employees to build their personal brands through organic LinkedIn content. People resonate with people and the algorithm pushed personal page content more than company page content. Use this to your advantage.

Okay, brace yourself for my unpopular opinion: it's time to throw spaghetti at the wall and use them all! Sure, you can spend hours researching and analyzing other people’s data, but nothing beats real-life experiences. You'll never truly know who YOUR audience is until you put yourself out there and see what sticks. It's like throwing strands of spaghetti at the wall and seeing which ones stick—the ones that stick are your golden opportunities! But here's the thing: never, ever put all of your eggs into one basket. Don't go all-in on just one platform or strategy. Why? Because the digital landscape is always changing, and what works today may not work tomorrow.

The biggest waste of ad money today is a creative that’s not designed for a platform or format. It’s like a billboard with half the ad space covered or a print ad with blank space. Odd right. If you simply design for the platform and know how to use the right format, you are already optimising your money.

Incorporate Ephemeral Content: Ephemeral content, which disappears after a short period (like Instagram Stories or Twitter Fleets), creates a sense of urgency and exclusivity, encouraging users to engage more frequently with your brand.

Choosing the right platforms and formats can be not as straightforward as it seems. In the beginning, you might also have to experiment with platforms and formats. Start posting content in different formats on your target platforms and check which content format + platform combo is working well for you.

Don't create what you think they want to see. Create what they are actually looking for and want to see... That is how you create valuable content, get outside of your own head and into theirs.

To build a trusted brand, both individuals and organizations have to go beyond what is self indulging. You can't create value by being boastful about you. Value is what others see and get from what you share. I usually wear my audience hat when I share something. The question to ask is, if I were the reader, will I find value and will I share this content with a friend with mutual interests? Also by engaging with people from similar interest areas and having casual chats, you can understand what is being sought after and where someone is looking for support. This should also help in creating valuable and relevant content. The ultimate measure of success is when audience appreciates your content by speaking about it.

The attention span of people has reduced and is further reducing. People consume content in different formats on different platforms and in a very short duration. For example, a person might just look at the first 5 seconds of a 30 seconds Instagram reel and decide whether to watch the rest of the 25 seconds or not! Even if the content would be valuable and relevant, if it's not able to capture your audience's attention, you won't get success. Don't just create informational content. Focus on Infotainment (Infomation + Entertainment)

Send 10s audio DMs to followers asking what topics they’d like to see. This builds rapport and generates content ideas - a win-win!

Brands are leveraging AI-empowered chatbots to communicate with their audiences. But the audience these days is also aware of the technology and the auto-responses. Is your chatbot responding just like a human would do? - That's a key question to be answered while using it. Don't just rely on technology, add some human element to your interactions on social media. Share real stories, real pictures, and even trending memes if that would help!

On Instagram you can track by posting question or rating stickers on stories to see how many people actually engage on daily basis. On Linkedin you can track by seeing people who regularly comment or like your posts, they can be future prospects for your business.

You need to define your goals properly to measure your performance. If the goal is to increase the visibility of your brand, then metrics like reach & impressions might help but if the goal is to boost your sales using social media, you would focus more on metrics like clicks and conversions. Tie your metrics closely with your goals and this will help you in understanding your performance.

1) Don’t just share the shiny parts. 2) Share from a place of service, not ego. 3) Don’t be afraid to take a risk. 4) Keep it real more than you keep it safe. 5) Show that you’re willing to be wrong. 6) Forget all the “best practices” and find your own.

- Invest in a social listening tool. What you think and what your audience thinks may not be aligned. There are great tools out there to assist with this alignment. - Encourage employees to develop their personal brand. Don’t be intimidated of the “what ifs” like what if they leave or what if someone recruits them, etc. Personal branding should be an extension of your corporate brand. And when effectively done, employees become the authentic face of your organization and that is GOLD!