The media with connecting their peoples

I have to be honest, the headline is a bit hypocritical. I spend most of my time helping businesses embrace the opportunity to understand customer needs and engage with them in ways that they appreciate and value. Contrary to popular belief however, everyday consumers aren’t flocking to social media to build relationships with their favorite brands or local businesses. The truth is that consumers are using the likes of Twitter, Facebook, Google Plus, et al. to connect with friends and family. But, that’s not all. People also follow those who help them better understand the world around them, share their interests, or introduce moments of desired distractions.

As consumer use of social media matures, their expectations grow. Your challenge is whether or not your organization can not only meet their needs, but anticipate and exceed them. This is the time to stop looking at social media as merely media in social channels and to start getting to know customers and their priorities and designing programs and a supporting infrastructure that socializes customer and employee facing roles, departments, and functions.

How to connect with people through social media

So you have a Facebook fan page, Twitter account or other social media tool and you’re wondering what to post and how to get your fans and followers to engage in a conversation with you. This is the article for you…

Make a plan

Social media is typically spontaneous. People usually post things as they happen – like a news outlet of sorts. That doesn’t mean you have to constantly be checking and posting to your social media apps. With some careful planning and some secret tools – like HootSuite – you can create a months worth of posts more and schedule them in advance. This is an incredible time saver and it enables you to reach visitors in different time zones or keep your fans engaged while you’re on vacation. You can still post spontaneously, and use the scheduled content as a backup for when you’re too busy to keep up or your creativity is momentarily tapped.

What trends do you foresee in social media activism?

With all the information and noise making it harder and harder to get the attention of social media users, I think things will become even more targeted and focused while really looking to make change. It’s very difficult to make a difference using one channel over another, so integrating communications and targeting people in the places will be even more essential. I think social really needs to continue to adapt to changing times and decreased attention spans by being flexible and easy to integrate.

How did you use social media to respond post-Sandy?

I see my job during these disastrous events as a person who keeps the media covering stories and I peruse our channels for mentions of wildlife in distress. We tend to get a ton of questions online and I try to use our online communities to solve problems and help people help wildlife when we can’t directly help them.