If you haven’t heard of outreach yet… then you’re not alone.
Outreach is the ethical and authentic way for you to grow a community.
In this blog, you’ll learn about the power of outreach. It might sound simple but there’s a whole strategy behind what the SHARE Creative Community Department do and why they do it.
What is outreach?
We outreach by segmenting our followers, using common hashtags to identify individuals who align and continue to engage with us, before jumping into the conversations taking place.
The goal of outreach is to establish meaningful connections, build relationships and promote our brand, products, and ideas. It involves creating both proactive and reactive strategies to create a meaningful partnership between the brand and consumers.
The primary purpose of outreach is to bridge gaps and effectively create a positive environment by engaging with followers and those not yet following us, with the latter being the more potent category for growth (we’ll come back to this shortly).
Why should brands be doing It?
Good question.
- Brand visibility: this means we’ll be able to reach larger audiences, showing we are present and engaged with our community.
- Audience engagement: staying engaged with your target audience fosters a sense of community and encourages people to interact with your content, forming an emotional connection with it.
- Brand awareness: you’re able to introduce yourself into new spaces where potential audiences might not know you or know your account.
Outreach strategy
We engage with 3 separate audiences using actions such as; likes, emojis or comments.
To distinguish our audiences we split them up into 3 categories; Family, Friends & Associates.
Family: These are the closest channels to our community, so brand ambassadors & partners. Our relationship is already determined here, so we leverage this consistently on social, reinforcing our connection.
Friends: Our core following, including event partners and affiliates who regularly show support across our content output in the comments. We interact with these accounts in a human and friendly way, that shows how knowledgeable and supportive we are as a brand.
Associates: Accounts that tag us positively in content, or talk about things we care about, but don’t follow us. We share the same values, use common hashtags to identify individuals who align and continue to engage with us.
Every brand has a different strategy that works for them. Our strategists will help identify how we should split each category on a daily basis.
Building relationships
Building authentic relationships with family-focused channels on Instagram involves a combination of genuine engagement and meaningful interactions.
It’s important you engage when it’s genuine, whether that’s leaving a like or comment. Ask yourself these questions;
- What is the purpose or meaning behind this post?
- Does it add value to your brand?
If these are both answered in a positive light, then it will add value to you as a brand to outreach.
It’s always important to say the right thing as the face of the brand when doing outreach on social media. It’s essential to know and adapt to your brand’s tone of voice to ensure you are representing yourself to the best standard. So, remember to always be authentic, be active and provide value.
How do you know when to outreach?
Knowing when to outreach on Social Media requires a combination of understanding your target audience, monitoring relevant trends and being strategic in your approach.
It’s important to research when your target audience is most active, as different demographics have peak engagement times. Reaching out during these times can lead to higher visibility and interactions.
As well as this, it’s good to keep an eye out on trending topics, hashtags and discussions relevant to your brand. Participating in these conversations can help you join in with relevant discussions and increase your visibility as a brand.
Relevancy is key.
Examples of successful outreach:
The first image shows how impactful a simple comment can be. This successful comment showed a huge spike in followers for 2 days. This kind of comment will continue to bring new followers to our page even if it’s 8 weeks later.
The second is a fun tactic to get the audience involved and engaged with your comment. This comment alone got 200 replies with the majority fist pumping us back!
The third example below was a case of reactive outreach where many people and brands quickly joined in. So, in this case we had to be a little more creative.
How can brands leverage outreach in the upcoming years?
Outreach is still an area a lot brands haven’t yet tapped into. However, there’s so much opportunity out there for brands to improve brand awareness and engagement through outreach.
The key is to get it right, not to just do it because your competitor is doing it. If brands continue to join the outreach journey in the coming years, there can be huge opportunities to promote brand campaigns, or even secretly launch products.
Click here for more information on our community management strategies and get in touch to see how we can help.