Different people use social media for completely different purposes

You, as a brand or an online marketer, see social media as a channel for reaching your audience and spreading your messages. But how does your audience see social media?

Aside for being your customers, they are also humans, right? They have friends and family and they also use social media for connecting with them. They also have hobbies and many other interests besides your products to include in their social activity.

So, what drives them into welcoming you in their social news stream? And more than that, how could you keep their interest alive and avoid being ignored among all the other exciting posts on their walls?


A study made by Exact Target (a social media and e-mail marketing services company) highlights the reasons people have for ending their connections with brands on social platforms.

These reasons are at the bottom of your audience’s dissatisfaction and, therefore at the bottom of their expectations. And knowing what expectations your audience has from you, is the key to engage and retain them in your social circle.

So, based on this study’s results, I came up with these three types of social fellows, each to be engaged differently:

1. Material driven

These are people that connect with you through contests, special promotions, coupons or other promotional campaigns you run and you need to offer something in return for them to join you on social networks.

Their main purpose is to win prizes, get discounts, free trials, free stuff (products, membership, etc) or other material benefits. 27% from the people inquired for the social study said the reason they stop following brands on Twitter was because they only followed the company to take advantage of a one time offer.

How to engage them

• Run your promotions over longer periods of time. Thus you will increase the chances of engaging the participants in a permanent relationship with your brand.

• Request more interaction from the participants than just a subscription/registration/sign up. If they are required to act several times along the promotion (you don’t need to ask them complicated things to do) they might have the chance to get to know you better, to get accustomed with your brand and maybe find other things they like from you.

• Don’t let any of the participants disappointed even if they didn’t win the big prize. Come up with a consolation reward for those who didn’t make it through the contest (it might be as small and effortless as a “thank you” email for entering the promotion) but don’t end it quietly.

• Announce or let them foresee your upcoming contests and promotions. The study I was mentioning before showed that 24% of those questioned unliked brands on Facebook because these brands didn’t offered enough deals.