Having a social presence vs. being present on social
By Liz Bartges, FerebeeLane
When a brand attempts to leverage social media to promote a product or a service – or simply uses it to tell people how wonderful they are – are they starting a conversation or a monologue? Are they ready for the way social media communities can drive culture, or are they just steering them straight to a destination they’ve chosen?
Many brands treat social media as a megaphone that sends messages in one direction. If they are launching a new product, they often plan out all their content in advance – creating posts that will tease the product, announce the launch, and continue the momentum. But people don’t go on social for a list of reasons to buy a product. They go on social media to be entertained and to explore their passions.
Social media platforms have given audiences the power to drive social media culture – and a brand that can tap into their audiences’ obsessions creates powerful emotional connections that can turn into conversations.
Brands that fail to understand and connect with social media culture are destined to come across as out of touch. Because there’s a big difference between having a presence on social media and actually being present.
There are four key pillars to being truly present on social media.
1) Live Your Core Truth
To fully show up on social media in a way that resonates with your target audience, your brand must live what I call its core truth – the way its purpose and personality line up with its audiences’ passions to create an emotional connection. Your core truth is not simply your product’s value, but the value you’re bringing to an audience.
Take the case of Pearson Farm, a 5th-generation premium peach and pecan farm located in Fort Valley, Georgia. Their customers formed an avid community that loved their high quality goods. But Pearson felt they needed to better articulate their brand story as a local farmer to the nation.
They are a friendly, down-to-earth family whose peaches and pecans come with a helping of family, hospitality, and generosity, what became known as a core truth of “Farm-Fresh Love.” By conveying that, they built an emotional connection with their audience.
Instead of just showcasing their products, they began to create content that brought people into the experience of coming to the farm to feel their love for the land and for nourishing their customers. Sharing that genuine love created a meaningful connection between that core truth of farm-fresh love and an audience eager to share that love with others.
An effective social media strategy isn’t just about setting a narrative – it’s about being a part of, and contributing to, relevant communities. Knowing and living a core truth helps you understand who you show up for – and how. It ensures you will never abandon your story or who you are, so even as you draw in new audiences, your existing community never feels left behind.
2) Join the conversation
To join the conversation, you first need to understand the conversation – which is what makes social listening so important. Don’t just listen to the channels you are already on. Find all the places where you and your competitors are being talked about.
If you understand your core truth and your audience, you’ll understand how you should be showing up, and when it makes sense to join in on a trending conversation. You’ll also recognize when a trend won’t help you; some of the biggest debacles on social media are when companies jump on a trend that doesn’t align with their core truth.
This kind of proactive community engagement strategy is best done by those who are native to these platforms. Look to Gen Z and even the creator community to find those who are truly immersed in a particular channel. Their information can help you connect with niche communities around the world, allowing you to stop trying to be all things to all people. If you can energize communities to love you as a brand, they will spread that love far and wide.
3) Be ready to respond
After a TikToker shared a video of her Stanley drinking cup surviving a car fire, the post went viral. Many people commented that Stanley should sponsor the TikToker.
Stanley President Terence Reilly thanked the TikToker for posting the video, noting that “it couldn’t be a better example of our product’s quality. We haven’t done this before, and we probably won’t do it again, but we want to replace your vehicle.”
That sort of real-time response can only happen if you are both listening and prepared to act. By doing the right thing right away, instead of spending a week plotting out a response, Stanley joined that conversation in an authentic way that showed the audience that they were present and listening.
4) Establish partnerships
On social media, people follow people. That’s why it’s so powerful to create partnerships with those who can speak authentically to their community. While influencers’ ability to use their personal brand to sell products is powerful, I’m more fascinated by the creator space. Creators are aligned with the culture, able to grasp the significance of trends and create content that resonates authentically within the community. This gives brands a personal voice, helping them to foster and grow genuine relationships.
In the same way that your brand eventually needs to move beyond your most obvious communities, you should look beyond the most obvious partnerships. Pearson Farm has formed great partnerships with chefs and cookbook authors. We began to look at the other communities that could find meaning in their story – home chefs who loved to create and trade recipes, city dwellers who dream of country living, and people who love gardening and growing their own fruits and vegetables through their own hard work.
To extend the brand beyond peach season, Pearson Farm partnered with an artisan/crafter who created peach holiday ornaments, which also played into Pearson’s core truth of “crafted by hand with love and care.” They could easily move beyond their target audience to people with an interest in sustainable farming or composting, given their care for the land and the environment. Those slightly less obvious partnerships can open up entirely new audience niches.
To Be Heard on Social, Be Present
One of the exciting aspects of social media is that it’s constantly evolving. But even as social changes, the most effective strategies for strengthening a brand remain those that harness the power of communities to drive social culture – instead of trying to wrestle it to the ground.
If your brand chooses dialogue over monologue, engages authentically with its communities, remains ready to respond to its audience, and stays consistent with its own core truth, then you will have more than just a perfunctory social media presence. Instead, your brand will be part of the community and truly present.