In a standard world of business, competition drives sales. After all, only one can win, right? Well, in the world of social media, it doesn’t exactly work like that.
Social media is a place for community building. Everything is based off of your network. On both Facebook and Instagram, the accounts and people you interact with the most appear at the top of your feed. The more people you engage with, the more feeds you will appear in. That’s why businesses are choosing to partner up and build each other up rather than tear them down on these platforms.
Truth is, unless you already have a decent following and a large community, potential customers are going to be skeptical about you. It’s a chicken and egg situation. You can’t get a community going without people trusting you and can’t get people to trust you without already having a community.
This is where businesses come in. We’re not saying you have to offer the same exact product. Find businesses in a similar niche. If you sell toothpaste, find a brand that sells toothbrushes. If you’re a marketing agency serving businesses, find marketing agencies serving influencers.
What we have seen work well is having a group chat with a bunch of similar businesses, where everybody can send their most recent posts for everyone else to engage with. If they are promoting a certain service or product, the rest of the gang will help promote it on their platforms. It’s a mutual agreement where you give engagement and receive it as well.
Additionally, you now have access to all of these brands’ followers. Comment on their posts and respond to the people who are also commenting on their posts. Engage with not just your community, but theirs. If these commenters are interested in your “partner” brand, chances are they would be interested in yours as well.
Overall, we always recommend positive community support over competition. No one can do it alone out there, and more can be achieved with a bigger team (at least in the case with social networks). We’re all in this together, going after the same goals. So we might as well help each other out!
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