This Promotional Video supports a presentation by Don Power at Social Media Camp Victoria regarding Community Engagement.

No matter where you are, or what size the city you live, there is always an opportunity to engage and grow your local social media community. By following the
5 steps listed below, you’ll be on your way, not only to engage your audience but to become a social media leader in the process.

5 Ways To Engage your Twitter Audience

1. Create a Twitter List

Make a Twitter list consisting of people in your city or town
Give your list a search engine friendly name that includes your city name in the title
Find people who are tweeting in your city by doing profile searches on Twellow.com
or the advanced search on search.twitter.com

Promote your list in tweets to your local community. Let local tweeps know that there are other active tweeters in your city. As a bonus, these tactics will also help your tweets and your Twitter profile to rank near the top of relevant Google searches.

2. Use hashtags in your tweets

Hashtags are a way to assign and search for tweets with a common theme
Hashtags help build a community of tweeters because you are all tweeting about the same topic (ie: #Nanaimo)
Hashtags allow your tweets to go further and expand beyond your immediate followers because they can be seen even by people who don’t follow you – as long as they are following the #hashtag
or the advanced search on search.twitter.com

Hashtags are a great way to search for topics that are of interest to you and your community. Hashtags are often highlighted on blogs, websites, news sites, etc. thus exposing your tweets to a much larger audience of potential followers.

3. Strategic Tweeting

Include strategic keywords in your tweets that might be of interest to your local audience
Include strategic keywords in your tweets that you’d like to rank for in Google searches. Google real time search increases the likelihood that your tweets will be read by a much larger audience – who may not even be following you on Twitter
Pay attention to the tweets of Twitter influencers and chances are you’ll discover their patterns of strategic tweeting as well

Strategic tweeting not only makes it easier for your community of local tweeters to find you based on common interests, it also helps you get found on Google for various search terms you’d like to rank on.

4. Host a Tweetup

Use Steps 1 -3 above to find a group of local tweeters who may be interested in getting together to meet each other face to face
Tweetups are great for building the local social media community because people are much more likely to engage with others after they’ve met in person
Many of the attendees of Tweetups will also promote the tweetup to their followers – expanding your influence beyond your immediate followers

Consider creating a promotional video to promote your tweetups. The power of video exposes your tweets to a much larger potential audience because of the likelihood the video will be shared beyond your immediate followers.

5. ENGAGE!

Regularly peruse your own lists and interact with the tweeters you’ve included there
Let the tweeters in your local community know that you are interested in connecting with local people
Attend in-person networking events. Many business owners are not yet on social media and may welcome your invitation to connect and get started

Remember, expecting to build a social media community without engaging is like expecting to lose weight without exercising…It’s technically possible but you probably wouldn’t want to discus your methods in public!