When it comes so social media, one word defines your level of success. That one word is “engagement”. It’s easy to go to the various social networking sites and set up a profile. All it takes is a few minutes out of your day, and as long as you have a decent picture you can pretty much have a great presence right away. It’s the same when it comes to blogging, micro-blogging or any of the photo and video sharing sites on the web.
The real work comes after you have the profiles open. Despite what many say, they will not necessarily come just because you built it. You will need to start putting in a lot of work into your little corner of the Internet. And when I say work, I don’t mean adding widgets to your blog and uploading a bunch of pictures either. I mean, actually going out into the social network and starting to engage your target market.
This is the part where you need to roll up your sleeves and start thinking of the ways in which you can start the dialog. Companies across the net are doing it with different levels of success. The bottom line is making your engagement strategy compelling. It must be creative and the user must feel like they are getting something out of the interaction.
Take a look at these two examples of customer engagement:
- eBillMe (YouTube) – a shopping confession video contest
- Colgate (Gather.Com) – sharing your smile
Both of these engagements are very creative and well put together social media engagements.