I remember when I was 14 years old [and x9 months], i.e the.exact.legal.age required to work in Australia at the time, I got a job at my local McDonalds [circa 1990’s, so … $5.81 per hour, ha!], and I had the stock-standard-daggy McDonalds Manager ripping out pearlers like, “if you’ve got time to lean? … you’ve got time to clean”.
I swore to myself, if I ever progress to management in anything, I’ll never resort to daggy-anything’s to motivate my team. And yet, here I am, age 36, and constantly listening to myself pulling out semi lame [but in my defence? Filled with truth] digital marketing quotes like, “don’t forget guys, conversation = conversion”, which is basically a constant reminder to our entire team that if we’re going to inspire conversion for our eComm clients? … we’re gon’ need conversation [engagement], … and lots of it.
The thing is though, they don’t need reminding. To be perfectly honest? If you’re going to land a job at TDP HQs? … engagement / humanisation of brands / conversational copy / et. al is going to be about as much your religion, as it is mine.
For us? Conversation [engagement] is everything.
Feel like you agree, but for whatever reason, your community isn’t engaging with your brand online [despite your best efforts?]. Well, let’s break it all down, and break our love of [and hero’ing of] engagement down, and perhaps inspire you to realise what you may or may not be doing to inspire more engagement on your social channels?
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// Less “mood”-fullstop’ing. We *quickly* drop the “cool kids” thing with our copy, i.e the #fashun retailer who up until we’ve been managing their account, has mostly just shared highly editorial imagery with captions that simply say, “mood”. Like, literally, that is it. Just “mood”, followed by a fullstop.
#yawn.
But also, #lol.
Want your followers to engage with you? Drop the entirely unengaging copy. Stat. I mean, we get it, it’s “cool”. We really get it. But Jesus, … what a way to talk at your audience, rather than to them.
You can still be cool [think Zoe Foster Blake, or Rachel Castle], and still be engaging.
… less mood-fullstop’ing, please.
// Be authentic. I know everyone’s telling you to be authentic lately, and for some? … that’s not a place you [or your business] feel comfortable being, but I can whole-heartedly say that in 2019 [and beyond], … it’s what your followers are expecting.
TDP spent its first x3 years being “authentically inauthentic”, i.e pretending that everything was “suhhhhh authentic!”, when it wasn’t. Embarrassingly? People believed it. Heck, I even begun to believe the bullsh*t copy I was showing up to our socials’ writing / sharing, … but my self-esteem took a beating, and it was my wellness coach [oh hai, Bek Hawker] who told me the worst thing my personality type [ENFJ] could do to its self-esteem was to be inauthentic.
The same goes for your socials’, i.e it’s 2019, guys. You’re allowed to be authentic.
The minute we tapped into genuine authenticity across TDP’s socials? Far out. Something changed. Like, really changed.
Our engagement? It’s never been better.
Our followers? Never more engaged.
That engagement? We’re turning it into paid ads.
Those paid ads? Seriously converting.
[i.e $80 spends, $3k+ ROI’s].
It’s not for everyone. One person suggested we’re a little *too* authentic. We can accept that. But what we can’t accept? … being the 2500th social media agency on Instagram in Melbourne sharing nothing but “client wins”, and “meet xyz strategist: she likes long walks, and salted caramel milkshakes”.
It’s just … not for us [and nor is it for our followers].
// Be unapologetically you. We’re living in a time where more and more women are launching brands online [my theory is that workplaces aren’t family-friendly enough, so women are leaving those non-flexible jobs in the pursuit of happiness. Enter small business ownership, and its promise of flexibility].
I mean seriously, scroll Instagram for x5 seconds and you’ll see that it’s currently dominated by solo’preneurs [a lot of whom, are women: hear us roar, and all that jazz], and they’re doing small business ownership their way, i.e by being unapologetically themselves.
Perfect example o’ that? Well, it’s every time @confetti_rebels Friday-dances in her loungeroom, in her underwear, and it just makes me wanna buy all.her.t-shirt’y.things, because I am so instantaneously endeared to her.
Endearment = memorable = relatable = conversation = conversion.
// Drop the obsession with sales’y CTA’s. Now don’t get me wrong, I love a CTA. I love conversion copy. It has its place. But sometimes? I wish folks would look at every one o’ the CTA’s they’re dropping on each post, and realise “whoa. They’re 99% sales conversion-based CTA’s.
The solution? Drop in an engagement CTA. Heck, even if it was 30% of the time. Something like what we posted at the end of a caption recently about working Motherhood, i.e “tell us in the comments below, what are your working Mother hacks?”, which resulted in;
348 likes.
93 comments.
// And then of course, it has to be said, … work with social media influencers. We regularly work with social media influencers because – yes, absolutely – they inspire client page growth / achieve fairly immediate sales conversions for our eComm clients, … but they *also* get brand new people talking about our clients, i.e they discover the brand for the first time via their favourite SM influencer > go across and follow > start to engage with the brand, … we turn that brand new engagement into retargeting via paid ads.
Conversation? Equals conversion.
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You can learn more about writing copy that converts via our $79 eLearning module here.
Or, get it all firing for yourself online via our in-person workshops here, or our 12-week ePicnic eCourse here.