So you've got a Facebook company page (you do have one right?), you've got a Twitter account (and you're using it?), you've set up your company LinkedIn Profile (you got this, too, right?), you've set up your YouTube channel, reserved your company name on Pinterest and you're creating engaging and unique content on a regular basis...people are starting to “fan” you, “follow” you, “like” you, and all of the other social buzz words.

Now that you've got some folks following you, how do you go about increasing engagement with your fans? How do you connect and encourage social sharing? How do you go viral?

Here are 10 ways to increase social engagement with your fans...

1. Listen and Respond - have a conversation.
When your customers speak, respond and engage. Conversations are two way events, so be sure to respond to all of the comments, questions, or frustrations you receive.

2. Be Authentic.
It's critical to be real with your customers in the social arena. Customers can tell when they're getting spin, and they can tell when you really care. Be open, be honest, be authentic, and you'll increase social engagement dramatically.

3. Provide value, not just self-promotion announcements.
Nobody wants to hear someone talk about themselves all the time. Provide content that helps your fans grow, laugh, and experience epiphanies...content that they think is valuable.

4. Educate and Entertain, share images and videos.
People tend to share images and videos more than any type of content on the web. Take advantage of this by creating or sharing meaningful content with your users. You don't have to create all content; there is plenty of stuff on the web to share. You've just got to keep your eye out for the good stuff.

5. Provide Value.
The key to engaging with your customers online is providing value. Don't waste people's time. Provide content that helps them, encourages them, educates them. Provide a reason for people to follow you, read/watch your content, and share your ideas!

6. Make some irresistible offers.
Everyone loves a great deal. Reward your fans with specials that only they get to take advantage of. If the offer is interesting enough, they'll most likely share your offer with their friends...that's how viral marketing begins. I like it, my friends might like it, my friends' friends might like it. People often purchase what their friends recommend.

7. Take action.
When you receive constructive or destructive feedback via your social channels, take action. Own what you should own, defend what needs defending. Engage in the conversation - your customers are. This is a great opportunity to be authentic and provide value.

8. Provide Value.
The key to raising social engagement is providing unique and meaningful content that your customers can’t find elsewhere. If you want to increase social engagement provide value by becoming a thought leader!

9. Post often and regularly but don’t be annoying.
Your fans want to hear from you, learn from you, and engage with you, but it's important not to over saturate your message...otherwise it just becomes useless noise. Depending on your market, you probably only want to post a few times a day (people start tuning out if you post without value). For sure, post every day...or at least several times a week. But don’t be a spam poster...no one likes spam unless it's in the form of canned meat.

10. Provide Value.
And finally, provide value, provide value, provide value. This point can't be emphasized enough. People are busy, and they won't take the time to engage if it's not meaningful. Provide thought provoking content and you'll see social engagement rise.

Wrap-up
I know what you’re thinking...there aren’t 10 unique things in this list...what gives?...I must have 10 unique items! Well, the truth is...the best way you can engage with your followers is to provide incredible value and earn the right to be heard. By providing value through amazing content, your fans will be compelled to share your content.

Honor your audience with your best ideas, best thoughts, and best content. In doing so, you'll become the thought leader that your fans are looking for. A side benefit is you will better represent your organization or cause, you'll learn more personally, and you'll have clearer thoughts. It's a win win. In the new economy, it's no longer about telling people what to buy...it's a two-way conversation and the value providers win.

Watching “The Voice” this season, one of the guest coaches said of a contestant, “We know you're cute. What else you got?” This may be the very thing your customers are saying of you, “We know you can do ______________. What else do you have? When there are 100 options for the same thing, why should I buy from you?”

Provide value!

Continue the conversation by adding your thoughts in the comments below...or contact us today to see how we can help you engage with your customers.

You’ve got an amazing looking website; everything is just how you want it. Content is great, images are compelling, your customers clearly understand how to contact you, but no one is knocking on your digital door. These days, you can’t just build a new site and expect the global economy to blow your roof off. There is a lot of noise on the web and having a beautiful website is only the first step in having a successful online venture.

So, how do you tell the world that you’re open for business? One answer is Search Engine Optimization also known as SEO. About a decade ago you could program a few “meta” tags in the back end of your code and your site would be discovered by the search engines and - behold! - customers would come knocking. These days, things are a bit more involved. Search engines are smarter; they’ve had to evolve to stay ahead of keyword spammers and black-hat SEO practitioners. SEO has also evolved into more sophisticated Search Engine Marketing (SEM) strategies. Although the world of digital marketing has gotten more complex and there are many tactics available, there are still a few basic elements that should be addressed when beginning any SEO / SEM effort.

Search Engine Optimization: Meta Tags

The foundation of any SEO effort is to create quality meta tags using current best practice optimization rules. There are three primary tags to be concerned with: Title, Description, and Keyword tags.

Title Tag

The Title tag appears up in your browser's title bar when viewing a website and should contain no more than 66 characters. Google uses your page “Title” as the link in their search index. Place your most important keywords toward the front of the title tag.

Description Tag

Descriptions are no longer used to impact search ranking but they can be helpful to entice a user into clicking through to your site as it gives you an opportunity to tell them about your page before they visit. In some cases Google will not display the description and will substitute it with body content. Descriptions should be less than 150 characters. Both Titles and Descriptions should be unique for every page on your site so that the search engines know the content is different from page to page.

Keyword Tag

Keywords are not used by the major search engines any longer for ranking purposes due to the high amount of abuse over the last 15 years; however, it may still be useful to optimize this meta tag for some lesser known search engines.

Body Content Optimization

Content is the new king metric of internet search engines. (Check out this video from Coke on content marketing). As a result, if you want to rank well with Google, Bing, or Yahoo, you’ve got to have great content. Make sure that your body content is interesting, sharable, and has a high saturation of keywords for your targeted audience. Ideally, each page of your site should have a single focus and be engaging. Definitely do not try to create pages that are just stuffed with keywords in an attempt to trick the engines, they’re smart enough these days to understand good content from keyword spam content and before you know it, you’re page will be removed from their indexes.

Site Popularity

Site Popularity, like content is another major factor in page ranking these days. The search engines use very complex algorithms to see how popular your site is on the web. Essentially, the more websites that link to your site or the more your site is mentioned in the Social Web the more popular your site is. Thus, it is essential to engage in social media and to develop rapid followers who like to talk about what you’re doing. The best way to get people talking about you is to provide good content worth talking about as well as easy methods for people to share your content.

Google+ Pages

Beyond SEO, Content Marketing, and Social Media another excellent way for businesses to be found on the web is through setting up a Google+ Pages (formerly Google Places) profile on Google. This allows local customers to quickly and easily find your business. Google+ Pages often appear before organic search results. Be sure and claim your space today!

Clear Conversion Path

Once you’ve started driving new potential customers to your site, it’s critical to provide a clear and easy way for the site visitor to connect with you socially, contact you traditionally, or convert into a customer. Provide your phone number, email signup capability, blog RSS feeds, social icons, widgets, and forms - all of which allow the visitor to engage at an appropriate level with your organization.

Conclusion

Well, that’s a lot to absorb! Take it one step at a time or hire a great company like Strategy to assist you with getting started in Search Engine Optimization. Remember: there are no Silver Bullet SEO tactics (just hard, consistent, good work) and just because you built it, doesn’t mean that people will magically show up. You’ve got to tell them about the site, and you’ve got to provide value in your content that is worth talking about and worth following.