When was the last time you were delighted?
Not excited or “stoked” or satisfied. Delighted. Filled with delight.
The more you think about it, the more it may become evident that viscerally feeling delight can be, sadly, a rare thing. (FYI: last time I was delighted was about three weeks ago when I ate ice cream. Works every time.) 
Nowadays we hear a lot about how businesses can use social media to sell more stuff, reach new customers, and grow their business. And all of that is great. However, if your social media strategy gets a bit too, well, commercial, followers may get slightly annoyed. Or worse yet, they may feel an emotion that can only be described as “the opposite of delight.”
At the same time, many small businesses think they need to consistently publish mind-blowing and earth-shattering media. Case in point: a high-tech YouTube video where a hired daredevil plummeted through the stratosphere at 834 miles an hour (an act dubbed by CIO Magazine as a recent social media success story.) Yet this goal of non-stop, awe-inspiring content is practically unrealistic, financially unsustainable, and in the aforementioned case of the diving out of a plane at the precipice of space-- very physically dangerous.
So the key is to find a nice balance whereby your social media presence informs, inspires, and - yes - delights followers on a regular basis. Because all social media success stories are predicated on some element of delight. With that in mind, here’s a list of ways to spread delight across all corners of the ever-expanding Internet (Admittedly some may be obvious, but then again, so is ice cream.)
- Post pictures of real, live humans. Nothing warms the heart like a smiling employee or a happy customer. In fact, do an experiment: post two pictures; one of a smiling employee and one of an object. Unless it’s a kitten (which is too easy), we bet the smiling employee gets more love. And that’s because followers want to see the real-live humans behind your business and brand. Instagram, naturally, is the optimal channel for this; if you’re looking for more guidance on how to use this platform, check out our previous post here.
- Keep it local. OK, this is commercial in nature. But followers love it when you join forces with other small businesses and create a local, close-knit vibe online. So if you’re a coffee shop down the street from a pizza place, a sandwich shop, and a bike shop, make sure the whole world knows it’s one big happy family. Have guest bloggers, run contests, create a community-within-a-community. After all, many social media success stories start small. It’s the same reason why farmer’s markets are so fun and Monsanto is so despised: people won’t refuse any excuse to go local, so give them many.
- Non-commercially share (and care.) Again, this can seem pretty obvious but sometimes businesses share content only when it has something to do with their business or a product. Which is fine, but again, there’s only so many pictures of your new line of high heels a viewer can take (trust us, we’ve tried). So take an occasional non-commercial approach and use this rule of thumb: if this photo, video, or blog delights me, odds are it’ll delight our followers. Better yet, make it an action step in your blog or content marketing strategy to post at least three non-commercial pieces of media a week.
- "Give away the formula." Back in May I was stupendously delighted when I discovered corn cookies from Milk, a boutique bakery in Brooklyn. It has the perfect consistency (namely, it was raw.) And imagine my surprise when I saw the recipe for these cookies online. Now, we're not saying Coca-Cola should give away it's formula - the secrecy surrounding it is Dan Brown-like - but if you're a small business that makes stuff that people find delightful, consider giving away the goods.
- Make it about them. The relationship between social media and unbridled narcissism is well-documented. And for a small business, that can be a good thing. So go above and beyond in giving your followers a platform in which to express themselves. If you're a pie shop (fun fact: pie, without fail, delights) that encourages followers to make their own pies, then encourage them to send in photos of them with their creations. Make galleries solely for follower-submitted media. Make the customer - and not the brand - be the social media success story. For more tips on how to “get personal” with your followers, check out our previous post here
- And last, but certainly not least, Ice cream, cookies, and pie. This should be pretty self-explanatory by this point.
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