How Many Carrots Within the Social Menu?

There is no such thing as a free lunch.

And, for that matter, there is no such thing as a freebie within social media when it comes to winning the hearts and minds of consumers. At the end of the day, social media is a “what’s in it for me” medium in which brands need to reward consumers on a regular basis.

While it may sound somewhat harsh to describe it this way, the reality is most consumers need to be given incentives if they are going to be engaged or stick around. It’s something I describe as “carrots”. Brands put a carrot on a stick so that consumers are motivated to get involved.

Carrots can be something as straightforward as prizes or free stuff (e.g. a free bagel from Einstein Bros. Bagels or a free pastry from Starbucks), it could be a contest in which consumers have to upload a photo or video for the chance to simply be recognized by the community, or it could be a simple poll or question.

Whatever type of carrot is selected, the goal is getting and keeping consumers engaged and interested after the “Like”, follow, join or subscribe has happened. Without carrots, the number of people who stay engaged start to disappear. This means if even you have thousands of “Likes”, for example, but it doesn’t matter if only a small percentage are participating on a regular basis.

My take is that carrots and content – aka the two C’s – are a dynamic and necessary one-two punch when it comes to attracting and keeping consumers on social media. If you don’t feed consumers enough of either “C”, they likely won’t stick around for long.

Article:http://blog.sysomos.com/