ProfNet - an online public relations service - has just launched a social media site called ProfNet Connect. As Maria Perez, one of the chief architects of ProfNetConnect, and director of the ProfNet newsrooom, explains, "ProfNetConnect is like LinkedIn for subject matter experts in media, social media, PR and online marketing." We were given a sneak peak into the service, before it went public, and we really liked it. The site has a ton of really great functionality including audio podcast upload capability, video upload capability, group creation, forums, blog platforms and more.
On Twitter, we were asked by Sandy Azzollini, director of online content and communications for PRNewswire (@sazzolini on Twitter), if we had any ideas on how to get more comments on the content produced on ProfNet Connect. So, to give a more detailed answer, we decided to answer the question here on our blog.
The first point is that you have to have content on the site that is highly useful to get people to engage with it. A few of our favorite social media sites come to mind here.
1. "You're the Boss", NYTimes blog. The blog targets a very specific niche - microbusiness owners. And the posts are very practical. They give information, tips, and perspectives that can actually be used by the community. This is one of the reasons the posts get so many comments. In particular, posts centered around online advertising and social media strategy receive a large share of comments. But also posts about hiring and rights of laborers and managing employees get a ton of comments.
2. Business.Gov. This is an online forum published by the Small Business Administration. They provide any kind of info you might need about small business management - everything from how to register a trade name, to licenses, how to keep your books, taxes, business law advice and more. The forum posts receive a lot of comments. In a short time, Business.Gov has reached a newsletter subscriber base of over 60K.
3. @ProfNet on Twitter. Maria Perez is the newsroom director of the ProfNet service. ProfNet is a service by PRNewswire. Maria posts urgent reporter requests to her Twitter feed for her followers to see. She gets excellent engagement. We ourselves have asked her questions, had conversations with her, and responded to inquiries published on her feed. One reason she gets such good engagement is because she is providing a very useful service that encourages people to come back for more.
The Takeaway
The point of all this is that generating engagement in social media really depends a lot on how useful your content is. The more useful the content, the more engagement you'll have. It might be a good idea to do some surveys or focus groups to find out precisely what sort of content your users want to consume. Then, build your content around user interest.
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