A Good Social Strategy Is 80 Percent Listening, 20 Percent Talking

Cracking the code to a thriving social media presence is a tough task for any small business. Here’s a good rule of thumb: A good social media strategy should be 80 percent listening and 20 percent talking. Studying your Twitter followers is essential because you need to know your audience, why they’re watching you, and what you can do to spark a conversation.

On Twitter, a “conversation” can mean a few specific things: “retweeting” or sharing something you’ve posted, “favoriting” a post, or replying to your business directly. And there’s only one guaranteed way to get people to engage with you: Give them something they care about. That’s the difference between being a “sign spinner” and a storyteller. Offer your followers something they find valuable, and they’ll offer you engagement in return.

The worst thing you can do is engage in mindless, repetitive self-promotion. You’ll only achieve an “unfollow” — possibly a hundred times over. To make sure you aren’t talking about yourself too much, only make one out of five posts a self-promotional tweet. The rest should be useful articles, news, commentary, or even funny videos — something that offers your followers a reason to share and engage.

So, where can you find content that’s relevant to your target audience and meaningful for your company’s brand? The easiest way is to let your followers tell you. Here are a few ways to determine what content will resonate with your Twitter following:

• See what your followers have in common. TNaturally, one thing your followers have in common is your business. But what else do they share? Jobs, hobbies, TV shows, music — all these things can help you build a better understanding of your average follower and what he finds important.
• Find out which followers are influential. Klout can tell you which followers have a lot of interactions on different social networks. News organizations and established bloggers usually have high Klout scores, for example. These are good followers to watch and engage with. If your small business can get a retweet from one of these users, then a much larger audience will see your content and come to know your brand.
• Listen to what they’re talking about. Check out a few people who’ve interacted with you on Twitter. Which topics and media are they sharing? These are the things your followers care about — and what you should care about, too.
• Look beyond your brand. What other brands is your audience excited about? These other businesses belong to your “brand circle.” Tweet and post about them, and guess what? Nine times out of 10, they’ll do the same for you.