Making your Social Networking Campaign More Natural

Robotic sales-oriented posts/comments must be avoided at all costs on social media platforms, as the overwhelming majority of netizens on Facebook, Twitter and other sites do not follow/like businesses just to see posts of advertising.  This doesn’t mean that you can never do such posts, it just means that one should keep in mind the purpose of social media and what people really want to see.

First let’s orient ourselves by making sure we understand our nomenclature. Oxford defines Social Networking as:

“the use of dedicated websites and applications to interact with other users, or to find people with similar interests to oneself.”

http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/social-networking

The operative phrase in that definition is ‘interact with other users’. This must be differentiated from the concept that social media posts are just another megaphone used to get your message to the masses. Let’s see how you can make your posts more human and thus more successful.

Emotion

When posting, post in the first person (use ‘I’, do not use ‘we’), and use reflexive pronouns (myself, yourself), as well as subjective words to show feeling and state-of-mind (satisfying, annoying, odd, heart-warming).

Commonplace Vernacular

Technical jargon and five-dollar-words have their place indeed but not anywhere in social media posts. You can’t have a successful interaction with someone if the words you are using are causing them to non-comprehend you. Use every-day language (but of course nothing rude), as well as understood but infrequently used words, in order to make an impression.

Casual

Keep the tone and subject you’re writing about the same as if you were posting on your own personal Facebook. This doesn’t mean that you can’t post something related to your products and services, by all means you should but it must be done in that same candid, friendly, human fashion.

To help make posts more casual use references to current events, issues and general pop culture. As they are something your readers are familiar with and something of interest, it builds affinity.