How to build a digital brand people actually want to follow

How to build a digital brand people actually want to follow

How would you like it if every time you saw your friend they just started yelling at you about all the new promotions they are having in their business. Walking down the street and they just yell at you “BUY ONE GET ONE FREE TONIGHT ONLY, USE CODE BOGO”. You’d probably avoid that friend right? But what if you had another friend that shared interests, talked to you about relatable things that you actually care about, showed you things that intrigued you, and made you care. You would want to spend more time engaging with the second friend right?

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Now think of the same thing when it comes to your brand on social media. One thing that has been a constant throughout all the businesses I’ve worked with is their posts that are just promotions will always do horrible, but their posts talking about their business, the culture around their business, or just the general vibe of the business are always their best performing posts. Why is this? Think of the two examples I listed above, if you were walking down the street and friend one was there yelling about their promotions you’d probably avoid eye contact and keep walking. Well that’s what people do when they’re on social media, but instead of avoiding eye contact they just scroll. 

People don’t want to be advertised to all the time. The average American sees between 4,000-10,000 ads per day on average, they know how to block it out of their brain. When scrolling on social media it seems like every 3-4 posts is an ad now-a-days so people have learned to just block it out of their brain and keep going. 

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So what can you do to stand out?

‍Make authentic content that people would actually want to see, showcase your business, in the location based entertainment industry I ALWAYS suggest showcasing people having fun in your business. You want people to see your content and be like “woah those people look like they're having such a great time, I should take my friends there too so I don’t miss out”. 

Create authentic content that showcases your business and how great of a time people can have there, then your followers, likes, comments, and shares will grow, then every once in awhile you can slip in some promotions. It is important that you still use your platform to promote, we’re not growing our social media just to make friends you do need calls to action, just don’t make that your only thing. Majority of your content needs to be authentic engaging content, but you do need to slip the odd promo in, but make it fun.

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Go look at Dave & Buster’s social media, at the time of writing this they probably have the largest following out of any location based entertainment business, I’m sure if there’s one in your city you probably hate them because of how much market share they take. But they didn’t get that way without doing something right, and utilizing social media is something they did right. If you scroll through their content it’s primarily about how much fun you can have, how it's a great place for you to go with your family and friends, how great their food is, and then the odd promotion sprinkled in. If you want to compete with them, you need to elevate yourself to get on their level. 

Another great example is Barcade, their social media is just filled with showcasing all the cool things you can try at their location and how much fun you can have with some subtle promotion throughout. 

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So when you’re going through your content calendar trying to brainstorm what to post, think of the two examples I listed at the start. Would you rather engage with person one, or person two? The answer is person two, and that’s who your customers will want to follow. Don’t be person one. 

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