If you are looking to build a social media strategy that works then it is essential that you use social media marketing in the right way. It is instructive to realize that most people approach their social media strategy with exactly the wrong approach. They treat their Facebook page as being a bit like a brochure. They highlight the products and services that they have on offer, but they don’t illuminate it with much personality.
They treat their customers like machines who buy stuff, and they get exactly the response back that they deserve. Namely that they get ignored!
This approach is the exact antithesis of what you should be doing. Establishing trust sounds like a fancy marketing concept, but in truth it is pretty simple.
How to establish the trust
You simply have to start treating your business Facebook and other social media properties as though you were always talking to trusted friends. Forget the money aspect. Money always comes between friends! Instead, if you are going to establish trust with your social media strategy, you first need to establish that you are on the side of the person who is visiting your profile.
You need to be able to answer the question of what is in it for them. You need them to visit your Facebook page and then walk away feeling like they got something from it. It doesn’t have to be earth shattering. You don’t have to tell them how to cure the common cold, or figure out some complicated problem that no-one can solve in your niche market. But what you do have to do is establish that you are not wasting their time.
The fact is that most Facebook Fan Pages are a total waste of time if they have been setup by commercial businesses. Those businesses seem to assume that the same corporate tone that works in their printed brochures will also work on Facebook, but the fact is that it doesn’t. Instead what happens when you turn your Facebook account into a picture of corporate boredom is that you lose your audience.
Interact with your followers
People trust other people who they interact with on a frequent basis and who they consistently get good advice from. If you want to establish a social media strategy online then it is worth bearing that in mind, because ultimately it is the same recipe for whether they will end up interacting regularly with you and your products and services, or will run in the opposite direction.
A social media strategy that doesn’t have trust as it core value is a worthless strategy. This is because while it is difficult to build up trust and easy to break, the fact is that while you have it almost anything is possible when it comes to interacting with your audience. If they trust you then they will buy your products, buy other peoples products and follow your advice. The more trust you have the greater the amount of power you have in your market, and so it is definitely an area that you should look to develop further.
You definitely can build up trust with social media marketing, and a good social media strategy is in fact one of the best ways of going about the task, but remember to stay honest and continue to give value to keep that trust.
