Facebook and Social Startups Meme.

I don’t hate print, I mean this is exactly what made me find out about Universities, but  honestly it isn’t interactive, it was never meant to be. You can be informed about something but  can’t really interact, isn’t that so? Obviously and this is the reason why I continue to migrate to the new media; the Web. Why? I bet I don’t have to tell you about that.

Facebook has been quite a buzz in fact the social network is far more popular than anything else in the shortest span of time and that growth rate has increased exponentially. We have got people connecting with each other sharing content from news to pics from a reunion all the way to joining their favorite groups, brands to stay abreast with the latest happenings. So what exactly is stirring the social media scene? Why do people continue to join fan pages, groups of brands that they can learn of on their sites? Is there really a need to scratch your head, it’s all about engagement.

Sounds easy doesn’t it? Just throw away something for your fans to read and they will go crazy about it and join in numbers. Won’t they? Not so, not even your closest friends would join you there for the content, unless you are the man behind a Huge brand or you do offer something they really want. So what exactly do you offer them? Plugin your blog’s RSS to your fanpage, invite friends and forget. No, won’t workout, people might join you out of courtesy or by sheer excitement to begin with, but that isn’t building a healthy relation? Something that makes your present audience get more for you? give them something they want and would love to have. Take Southwest Airlines for example,they have a fan page they are actively using and the community keeps growing. Plus they have offers like the 100 ticket giveaway for the  holiday season. That is one example if engaging users followed by another one, NBC using Facebook to bring back Chuck. Now that entire thing was powered by users who actually forced NBC to bring it back to life.

So what is there to learn?

See what users want. I know no one is coming back to read my blog if I offer them the same old stuff, same news they have read over and over elsewhere. I need to keep it updated and opinionated in a manner they find a different perspective to come back and read it again and again. Same goes with Brands on Social Networks. You need to interact with them more often, the lesser the number the higher is the need to interact more often, which gives users a sense of being a part of some living organization, not some self promotional page made and left to amass users and nothing else. Break a news, give them something interesting to create conversations around and you will see a marked difference in user activity, plus you can’t really have an excuse of not engaging a fan base of a few thousand followers, do you?

Things change when your community grows and by that growth I mean when your brand reaches the  massive million mark. You can have a focus group there, a small number of users continually engaging and they are your most regular followers. Which comes to this that for a more massive following your user engagement falls down, not unless you are a ‘to die for celebrity’. Plus what my observations have been; user responses and engagement become pretty predictable as they engage with these brands. So how do you keep them alive and always conversing? Give them something to talk about, like a breaking news, a brand new product something which they haven’t heard of anywhere else, have giveaways, so they know they are given back for the time they put in being loyal to you. I will quote Southwest Airlines again and their offer, why won’t users join their fanpage? They have nothing to lose and a lot to gain and the brand is keeping them informed about the airlines without having them leave their social network. In short there is always something to have a conversation about and stir the followers. This is exactly why a Green Cause would have people talk a lot or a charitable cause surfacing on the network. Those are just examples, only a couple of those which prove that users will help you grow substantially if you are giving them an important enough reason to talk about.

It’s all a chain reaction, isn’t that what social media is about? Maintain Activity, interact, have users engage and build relationship not yet another market place to sell your product. Do that and people will actually help improve your results and in return have your brand win credibility.