Conversation Bible: The master plan for social media engagement
Frankly, the daunting task of managing social media accounts or presence across platforms involves a lot of deliberate processes undergirded by a result-oriented strategy to ensure effective results. Interacting with your target audience consistently to influence their thinking, strongly connect to their social network of friends and deeply tap into their emotional nerves to build brand loyalty is not the result of chance. It is an art and science of effective engagement.
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Social media is a huge messaging channel, as well as a massive maze of clutter and noise. To stand out or get the attention of your target audience, you must earn it. Since there are countless things begging for the time and attention of your existing and potential audience, you must interact and engage creatively and professionally.
Engagement sustains the attention of fans and followers and wins them over as loyal fans/followers or voluntary advocates. It builds affinity and relevance with the community of fans and followers on your social media accounts. That is what makes social media users prefer your presence as against your competitors or other competing accounts. It does not come cheap and easy.
Fruitless interactions and ineffective influence are the results of unguided engagement. Social media account managers cannot be effective in responding to inquiries, feedbacks and providing company information with a document to guide them. The in-house social media management teams usually have a greater measure of information to provide to the queries that come from their social media audience than third party managers. But both of them will achieve better results if they are guided by a master document for the social media interactions.
The Conversation Bible
Based on extensive research and consultancies for businesses, I developed the Conversation Wheel of Engagement model to provide a better direction for social media managers to engage with their target audience intimately and purposefully with the right information.
With this model, businesses and brands can create the Conversation Bible to guide their interactions and engagement with deliberate precision. The Conversation Bible entails the following chapters:
1. Objectives and Goals: This is the first chapter of the Conversation Bible. The social media objectives and goals (as set and clearly stated in the social media strategy used to manage the social media accounts) must be explained succinctly and unambiguously. All the activities, interactions, campaigns and conversations which take place on social media must achieve the set objectives.
2. Company Information: Detailed profile of the company or business must be stated in verses (numbered) with each relevant information as a standalone. The numbering of the profile makes for easier references by the social media management team. Company information must include company history, the vision and mission, the problems the company is solving, the unique selling proposition, the brand values, awards or accolade, management team, branches, retailers or suppliers, terms of payment, customer service contact, social media accounts, list of the products and services, brands the company sells, profile of target customers, working hours and other relevant company information.
3. Products and Services: The next chapter is the information on products and services. All the products and services must be stated by their names and by their features, benefits, prices, warranty, payment terms, quality standards, certifications, awards, endorsements, usage, application processes, testimonials, discounts and any salient information. This is important to the target audience so must be treated as such. Product ignorance or misinformation about social media managers have dire consequences on your business bottom-line and return on investment.
4. Inquiries and Feedback: This chapter should be developed using the list of inquiries and feedbacks the company gets from all existing customers, whether they are on social media or not. The existing Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) of the company must be added or used to create this chapter and any other chapter with the respectively relevant information from the FAQs.
5. Comments and Reactions: It is of utmost importance, as a businesses, that you anticipate, simulate and know the comments your customers will make on your various social media posts. Previous and old interactions or offline in-shop and physical contact can serve as resources. Compile all those comments and reactions into this chapter to offer a better guide for social media managers to use. Use this chapter to address or manage sensitive information and crisis-related contents and comments. Indicate the response time for comments or reactions.
6. Tagging and Referrals: These are online word of mouths. You must state how you will respond to the tagging of your accounts in the positive or negative posts and comments of your audience. You can neglect some of the tagging if they are not really relevant. However, it will work to your advantage to tap into that earned visibility to engage your audience. This chapter must state which posts or comment you will respond to or ignore as well as how you will respond creatively in real time.
7. Promotions and Campaigns: State all the previous and current promotions or campaigns you are running. It must have the name, objectives, benefits, prizes, requirements, deals, discounts, processes, benefits and legal endorsements. This chapter must be updated as often as there is a pending campaign or promotion so the social media managers are aware of the information to provide the social media audience when request is placed. A lot of interactions occur during promotions and campaigns so you must train your managers to be up to date and up to task with every necessary information or detail to engage in real time.
The writer is a certified Digital Marketer, Social Media Coach, Advertiser, Tech Preacher and Facilitator.
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