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A question I get frequently from small business owners is “how do I get more fan engagement.” This question can point to the lack of a developed social media strategy, or at least an underdeveloped content strategy, or the need to tweak their existing strategy.

As marketers of any brand, there are two assets we can work with – time and money. Large companies (Starbucks, Nike, etc) have almost endless amounts of money and time to spray content out to a wide variety of audiences. Small businesses have one of these assets and that is time, which we need to spend wisely targeting the people we enjoy working with; those who know, like and trust us and will recommend us to everyone they know.

As you know, social media and contemporary marketing as a whole relies on ROE – Return On Engagement. There are many pitfalls small business owners fall into that contribute to minimal engagement in the content we produce – on your website (blog, vlog, audio) and on the social sites in which you participate.

Engagement Formula

The first is that you haven’t truly identified who your tribe is and therefore you are not creating content specifically for them, which means that you are probably trying to be ‘all things to all people’ which translates to serving no one online. The content that twenty somethings want to consume is very different from that of the sixty year olds, as one illustration of this point.

The second, is that you are not giving them content in the format they want to receive it. This point ties directly in with the previous because knowing the demographics and behaviors of your tribe is key to deciding what type of content to deliver. For instance, is your content primarily text based and does it point people to countless articles on your site and other sites? This tends to work well for readers who are over 50, however, if you don’t shake up your content and delivery now and then, you may see drops in participation.

As another example, is your tribe made up primarily of 30-somethings? In this case, you’ll definitely want a healthy mixture of video, images, audio, and some written content.

The third is the content itself. Producing content that is strictly related to your business can be boring, while producing “entertainment” content to your tribe can muddle your message. A healthy balance of educational subject matter expertise content and entertaining content is best. For example, if you are a cosmetic dentist who’s tribe is affluent women 45-65 years old, a healthy mix of content would be related to cosmetic dentistry (showing before and afters, videos of case studies, etc.) and also would share information about the community events she’s interested in and the articles on topics that matter most to her). This all, of course, requires getting to know your tribe well.

Your overall social media strategy is comprised of: Objectives, Tribe, Content, Team, Brand Guidelines, Onboarding, Channels, Tactics, Metrics, Monitoring, and Modifying. When these items are applied to your social media efforts, they will create engagement, and they will propel habit that you and your staff develop and adhere to and re-examine semi-annually for ultimate social media marketing success.

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June 2013 Issue