Ah, Thanksgiving. A time for turkey and stuffing, family and friends, cold weather and football. But in the midst of all the fun, don’t forget to give thanks to a group of people without whom you might not have that thriving business that provides for both your family and those of your employees: your organization’s online audience.
Now, your online audience may not consist entirely of customers – in fact, it almost definitely doesn’t. So why should you be thanking all of them as a part of your holiday social media marketing strategy, when your customers are the only ones actually spending money?
Your entire online audience is beneficial to your business in many ways, even if some of them are a little on the intangible side.
First of all, these are people who find the content you provide useful or entertaining – or both! They may not have a need for your products or services…yet…but they stick around anyway. And some time in the future, when they do need what you sell, you’ll be the first company they think of.
In addition, your online audience can be your best advertisers. Even if they’ve never spent any money with you, they still like, share, and comment on your posts, thus encouraging other people to engage – and exposing even more people to your company.
So it’s only right to show your appreciation to these people, even if they haven’t actually converted to customers yet. And who knows – maybe your simple “Thank you” will be all it takes to get some of them to take that final step and make a purchase.
But what’s the best way to let your online audience know how grateful you are for them? We’ve compiled a list of ideas for adding a little thanksgiving to your holiday social media marketing strategy.
1. Ask for audience participation – and then feature their responses. Reach out to your audience on social media and ask them what they’re grateful for. Then choose the best responses and feature those people, letting them and everyone else know you’re grateful for them.
2. Retweet their content. Showing your audience that you’re not only paying attention to what they’re saying, but find it valuable enough to share with your own followers, is saying a lot. Add a few words of thanks to your tweet, and voila – your gratitude has been conveyed.
3. Follow them. Whether it’s on Facebook, Twitter, or any other social media platform, make following a two-way street. People will be thrilled when they see that you appreciate them enough to follow them.
4. Comment on their blog. Admit it – every time you see a new comment on your own blog posts, you get a little thrill, right? Why not share the love with your online audience members? Commenting on their blogs shows them that you read their content, too, just as they read yours, and is a great way to demonstrate your appreciation.
5. Write them recommendations or reviews. Nothing says appreciation quite like a heartfelt recommendation. And you can bet that anyone who’s gotten a positive review from you will be grateful right back at ya!
6. Introduce them to other audience members. If you know two online audience members who would benefit from knowing each other, why not show you care by introducing them? That personal touch will be flattering to both of them and will show them the depth of your gratitude.
7. Send them personal tips. Maybe someone made a comment on Facebook or your blog about an issue they’re confronting. Send them a quick personal email with some advice, or post it for all to see. It’ll be obvious how much you value your online audience.
8. Simply say thank you. Posting a sincere expression of gratitude on social media will get your message across perfectly, and win you a lot of goodwill, as well.
9. Say thanks…with flair. You can also take it a step further, and write an entire blog about how thankful you are for your online audience, or even create a video to convey the sentiment.
10. Give them a gift. Everybody loves presents. Show your gratitude to your online audience by giving them a free eBook or access to a free webinar – but make sure it’s truly useful. Nothing’s worse than a freebie with no value.
11. Involve your whole team. People love nothing more than getting behind-the-scenes glimpses of a company. Indulge their desire to get to know you and show them how much you appreciate them at the same time by creating a video, taking a picture, or co-writing a blog featuring the entire team’s thanks.
On that note, we here at Zen Media would like to say thank you to our own amazing online audience. We truly appreciate your support, and hope that you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving next week!
