Stephanie Donelson

Social media marketing is ever-changing but the way humans behave is a bit slower to change. While social media has disrupted how we interact with each other and brands online, we’re still the same underneath and still have the same ticks.

Having a basic understanding of psychology and why we do the things we do can be a big benefit to social media marketers.

Psychology can help us understand our audiences, speak their language, and know what makes them take action.

Learn how to apply psychology to your social media marketing with these top five tips!

1. First impressions matter

You have less than two minutes to make a good first impression with potential customers. In those two minutes they’re assessing your branding, colors, and brand voice. For a group that gets overwhelmed by the Cheesecake Factory’s billion-page menu, we certainly make up our minds quickly about brands online. 

Use that time to make a great first impression with great videos, visuals, posts, and even making sure you’re using the right colors!

2. We share to relate to others

As humans, we’re social creatures and we like to feel a sense of belonging among our fellow (wo)men. A lot of our online activity is based around sharing, being social, and being accepted or validated.

Memes and funny videos go viral as they get shared across accounts because we like relating to others’ experiences and being relatable ourselves.

The big reasons why people share content online is to:

• Improve the lives of others
• Share information about things they’re passionate about
• Define themselves or show an idealized online persona
• Find validation or feel valued
• Stay connected with others

So, what do these motivating factors tell us? They tell us that people are focused on themselves and their relationships. If you want people to share your content, it has to be about them or the people or causes they love. 

I think Southwest Airlines does a great job at using real people in their storytelling and how their brand helped that person, but the person is still the focus of the feel-good story. 

Focus your social media content around your audience and what they’re interested in. Your content is created for them, not you!

3. Gotta have T-R-U-S-T

It’s common to read pages upon pages of reviews on multiple sites before we buy anything as we want to hear about services or products from other consumers like us. You can have the best marketing messages on the planet but if you have terrible reviews or a poor reputation, kiss that conversion good-bye. 

How to build trust with your customers:

• Encourage reviews: Send thank you emails to customers and share links to sites and social media channels they can write reviews on.
• Respond to reviews: Be active on review sites and say thank you to happy customers and provide a real resolution for unhappy ones. Do your best to move the conversation offline or into an inbox, but do not attack a bad reviewer. Sometimes a brand’s response is worse than the initial bad review. 
• Be active on social media: An active brand means they’re actively engaging with their customers and listening to the conversations they care about. I’ve even changed my mind on buying certain products after seeing dead social media pages. If they can’t be active online to promote their brand, what could that mean for their customer service if I have an issue or need to return it?
• Promote case studies: Build a library of quality case studies or client testimonials so people can see how others have found success with your brand in the past
• Share user-generated content: User-generated content is even better than case studies as your customer put together the best testimonial for you!

4. Accentuate the positive

Invoking certain emotions with your content is certainly a good way to increase shares and engagement. Think about some of the more common viral videos that circulate social media. They’re more often than not inspiring, positive, showcasing love, humorous, or encouraging. 

These things make us smile and we know they’ll make others smile too and so we share them. One of the best ways to encourage people to smile when engaging with your content is to use emojis. In order to fit in with others we like to mimic facial expressions of those we’re talking to and emojis can take care of that when a real human isn’t present. 

So go ahead and add a smiling emoji to your tweets, Instagram posts, Facebook posts, and even email subject lines to get a positive response out of people. 

5. FOMO

We hate not being invited to the party and then seeing it all over social media and thus FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) was born. 

FOMO is a real phenomenon that gets people to take action as they don’t want to be the one missing out on something. Now, I’m not saying try to make your audience feel bad or like their lives are going to be worse off without your product or service, but you can use FOMO just enough to convince them to take action.

Think of the last time you booked a flight or hotel. I bet a little pop up took over saying that there were limited seats left or this itinerary was going to sell out soon. That’s FOMO. Nowadays when I see those warnings on travel sites I tend to ignore them because they were used too much as scare tactics when they had plenty of inventory. Use those warnings sparingly and when they’re true.

FOMO can also be created by sharing user-generated content and highlighting how awesome their lives are now because of your brand, or showcasing all the possibilities people have with your brand. 

Words to use to invoke FOMO

• Last chance
• Buy now
• Going fast
• We’d hate for you to miss it
• Time’s running out
• One-time only
• Limited time
• Limited supply
• One week left
• Lock in low pricing
• Free gift with purchase
• Exclusive access

What social media psychology tips do you use in your marketing? Share in the comments below or on Twitter!