Humanize your brand

It seems to be the the new trend in online advertising. "We will advertise on Twitter or Facebook to sell more".  This is the motto of a lot of companies nowadays. They forget the volatility of the audience on these Social Media. Here are 5 tips to preserve the humanity in the action of a company when posting on Social Media  :

1) It is not always about sales

Can you advertise on Social Media? Can you promote your new product or service? Of course that's why we are here right? Your followers, fans have to hear about your brand and product, but not all day long. Keep in mind that 90% of your time online needs to be employed to promote your brand image, your humanity, and 10% on pure promotion. You have to provide added value to your follower that give him/her a reason to follow you. Talk about the industry, share info about new trends, show your company "behind the scenes" etc...

2) Involve your influencers into your communication.

Start discussions, let them express their opinions and advice. Invite the most active of them to special events to make them feel part and parcel of the process of communication. They will turn into the ambassadors of your brand.

3) Involve the fans in your strategy.

Create contests, debates, polls to make them feel they are important to your company. And by doing so, you prove that there are human beings behind the screens, and not only robots posting the new product ad over and over

4) Be entertaining

It takes less than 3 seconds for somebody on social media to decide if they will follow you or not, whether your content is worth their time or not. That is the reason why we insist that much on the quality of the content you post. Once it is online, that's it. You may have deleted it two second after but it has been viewed. The content is the key of the entertainment of the fan or the follower.

5) Listen and reward your audience

It is fine to apply those tips and tricks and get to look like a human brand, but if you don't listen to the discussions, the comments you initiated, this would be worthless. A relationship on social media goes both ways. Your audience gives you hindsight on the market from a customer point of view, you give a special promotion for those who follow you. Here you can apply the system of the coupons (that we all receive daily in our mailbox) but as a reward for your audience.

If we summarize the tips we gave today, they are common rules of marketing that were applied before the rise of social media and the web 2.0 . The difference here is the ability of your audience to pass over you and unfollow you. Be yourself, be human and take it EZ.