How to Engage on Facebook and Twitter

The more you work with your brand to create engagement opportunities on the different social platforms, you will see some common threads where information is shared in both places.  However, the more you get to know the platforms, you’ll see there is a divide between the activities on Twitter and the activities on Facebook. Brands must learn how to make each community experience different, to accommodate the needs of the members, to respect the community culture and implement the best collaboration practices.  In some cases you will have different people interacting with you and in other cases, loyal brand enthusiasts may want to engage with your brand in more than one place. For that very reason, there are some simple ways to differentiate and give your consumers a reason to interact with you in both of these communities.

A good approach to engagement on Twitter includes:

• Sharing newsworthy information related to your brand that interests the community – keeping community members updated about the brand’s activities
• Linking to content that’s not only interesting, but also has the potential to go viral (this may or may not be directly related to your brand)
• Recognizing and thanking customers, bloggers, media and other stakeholders for sharing your brand information and activities
• Engaging in conversations to help people by answering questions, addressing concerns and aiding consumers in the decision-making process
• Promoting your own community members’ content including their articles, blog posts, videos, podcasts, etc., which helps to build stronger and mutually beneficial relationships
• Sharing special offers and discounts by offering links directly to those promotions
• Engaging with influencers/bloggers and building new relationships that lead to increased awareness and coverage/endorsement of your brand
• Finding journalists who are actively tweeting to stay abreast of what they follow, in order to better understand their interests
• Creating fun or entertaining content to share with your community
• Creating virtual events/Twitter chat sessions through hashtag discussions
• Identifying and addressing PR and reputation issues in real time

A good approach to engagement on Facebook includes:

• Sharing exclusive promotions and information about partner programs
• Engaging directly with a community to spark passion and action with different groups including your consumers, bloggers and other constituents
• Creating an engaging environment where consumers interact with the brand and their peers, from “likes” and comments on wall posts to how many times people take advantage of a special offers/discounts (tracking from click to conversion) and participate in contests
• Driving traffic from your brand fan page to additional information on the company’s website
• Creating unique interactive content that you really can’t find in your other networks
• Building  a community where consumers can engage with the brand in fun activities through Facebook applications
• Using Facebook as brand stream to maximize the brand’s presence through status updates
• Addressing customer service questions and issues in real time
• Developing a research platform where the brand can study behavioral patterns to build an even stronger community of active fans and brand champions

Of course there are many more uses for both Twitter and Facebook. But, because time and resources are limited, it’s really important to identify what works the best so that you can interest your community members and keep them engaged with your brand (from awareness to brand advocacy). I look forward to hearing how you are engaging on Facebook and Twitter, and what’s working best on each platform.