Five ways to attract learners through social media

The social media sphere keeps growing as more diverse platforms enter the big picture and start making their own impact on how people network. Businesses are hard-pressed to keep up with these changes.

We’re here to try and isolate the five most effective techniques businesses use to engage the audience. We’re going to discuss why these techniques work, what you need to do to execute them properly and what some common pitfalls of using them are. 

Keep in mind that these are just techniques and your brand will need to find ways to integrate them into their overall voice and approach.

1. Contests

The basic idea here is that you give something to get something back. Everyone loves free stuff and the competitive spirit is still very strong with people in the online environment. Organizing a contest which has a worthwhile prize will help you provoke a reaction from your audience very quickly.

This isn’t a direct way to bring a learner into your sales funnel but a way to put your brand into your audience’s eyes. You are playing the numbers with this one by giving away something for free, you are engaging a large group of people around your brand, hoping that some of them will make purchases even if they lose the contest.

Keep in mind that your prize needs to be worth the effort to enter the contest, otherwise most people won’t even bother entering. Depending on your goals, you might want to organize a contest which requires something simple, like entering an email address, or something as complicated as creating some kind of content. Remember, the more complex the road to victory is, the more valuable the prize has to be.

2. Knowledge

Business social media profiles may come off as stale if they don’t provide either entertainment or knowledge.

Sharing knowledge and establishing your personal or business brand as being a niche expert is one of the basic things recommended by most experts out there. This works better with brands that provide services and products in more complex niches that have a lot of nuance to them.

The only thing you need to figure out is how to present this knowledge and what to ask for in return. In most cases, it is presented in the form of videos, white papers, and ebooks. Brands usually ask for some kind of email opt-in in return.

Educating potential customers develops trust and ultimately, more trustworthy brands will generate more leads and convert them better.

3. Social media ads

Sometimes, you don’t really need to go farther than regular social media ads to get more customers. 

Generating new leads through ads has its fair share of advantages. If you have figured out the profile of your average customer, you can easily set the targeting of your social media ads to target the right crowd making lead generation and conversion more probable.

Sure, this requires an understanding of the advertising backend of the social media platform you intend to use but this is well worth it. With minimal investment and some foresight, you’ll be able to reach people who actually might have an interest in your offer instead of wasting your effort making impressions who have no chance of converting.

4. Social listening

One advantage that social media marketing offers over traditional marketing is the option to engage in a conversation with your audience. As with all dialogs, this will require you to have a knack for listening. 

Social listening is a way for brands to keep up with hot topics around communities and audience profiles. It is a way to stay current with the main topic of conversation discussed by relevant people. 

By using proper tools, your brand and brand ambassadors will have an opportunity to keep up with important subjects and join in so they can build your brand’s reputation and engage in social selling.

5. Content

It always comes back to content, doesn’t it? It’s just that there is no alternative to well crafted and engaging content. Almost all brands create content but most do it for the vague SEO benefits it provides while forgetting that well-crafted content is actually what brings most engagement and, ultimately, SEO improvements.

Figuring out the right content types, subject matters, and tone of delivery will help you keep your audience in touch with your brand. Soft selling through content is also a very good approach to engage customers with a sales pitch without being too pushy.

Don’t take it lightly though – Creating content of consistent quality is no easy task, especially in the long run. Create a content marketing plan and build up from there. This is constant work and if you neglect it, you might end up throwing your money down the drain.

We hope we manage to give you a few interesting ideas on how to engage and convert your audience into leads and ultimately, customers.