Your job, as a brand, is to stop the scroll.

Your job, as a brand, is to stop the scroll.

photo credit: Anita Stafford

What makes you stop scrolling?

Social Scrolling: a gesture that’s become synonymous with killing time while waiting for a coffee date, or while blandly watching some sub-standard show on tv. We scroll – when we have nothing better to do.

Scrolling: The only true sport inspired by social media.

But what makes you stop?

By stop, I don’t mean to close the page you’re on and move on with something more fruitful in your life – I’m talking about the pause to read that which has just caught your attention and absorb whatever message that lies behind it.

Your job, as a brand or as someone who manages any kind of social media campaign, is to make your audience stop scrolling and read what you’re saying.

My scroll stop

I was recently partaking in exactly this numb-scrolling activity while waiting for the kettle to boil – and a friend of mind had shared the most amazing picture of a flower. No message, nothing profound, just something that interrupted the mundane on my wall, and hiccuped my attention to take note.

It was a picture (the one above) that she’d taken of a flower while out and about – the most beautiful and intricate design that I’ve ever seen in a bloom. It stopped me in my tracks. And for a few milliseconds, I was absorbed.  I continued scrolling, but for the rest of the day, I seemed to keep remembering what I’d stopped for.

What your audience looks for

Knowing how to stop the scroll comes down to a very simple thing: Understanding what your customers desire.  There is no magic recipe that translates social tactics into guaranteed winners, but there are certainly ideas that are inspired through knowing your market:

• What turns them on?
• What makes them feel better about themselves?
• What upsets them?
• What problem do you solve for them?

When you understand what your audience’s trigger points are, then you’re a huge leap ahead in understanding how to translate that into something that impacts them. And whether you choose to do that through video, imagery, promotions and deals, giveaways, access to info that others don’t have, fancy quotes or controversial comments – all of those become mediums through which you translate your customers desire into solution. And when you get it right, they’ll stop scrolling.

Need help re-defining your social media strategy? Get in touch and lets chat today.