Tip 4: Fan the Flames of “Hot” Content

As your Engagement Marketing engine picks up steam, more people will begin engaging with you. A Google+, Facebook, or LinkedIn discussion will blossom, or a blog post will go viral and get double or triple the number of Likes, comments, retweets, or @mentions. When this happens, jump in and stimulate the conversation to keep it going. Respond and thank people for their comments. Ask follow-up questions. Stir the pot and see if you can keep the comments coming.

Use e-mail marketing and your other social media channels to draw people to the conversation. If you have a spirited discussion going, use Twitter, Facebook, and e-mail to invite people to join the fun. Let people know that the conversation is active. Tweet something like, “Wow! [name] blog post hit a nerve. Add your thoughts now. [URL link].” (See “Bitly” in Resources section for how to shorten URLs.) If your topic has people taking sides, add a poll to capture your fans’ opinions, then do a follow-up post on the results. When the conversation begins to wane, restimulate it by going back through the thread and looking for related topics that were brought up but not fully developed to see if you can spark new conversations. Once you hit a ....