Why your business should maintain a positive presence on social media

Social media has a ton of benefits to offer businesses and brands that understand how to best use these platforms.

Even in tough or uncertain times, such as those that the entire country is experiencing during the new coronavirus (COVID0-19) outbreak, businesses can reach new or existing customers with effective messaging on social media.

Right now, though, it’s the positive and uplifting messaging that your audience will appreciate the most. Your business should stay active - or become more active - on social media during this time and focus on positive, hopeful and uplifting to create a better connection with your audience that will likely last longer than the COVID-19 outbreak.

Don’t put your business’s social media activity on hold

As the COVID-19 situation evolves, many people are choosing or being directed to stay in their homes. Many of them are still working, but they are also using social media now more than ever.

People still want to connect while practicing social distancing. Social media offers those ways to connect. Since it is almost a guarantee that the bulk of your customers are using social media networks, you would do well to ensure your business is also being social at this time.

Your existing audience will very likely appreciate hearing from your business, too, especially if the content you are sharing has a more optimistic and positive vibe.

Positivity is powerful on social networks

One of the keys for any brand to attract and retain a large, loyal following on social media is for the brand to tap into the emotions of its followers. And, when it comes to social media, positivity from brands goes a lot further than any other type of emotion.

Now, we all know that there is plenty of negativity that at least appears to thrive on social media. Hopefully, though, it is fairly clear why negativity is a no-go for businesses. Positive posts on social media tend to encourage others to also share positive updates. The same is true for negative posts.

Again, hopefully, it’s clear which of these emotions you want an audience to associate with your brand. If someone sees a post from your business on one of the social platforms you are active on, it is much more valuable for their interaction with your business to be a positive experience.

That’s just basic customer service knowledge, right?

Positivity boosts follower numbers

Want to get more followers? Try posting more positive updates to social media.

According to a report from Dan Zarrella, being positive while crafting social media posts is one of the five “scientifically-proven” ways to get more followers.

In his report, Zarrella focused on data gleaned from Twitter over years of research. Negative social remarks tend to scare away followers. That includes emotions like sadness, aggression, morbid comments and other negative emotions. All of those are best to avoid.

Per Zarrella, Twitter accounts with the most followers - on average - tended to stay away from negative tweets.

Positivity creates impact

Every business should seek to connect with followers on social media. This is how followers develop a relationship of sorts with their favorite brands. In turn, that relationship encourages more followers to become customers.

That’s the kind of impact every brand should want to achieve from its social media efforts, right?

To create that kind of impact, though, businesses need to do three things: stay engaged, focus on quality and remain consistent.

Those suggestions come from a Forbes article that we highly recommend. Let’s unwrap those tips a little more.

Stay engaged

Social media’s entire purpose is to connect with others. This is true for both individual and business users. Stay engaged with customers and partnering brands. Learn what they do and keep close track of what works. Like, share and comment their interactions with your brands if they are positive and on-brand for your business.

Focus on quality

When evaluating your own posts, know that engagements like comments and shares, rather than likes and views. As Forbes puts it - and we couldn’t agree more - 1,000 engaged viewers are much more valuable than 10,000 general viewers.

View content creation as a pyramid

Creating good content takes time, but so does seeing the benefits from all that content being posted to social media. Stay consistent and post often. At the same time, be patient before expecting to see the results flow in. If you put in the time and the effort, then the results will come.

How to start writing positive social media messages

Ready to hit the ground running with a new goal to be more positive on social media? Buffer provides these tips for how to write positive posts:

1. Include exclamation points in your posts!
2. Use positive, uplifting language and words.
3. Reference other people (followers, partners, other businesses) on your page in a positive manner. Be sure to tag (use the @ function) when naming specific people or businesses.
4. Ask questions for your followers to answer.
5. Include bright pictures of people. The more smiles, the better!

Track social sentiment

Dive deeper after you have set out on a more positive social media campaign by tracking social sentiment.

Social sentiment is how people on those networks perceive the mood of the message your brand sends out or the engagement it receives on social media.

Ideally, your business wants a positive social sentiment. Keep track of social sentiment

Tracking social sentiment gives you a look at how your audience reacts to messaging, helps you create better messages (do more of what works) and can lead to better customer service experience for those that follow you online.

There are several tools available for tracking social sentiment, including Hootsuite Insights, Digimind, Brandwatch and Mentionlytics, just to name a few. These help identify what emotions may be more prominent among your audience across social networks.

Emagine will craft your brand image on social media

Part of succeeding in social media marketing is knowing how to connect with your customers on a more personal level.

That’s where Emagine can help you thrive.

We can set up a strong social media presence on every popular platform, including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and more. We’ll show you how to design and complete successful social campaigns that get real results, such as converting followers into customers.

Let’s talk more about how we can help your business and its social media goals. Schedule a free consultation.