Is Your Brand’s Social Media Engagement Genuine?

For brands to find success on social media sites, they have to ensure that engagement with their consumers is genuine. Being open to customer feedback, making sure your brand is honest and authentic, and demonstrating what’s meaningful to your company endears customers to you, according to Mashable contributor Valerie Buckingham.

“If you’re not listening and engaging in a candid manner, you run the risk of having a message that doesn’t resonate, or worse, creates a backlash, calling into question not just what you’re trying to say via social media, but across all outbound communication channels,” writes Buckingham. “For a brand, that’s bad news.”

Since the millennial generation grew up with the Internet, Buckingham says that they can easily spot when your company is being inauthentic. She suggests hiring different individuals to manage social media accounts and directly deal with customers, as well as listening up and finding out what millennials value and find “real, cool, and interesting.” She also says that brands must pinpoint what their messages mean to their customers, while also asking for honest feedback.

Check out the Twitter accounts of brands doing it right in order to see these principles in action. Jet Blue, for example, replies to customer complaints and inquiries in nearly every tweet. The company admits when it’s wrong, offering customers credits for inconveniences.

Consumers are smarter than brands realize. To succeed via social media, transparency, honest, and authenticity are essential.

Image courtesy of Flickr, kexino