How To Engage Your Audience Online In 2021 – Tips & Tricks
For over a year most aspects of our lives have changed and moved into the digital world. Consuming virtual content for so long has become overwhelming, which is why it is essential that we keep being innovative in approaching our target groups on the web.
It seems as if getting people’s attention gets more challenging every day. It’s no longer just about speaking out loud that you have an awesome brand. In fact, it is all about establishing quality two-way communication with each individual that finds your brand appealing and useful.
This text is about useful methods you can use to approach your audience in 2021 and get more responses and conversions.
So, let’s get started.
Tip #1 – Explore new types of content
Every piece of information we want to share can be presented in different ways. Sure, it all comes down to text and image, but there are so many new options you can try out and make your brand unique in its approach.
Think out of the box. Be creative and honest when telling a story by making professional videos, animations, interactive graphs and charts, and infographics.
Go live and chat with your audience. Create webinars and find a way to include your target group in designing your next story.
Options are limitless. If it feels like your brand is not getting many responses, it is time to try out something new and bring the element of surprise into the equation.
Tip #2 – Be useful, not promotional
Times, when brands talked about how awesome they are to attract customers, are long gone. The way to win someone over now is through building trust and respect towards your brand.
Content marketing strategies that focus on sharing helpful and educational information are bringing a lot more ROI to the table than any other. Offer How-to stories and tutorials, reviews, and comparison charts that will bring some value to your target audience.
Pro tip: Recycle your content.
Sometimes the same information can be delivered in different ways and bring something new each time. For example, if you have shared the infographic on How to make an awesome media kit for your start-up, it can be useful to create a downloadable checklist for your users. That way they will get the tutorial plus a piece of content they can directly interact with.
Think of alternative ways to approach the same challenge that your competitors are facing. Use creativity to create a comic book page out of a video story, turn PDF pages into an online flipbook, design an interactive map to introduce a playful aspect of your brand.
Tip #3 – Nurture the dialogue
The sudden growth of the number of TikTok users has explained just how much you ought to be responsive – all the time. If someone is waiting for too long for you to answer a question or share something, they lose interest. So, it’s super important to always be present and keep the communication channels open.
Now, this is super challenging and even a whole team of social media managers find it struggling. However, there are some tricks to help you become more present.
My favorite strategy is to create the content and then schedule everything months in advance. This is a simple solution that gives you more time on a day-to-day basis to talk to your customers online and build a strong online presence.
Having a strong visual brand identity helps me out in creating these content calendars this many weeks ahead. All I have to do is to map out the meaningful stories to share and then simply design the content accordingly, following the brand guidelines.
There are many tools that I find useful to schedule posts on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and other platforms.
Tip #4 -Build smarter partnerships
Your brand can benefit a lot from good quality partnerships with other powerful brands that target the same audience. But, also, being promoted by the media channels that reach out to your potential customers is always a good investment.
In the age of technology, there are many ways you can go about your outreach strategy. One way is to hire teams of people to execute your plans manually, and the other is to invest in smart software solutions.
Just like with scheduling your content on social media – the same principles can apply to any other tactics of reaching out to your audience. For example, creating collaborations with influencers require a lot of personal contact and a fair share of cold emails to be sent on a number of addresses. Tools such as Respona can help you automatize this process and send personalized proposals to your potential partners in only a few minutes.
Press distribution services online are an excellent way to go when you are about to announce something to the media. There are many options you can choose regarding the software and services you wish to use to optimize your internal processes, that will help you reach a wider audience and involve them in your brand’s story.
By collaborating with other brands and media channels, you are not only expanding your audience but are also introducing a greater value to your existing followers. Recommending other brands that are interesting to your customers can raise interest in your products and position you highly in the eyes of the audience.
How do you go about your communication with your brand’s followers? Are you experimenting with any new practices, channels, or strategies?