When it comes to business, there are several things that one can do to help promote and enhance their interactions with their customers. Now for the time being, it seems that the most effective way to market to clientele is through social media. While sounding like a relatively easy and simple process, there are many facets that go in to effective communication through various social media websites. Humor is a delicate area that should typically be handled with care when engaging with potential customers. One wrong step, and a business can risk damaging their reputation, losing customers, and even worse find themselves in the middle of a controversy.
To some, it may come as a surprise that humor would be considered an effective way to advertise to current and prospective clients. Integrating humor with your social media presence is found to be a highly strategic method of obtaining people’s attention. The logic behind this approach is that if you are able to appeal to one’s emotions, you will be able to find a stronger and longer lasting connection with them. This can be crucial to a business’ success because it will help the customer develop a strengthened understanding of who you are as a company.
There are several areas that a company should consider before taking their stand-up act to Twitter and Facebook. The golden rule when representing a brand and using humor is that what you think is funny, not everyone thinks is funny. If by chance you post an inappropriate response, there is a very real possibility that you can lose clients over it.
In order to protect the success of a business and reputation, you should always consider the fact that humor is a risk. Humor is 100% subjective to its audience, so it is always smarter to take the safe route and keep your posts clean. If you’re about to make a post and it relates to something that people have an opinion on, chances are you will receive negative responses in some degree. This means you should always steer clear of controversial issues such as politics, gender, or religion. It goes without saying that a good rule of thumb when posting something humorous on social media is “when in doubt, always leave it out.”
However, other strategies will make a positive impact on a company’s growth. When responding to people who have engaged with a company’s social media account, wit and banter is a highly overlooked tactic when it comes to online conversations. As with everything else, the stance of a response needs to be professional because the company’s reputation is still at stake. However it is safe to say that most people will appreciate a slight degree of sarcasm and cleverness in their interaction with a company. The reason it can be appreciated is because users do not typically expect to a personal response from an account that represents something that is more machine than human-like. In a sense, it will catch a user off guard and they will naturally want to interact more to see what a company’s next response will be.
When it comes to selling your brand online, you should always remember that even though you represent a serious business, it doesn’t mean that your marketing has to be. It may not sound like an orthodox business practice, but in some cases, it is more than acceptable to not take yourself so seriously. People will respond to spoofs and parodies in a much more positive way, than if you responded in a way that made the company show a lack of light-hearted nature. People in general are playful, so when it comes to online engagement, it is more than okay to embrace that area of interaction!
While there are many ways that a company can use humor in their online presence, there are three main things they should always keep in mind. Its humor (not comedy), keep it clean and sometimes it’s okay to be silly. Using humor as a strategy can result in a very positive growth for a company in the business world.
