The following answers are provided by members of Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC), an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. In partnership with Citi, YEC recently launched BusinessCollective, a free virtual mentorship program that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses.
1. Give Your Audience Value
“Your audience is constantly bombarded with media 24/7. The only way to stand out (instead of adding headache) is to provide your audience with information they will actually want or need. So before I do anything on social media (whether it’s sharing an article I wrote or just tweeting), I ask if it’s something my audience wants to see or just a self-promotional piece.”
Elle Kaplan, LexION Capital
2. Use Unpolished Footage
“We are using video more and more to communicate our brand and create a deeper connection with our audience. The key for me (and our brand) has been shooting and releasing “raw” video — that is, footage that is not polished or rehearsed. Our engagement increases the more we release videos that are true and authentic.”
Andrew Thomas, SkyBell Doorbell
3. Hire an Experienced Community Manager
“Hiring a community manager who knows how to create a distinct social media presence is invaluable to your online community. If you have a person whose main role is to be the voice of your company, your brand will always have that unique personal voice.”
Dave Nevogt, Hubstaff.com
4. Don’t Be Afraid to Have an Opinion
“Businesses tend to play it safe on social media. This means making broad generalities, not saying anything controversial or not disagreeing with someone. A great way to personalize your brand voice is simply to have an opinion. This creates polarity. Sure, everyone may not agree with you. However, if you’re authentic and stay professional, you might just increase engagement.”
Antonio Neves, AntonioNeves.com
5. Respond to Queries as Quickly as Possible
“Social media is noisy and there are a lot of brands that get it wrong by thinking that it’s OK to not respond quickly — or even worse, to not respond at all to social media queries. At LSEO, we deploy an “always respond as quickly as possible” model as our brand voice. We care deeply about connecting with customers and prospects and we respect that they want an immediate response via social media.”
Kristopher Jones, LSEO.com
6. Share Transcripts of Interviews With Founders
“We manage the tone and voice for small businesses on social media. Our process with each client is to spend several hours interviewing the founder or CEO of the company about all aspects of their business. We then transcribe the interview and use the transcript as the foundation of our voice on social media. The more we can mirror the message of the CEO, the better our social efforts will be.”
Brett Farmiloe, Markitors
7. Share Expert Insights Through Influencers
“We continuously strive to add value to our readers and while we’ve built thought leadership in our domain, we continue to interview specific experts and influencers (via video, blogs, etc.) to address some of the most pressing concerns or queries our audience has. As a result, audiences now turn to our brand to learn everything about “appreneurship.””
Rahul Varshneya, Arkenea LLC
8. Share Inside Looks at Your Company
“We share a lot of content about what we do every day and what a normal day at the office looks like. It shows who we are and what we represent in our brand. It also humanizes the experience for the audience, making it more engaging.”
9. Stay True to Yourself
“First, understand yourself. Ask, “What are two or three words I can use to describe my brand voice and style?” For me, the answer would be “upbeat,” “honest” and “direct.” I also stick with this on social media and in my articles, posts and videos. When you understand and mirror the personal voice and style you have in the “real world,” you will naturally personalize your brand voice in the virtual world.”
Ajit Nawalkha, Mindvalley
10. Develop a Character
“Try coming up with a character best suited for your brand, and stay true to that persona. Always ask yourself, “Would that person say that?” If you develop a full bio and background, you can really gut-check your posts much easier.”
Erik Huberman, Hawke Media
11. Humanize the Brand
“An easy way to humanize your brand is to share your failures. Your online audience will absolutely relate to posts and writing that explains a shortcoming. But don’t panic — your “failure” doesn’t have to be a bad thing. For example, “5 Things We Learned About Recruitment After Hiring the Wrong Person,” is a post that humanizes your brand by identifying with the difficult problems of hiring staff.”
Peter Boyd, PaperStreet Web Design
12. Monitor Your User Feedback
“We constantly monitor user feedback. It’s not a difficult process. We simply try different things and see what works for our audience and what doesn’t. We also like to ask past clients what their experience was like. For example, what was it about our marketing that they resonated with, and why did they choose us over other companies?”
Ismael Wrixen, FE International
13. Incorporate Humor
“If you cruise around our website and social profiles, you’ll see some humor. Of course, there’s professional material and case studies, but the concept of the website is mostly about sophisticated jokes. This has resulted in dozens of startups emailing us with, “Guys, great website!””
Yoav Vilner, Ranky
14. Understand Your Audience
“The most important step in finding your brand’s social media voice is knowing your target audience. You need to have a crystal clear image of who you want to serve to be able to reach them. Once your target audience is defined, I recommend creating a fictional persona with all the characteristics, traits, and their age, gender, income and interests. This will be your buyer persona.”
Anthony Davani, Kreoo/The Davani Group
15. Create a Video Response
“We like to occasionally post video responses to questions or comments people have on social media just to show the humans behind our brand. This works well because it’s so low effort, while the payoff is huge. It takes two minutes to record a quick webcam video, and the person on the receiving end of the equation feels like you’re making a genuine connection with them.”
