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Using social media to build brand engagement

Nick from Likeable Lab shares his approach to using social media to help build brand engagement, generate leads, and drive business results.

3 minute read

The regional BNZ Connect events are designed to bring practical advice to small business owners all around New Zealand. Nick McDonald - head honcho at social media agency, Likeable Lab - shared his approach to social media brand engagement at the Connect event.

Here are some of Nick’s top tips helping to build brand engagement on social, and using it to help grow leads, sales, and results.

The four-phase social media customer journey

For Nick, effective social media is about generating leads and sales - not just likes and followers. So he sees brand engagement as the first step in a four-phase process that ultimately converts into a sale.

“We’ve taken social media and made it a really simple funnel, for lack of a better word,” says Nick. “It’s this funnel that takes a new customer from a cold audience, right through to a warm lead that’s ready to be sold to.”

Nick broke the funnel down for us:

Phase 1: Content - targeting cold audiences with engaging content that adds value.
Phase 2: Community management - interacting with potential customers.
Phase 3: Leads - adding even more value in exchange for customer info (like an email address).
Phase 4: Sale - having built an ultra-warm list, you’re now only selling to ultra-warm leads.

Going straight for the hard sell

In Nick’s experience, most businesses jump straight to Phase 4 - the sell.

“It’s like a shopkeeper walking up to you and just saying ‘buy these jeans,’ without engaging first,” he explains. “They haven’t asked how your day’s going, or found out you’re actually looking for a jacket. If they’re in your face immediately saying buy, you’re going to walk out. And most companies are doing the equivalent of that on social media.”

Instead, Nick recommends investing heavily in Phase 1, and building trust and familiarity. “When companies ask us, ‘What are we doing wrong?’ 9 times out of 10 it’s because they’re selling to cold audiences without engaging them first.”

So start creating great content that brings genuine value - like blog posts, videos, webinars, or e-books. And get those potential customers on-side, before going in for the hard sell.

Content should either educate, entertain, or engage

The key to creating great and valuable content is making sure it always covers one (or ideally more) of the three ‘E’s; educate, entertain, and engage.

“Whether it’s humorous, informative, or topical, you need to create content that your audience is likely to engage with,” says Nick. “Then you need to use ads to get that content in front of the right demographic.”

Choose your platform wisely

Before building brand engagement, make sure you’re building it in the right place. For some businesses that might be Facebook and Instagram. For others, LinkedIn might be the best option.

“Picking your platform is very important,” says Nick, otherwise your investment is unlikely to pay off. “Think about where your clients are, where you can find them, how you’ll use ads to reach them - and most importantly, what your ROI will be.”

Likeable Lab is a Kiwi agency with a global client base, specialising in social media marketing that helps generate leads and sales, not just impressions and likes.

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