Participate and Reward on Social Media

By definition, Social Media Optimization is “social”. It’s interacting with the community online just as you interact with your offline family, friends, co-workers and employees. This networking has proven successful again and again to not only get your message in front of your audience, but to keep it there.

Rewarding your users’ participation will keep them interested and coming back. Moreover, it will motivate them to share that information, your link, with others.

Participate

Writing a blog post and then forgetting about it misses an enormous opportunity. There’s good reason to allow comments to generate further interest and keep the buzz going. Providing a welcoming platform for interaction encourages commenting and discussion. This enhances your content and interest in it with more in-depth information provided by your users and gives it “personality” to connect with emotionally.

Staying accessible and available by participating in the discussions adds to your credibility and authority. It also develops friendships and creates loyalty. Expanding your participation to other venues of similar interest such as forums and other blogs, creates opportunities to expand your reach and your site links via your signature.

Reward

Those who participate on your site are valuable. They are providing free content, advancing your message, keeping the buzz going and are possibly taking your message off-site. Those active participants are the first to bookmark your pages giving you added visibility and links as well. Reward them! You can do this in a number of ways. You may promote their work to your front page or develop a rating system for recognition. Even a private email note expressing your sincere appreciation can go far.

Participating yourself and rewarding your helpful and popular users will expand your reach, spread your message and enhance your standing in the community.