4 Ways to Increase Social Media Reach and Engagement

If you’re like 44% of people around the world, you’ve been spending more time on social media during the pandemic. Whether you’re catching up on the latest news on Twitter or chatting with your family on Facebook, social media has allowed us to stay connected.

But as a small business owner, do you spend more time on social media being empathetic?

Although it is sometimes confused with sympathy, which is feeling compassion for another person, empathy means putting yourself in someone else’s shoes.

By empathizing with your customers, you can serve them better.

Here’s Merriam Webster’s definition of empathy: “the action of (or the ability to) understand, be aware of, be sensitive to, and vicariously experience the feelings, thoughts, and experiences of another.”

It’s important to take an empathetic approach in all of your marketing materials, from your website copy to your social media strategy.

Because social media offers a great way to engage with a large audience, you need to be willing to put in the time and effort to ensure that your communications are not only engaging, but empathetic to what people are going through.

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READ: The importance of empathy-based marketingon our website.

As we move forward from COVID-19, empathy-based marketing is not only the right thing to do, your customers now expect it.

Many studies conducted during the pandemic show that people want brands to be more empathetic and aware of the long-term impact it will have on their lives.

Hopefully, you communicated authentically and empathetically with your clients during this time, and you will have to continue to do so! Here are 3 ways to use empathic content marketing…

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According to the Braze Brand Humanity Index research, around 65% of people were more loyal to brands with which they felt a human connection.

So to help you connect and stay connected with your customers, here are four ways a small business owner can build a social media presence with more empathetic content marketing.

1. Create an empathy map.

This can be a good first step in getting deeper into the mind of your customer. Originally a tool used in the agile design and development worlds, empathy mapping provides a deeper understanding of your customer. It usually falls into four quadrants: says, thinks, does, and feels.

With your target customer’s personality in the middle, start brainstorming questions, such as:

• Why do you need my product?
• How does using my product make you feel/think/do/say?
• What are some stressors/fears in your life?
• How does my product help you achieve your goals?

Write down your client’s thoughts the way you think they would express themselves. Your needs, desires, hopes, fears, goals, and dreams will begin to become clearer, and you’ll be able to create a social media presence with messages that resonate with your followers.

2. Tap into your customers’ emotions.

I’m not talking about playing on their fears to sell your products, but thinking about how your product makes them feel.

This is one way a brand has helped ease the fears of its smallest customers. Philips invented a miniature version of a CAT scanner called the ‘KittenScanner’, which doctors use to educate children about the MRI process and reassure them. Kids can try it out with toy animals, taking the focus away from their procedure and focusing on the fun.

It was created in 2004, but is still mentioned on social media, in videos, and in health magazines as a way to reduce the need for sedation. How could you position your brand in a helpful and stress-reducing way for your customers?

3. Use social listening to your advantage.

Social listening is about monitoring your communication channels for mentions of brands and competitors, and certain keywords and comments.

As you “listen” to your followers in this way, you can gain valuable insight into what they like, what they don’t like, what they want and need from you. You might see a tweet on Twitter from a satisfied customer who loved your product. Or, you might see a comment from someone who wasn’t impressed with how long it took for customer service to respond to a complaint.

With social listening, you not only gain insight into how your small business is performing, but you also have the opportunity to provide better customer service and change a broken process or product.

Four. Inspire customers to take action.

Showing your customers that you believe in them is an ideal way to increase social media reach and engagement. Think about the product or service you offer to your customers. How could you get them to use it to add value to their lives and/or entertain them?

For example, Home Depot encouraged its customers to grow a living salad bowl with an infographic that they shared on social channels. While there is minimal branding in this infographic, it still reinforces Home Depot’s marketing strategy of the things that are possible with their products.

No matter how you’re using empathy-based marketing to increase social media reach and engagement, remember your brand. For example, if your brand voice is “funny, upbeat, and confident,” using humor might be the best way to engage your audience.

If you’re “down-to-earth, thoughtful, and approachable,” a more heartfelt and emotional message might be the most effective way to talk to your customers.

And don’t forget to create a social media marketing plan to save time and money!