Humans are inherently emotional creatures. We’re guided by our emotions and let them do our decision making for us. Most of all we want to share our emotions, and that’s where social media marketers come in.
Like any form of advertising, a social strategy should have its roots in appealing to the most base human emotions. If you’re still posting dry content with little interaction in return, here are some reasons why your social strategy needs to embrace emotion.
Emotional content is shared more frequently
Once you embrace emotion in your social strategy, you’ll realize just how much of the work it does for you. Your aim should be to have your followers do a lot of the heavy lifting for you through sharing your content. People love to share their emotions, but there are two emotions they love to share in particular, happiness and sadness.
Happy/funny content:
Positive content attracts engagement. In the same way that tragic news stories turn people off, happy content makes people want to find more. Studies have shown that social media posts encouraging happiness and positivity are more likely to be shared and engaged with.
Not only will posting more happy content with your followers improve your campaign statistically, but it’ll also change how they view you as a company and associate you with positive feelings going forward.
This kind of content isn’t limited to positive observations on the world though. Humour is one of the best ways to garner engagement on social media. It can be seen as something other than marketing, making people feel as if they aren’t being advertised too. People try and build personas online, and the type of humour they share is seen as an extension of them personally. Try and become something that people want to associate with.
Sad/angry content:
While social users are more likely to share content that makes them feel good, they also take great enjoyment in making sure others revel in their outrage. Negative or shocking posts are some of the best ways to promote discussion and engagement on your content.
Latch onto an issue at the time and ask for people to share their opinion. People’s emotions and passion for something will overtake their resistance to sharing your content.
Emotion trumps logic
As frustrating as it can be to some people, most of us think with our hearts rather than our heads. Companies will often stick with a service that costs more because they have a great working relationship. Customers will continue to buy brands even when they raise prices because they feel like a part of their life or promote inclusion of them. As Jay Baer explains on the Orion’s Method podcast, every customer interaction should be emotion first.
The same principle applies to social media. Users will continue to follow and interact with accounts not entirely relevant to them just because they enjoy the content on an emotional level. Bringing emotion into your strategy keeps them hooked for longer to the point where they may become customers one day.
Allows you to strike at the right time
Being in tune with your audience’s emotions can help improve how you time your social campaigns. Think of major events happening around the time of your social campaign. How can you leverage how your audience feels about them to promote your products or brand?
This works very well during elections, public holidays or major sports events as the Oreo lights out campaign proved. This is less a process of finding out what deep emotional reaction each user has to an event, and more about improving your chances of posting something that hits at the right time. Having a greater sense of what your audience likes and dislikes will help plot our your campaign calendar.
People like to buy from people
Our emotions are what make us human. If your social is soulless and devoid of emotion it’ll be less appealing and people will want to stay away. In terms of retail, people prefer to buy from other people. Ever felt soulless using a machine in the supermarket? That’s because we want to see a face when we make a purchase. It’s the same principle in marketing.
Even though we’ve become accustomed to brands online, we all joined social media in the first place to connect with friends, family and new people. This is why brands have become more casual with their online language. Help people reconnect with their roots on the platform. This is about giving your business a face people can visualize when shopping.
The power of emotion is underrated by marketers and social media experts who think too literally about what they create and post. Your strategy needs to consider its audience as emotional creatures with changing opinions and needs. Once you’ve started to introduce an emotional edge to your campaigns you’ll see the style of interaction you get change.