Social Media: A Love Story [INFOGRAPHIC]

Is your social strategy working? If your Facebook page looks like a giant ad, your answer to this question will be a bleak ‘No.’

‘Spray and pray’ doesn’t work for brick and mortar, so why should the Internet be any different?

Well-executed social strategies are powerful for relationship building. When your brand goes the extra mile, your customers will notice — and with social media, your customers will notice publicly.

Social & romance: The analogy

The smart folks at HubSpot have pointed out that social media is a lot like dating. If you want something to happen, you need to put some muscle behind it.

Keep the conversation going so that you can really get to know them. Then seal the deal with a personal gesture. If you love where this analogy is going, you’re in luck — here’s more: Twitter is like a party. Full of buzz and swarming with people, here’s a setting where everyone seems to be in their own worlds — until that one tweet stops you dead in your tracks.

After you’ve built the relationship and continued the conversation, you need to keep the love alive.

It’s all about people

Couples fight — and it’s okay. Especially in the world of online commerce, things can go wrong. Shipments get lost, credit cards get overcharged, and products fail to meet expectations.

What’s key is how your brand handles it. Social media is a channel to keep communication healthy. Be prompt, show that you care, and go the extra mile to make sure that your customers are happy. More important than ‘what went wrong’ is how you can make the situation better.

Let the people behind your brand shine through. Be empathetic and personable — especially if something went wrong. To your customers, that human-to-human connection will feel like a breath of fresh air.

Relationships are scalable

HubSpot points out a key fact — that social media relationships are scalable. One-to-one relationships are tough to maintain, especially once your fan community crosses the 1,000-mark. You need to build a machine in addition to the romance.

Social is hard work, but you know what? The bonds are well-worth it.