How to Integrate Empathy-Based Marketing into Your Social Media Strategy
Four Strategies for Increasing Social Media Engagement and Reach
You’ve been spending more time on social media during the pandemic if you’re like 44% of people worldwide. We’ve been able to stay in touch thanks to social media, whether we’re checking Twitter to catch up on the latest news or chatting with family on Facebook.
But as the owner of a small business, do you spend more time being sympathetic on social media?
Empathy, on the other hand, refers to putting oneself in the position of another person. Sympathy is sometimes misunderstood as compassion for another person.
By understanding your clients, you can more readily serve them.
The Merriam-Webster definition of empathy is as follows: the capacity or act of comprehending, being aware of, and sensitive to the feelings, thoughts, and experiences of another person.”
All of your marketing materials, from your website copy to your social media strategy, should be written with empathy in mind.
You should be willing to put in the time and effort to ensure that your communications are not only engaging but also empathetic to what people are going through because social media offers such a great way to interact with a large audience.
The research for the Braze Brand Humanity Index found that about 65% of people were more loyal to brands with which they had a personal connection.
Here are four ways a small business owner can build a social media presence using more sympathetic content marketing to help them connect with customers and stay connected.
1. Create a map of empathy.
This could be a good first step to get you closer to your customer’s mind. Empathy mapping gives you a better understanding of your customer, which was originally a tool used in the design and agile development industries. Typically, it is divided into four quadrants: says, ponders, acts, and experiences
You begin to think of questions like, “What are your target customers’ personas?”
1. Why do you require my item?
2. How do you feel, think, act, or say when you use my product?
3. What are some of your worries or sources of stress?
4. How can my product help you achieve your objectives?
Using the language you imagine your customer would use, write down his or her thoughts. You’ll be able to create a social media presence using messages that resonate with your followers as their needs, wants, desires, hopes, fears, and goals become more apparent.
2. Learn how your clients feel.
To sell your products, I’m not talking about playing on their fears; rather, I’m talking about thinking about how your product makes them feel.
A brand helped lessen the anxieties of their smallest customers in this way. The “KittenScanner,” created by Philips, is a miniature version of a CAT scanner that is used by doctors to teach children about MRIs and make them feel at ease. Children can test it out with toy animals, putting the fun ahead of the process.
Although it was developed in 2004, it is still mentioned as a means of reducing the need for sedation in health journals, videos, and on social media. How could you position your brand in a way that helps customers feel less stressed out?
3. Make good use of social listening.
Social listening is all about keeping an eye on your channels of communication for mentions of your brand and competitors, as well as specific keywords and comments.
You can learn a lot about what your followers like, dislike, want, and need from you by “listening” to them in this way. You might see a tweet from a satisfied customer who loved your product on Twitter. Alternately, you might hear from someone who was dissatisfied with the length of time it took for customer service to respond to a complaint.
Not only do you get information about how your small business is doing, but you also have the chance to improve customer service and modify a product or process that isn’t working with social listening.
4. Encourage customers to act.
An ideal strategy for increasing social media engagement and reach is to demonstrate to your customers that you have faith in them. Consider the service or product you provide to your clients. How could you convince them to use it to entertain themselves or add value to their lives?
A social media sharing of an infographic by Home Depot, for instance, inspired customers to grow a living salad bowl for themselves. Even though this infographic has very little branding, it still supports Home Depot’s marketing strategy by showing what can be done with their products.
Remember your branding whenever you use empathy-based marketing to expand social media reach and engagement. For instance, if your brand voice is “fun, upbeat, and confident,” engaging your audience with humor might be the most effective strategy.
If it is “down-to-earth, considerate, and approachable,” a message that is more sincere and emotional may be the most effective way to communicate with your clients.
To save time and money, don’t forget to develop a social media marketing strategy!
Web Specialist, Business & Marketing Consultant, and Social Media Advisor, Susan Friesen is the founder of eVision Media, an award-winning digital marketing and web development company. She works with business visionaries who battle with having the absence of information, ability and backing expected to make their internet based business presence.
Clients who work with Susan and her team are able to focus on building their businesses with peace of mind knowing that the best support system is in place to guide them every step of the way. This gives them confidence and relief because they know that their online marketing is in the hands of trustworthy and caring people.
