While some other Facebook pages score big with witty comments, fancy pants content or just being really well known, Joyce Meyer Ministries successfully engages by offering consistent “chicken soup” for the Facebook soul.

“I’m not where I need to be, but thank God I’m not where I used to be” – Joyce Meyer on Facebook

Joyce Meyer Ministries is a social media force to reckoned with, consistently scoring at the top of the Track Social Engagement Leaderboard alongside major name brands, despite having a much smaller following. One might think that being a religious organization offers an unfair edge, yet other religious groups do not come close. Ms. Meyer and her people display what one might call a God-given understanding of positive, uplifting, emotionally connected social media interaction.

Meyer is diligent with her page, updating her status on average at least 3 or 4 times a day. More so, the content of her updates strikes a nice balance, for a modern day church, between motivational sayings that offer a salve for real-life, everyday problems, and just enough old time religion (including actual Bible quotes) so that she doesn’t risk being labeled as another secular motivational speaker disguised in religious garb. The quotes are homey to a fault, taking a personal approach by coming direct from Joyce herself.

“Don’t mourn over your bad decisions just start overcoming them with good ones”

The posts comfort and instruct rather than judge or castigate, and they feel relevant to the lives of her fans who, on average, give between 20,000 and 30,000 likes and 500 and 1,000 comments per update. Embedded video posts of her folksy and approachable giant-arena presentations add a further dimension to Meyer’s online interactivity.

You might never have heard of Joyce Meyer, but her evangelical Christian ministry presents a fascinating study in capitalizing on the power of a persona to build a loyal and growing audience by becoming an everyday online resource connected with people’s lives.

So this is the question for any enterprise wanting to find success in the social media: what useful and exclusive resource can you offer your audience through that impels consumers to seek you out on a regular, recurring basis?

Exclusive deals? Guaranteed laughs? Pearls of wisdom? Helpful tips?

There are many souls out there longing for engagement, waiting to be healed – perhaps your company has it’s own special brand of ”chicken soup” for the Facebook Soul?

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“So what did you play this weekend? Don’t be shy.”

Over 20,000 comments later, gamers are still chiming in to answer that simple question, adding their own stories to a fast-growing thread on PlayStation’s Facebook wall.

This is our brave new marketing world in which social media platforms give brands parity with an individual’s online contacts. Where companies once stood outside consumers’ social circles, brands can now literally occupy the same online space as consumers’ friends and colleagues.  And that proximity on computer screens transforms a consumer’s mental space – allowing brands a real opportunity to offer the same kinds of interaction, engagement and enjoyment that online relationships offer. That’s the real revolution – call it “relationship parity” – which gives marketers the chance to turn social contacts into sales.

As PlayStation’s simple question illustrates, a brand can seize this new opportunity when it demonstrates that it knows, respects and values its consumers, earning the right to open a genuine dialog with them.  This gives consumers the chance to answer back while drawing even more potential customers into the discussion.

But what was it about this simple question that produced such an organic, robust response?  A devoted and engaged user-base is certainly one factor but we can’t chalk this up entirely to fanbot enthusiasm.

The real lesson here is this: it was an honest question. 

The kind of question a friend asks.  Without any of the guile of a more explicit pitch.  Think of the difference in asking, “What PlayStation game did you play this weekend?”  Read over some of the comments and you’ll find answers that mention games from other competing systems.  These comments spur other comments.  Debates flare.  Dialogue is spurred.  And the chain continues.

A simple, honest question gets honest answers… and a brand gets real customer engagement.

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Want a slam dunk wall post? Try combining sports, celebrity and opinion.

ESPN recently posted on their Facebook wall that their “experts” had bestowed the title of “best player in the NBA” on LeBron James, and the page subsequently received over 11,000 comments, 9,000 likes and 600 shares.  This is one of several very clever posting tactics- the “inside poll,” or “voted best,” or any other type of grand declaration of a superlative in a given field.

A posting like this is almost a can’t-lose proposition. Whether you’re a huge LeBron fan, or perhaps favor what we might call “consistent, big-game-winning” NBA players, you are likely to feel a compulsion to comment, like, re-post- or some combination of the three.  Irritation, aggravation and anger are often better motivators than the “positive” emotions. And a look at the comments shows quite a bit of flaming rhetoric aimed at the Miami Heat star’s designation as pro basketball’s supreme hoopster.

Such a posting is easy to do. It is not the result of arduous research, creative genius or intensive computations, yet it yielded thousands of passionately expressed responses, interacting about ESPN’s product. Now that’s audience engagement! Even if you’re not a sports nut, someone in your social circle will be and you’ll see the LeBron/ESPN posting. It’s a case of a smart, well-placed brand connecting their brand to the notoriety of larger-than-life individual to boost their presence on Facebook even higher.

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So…. what is an Oreo?

Many things, to many people, if comments on Facebook are any indication. On October 8, Oreo posted a seemingly innocuous statement, “Oreo cookies are…” The fans responded to the post, and they responded in an overwhelming fashion.

By the end of the day, Oreo’s post had received approximately 13,000 comments and 150 shares. The number of comments earned the social brand third place in Track Social’s “Most Comments in 1 Day on a Facebook Page” for the last week.

The number of comments and shares raises an interesting question. What, exactly, was so compelling about Oreo’s post that the fans responded in such a fashion? The statement certainly isn’t provocative or outrageous. It has no ties to a celebrity. It didn’t have a prize or even an overt call to action.

Perhaps it’s those very things that drew people’s attention. “Oreo cookies are…” is an open-ended statement. It has a subtle call to action: tell Oreo and other fans what Oreo cookies mean to you. The statement also is easy to complete. Fans only need to add a single word to complete the sentence. Some fans  resorted to the usual words, such as “delicious” and “fantastic.” Others were more creative, though perhaps redundant, in their proclamations of “oreolicious.”

Sometimes, the best social marketing doesn’t try too hard.

Still other fans waxed lyrical about what Oreos meant to them and their favorite ways to eat them. Even some that couldn’t eat Oreos for whatever reason were still compelled to talk about it.

With their simple, unprovocative query about the nature of it’s cookie, Oreo tapped into a global sphere of influence and, in so doing, told us as much about what the Oreo Brand is, and how to use the Social Media, as about what an Oreo Cookie is.

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On Wednesday October 5, Starbucks made a simple post on their Facebook page that drew over 135,000 Likes:

A quote from Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz on the same day drew some 45,000 Likes. Clearly a lot of people like to hang out in Starbucks, drinking Lattes and pretending to do very important things on their iMac, while actually listening to Justin Bieber on their iPod.

Also, perhaps, social moralism is seen as a Likeable quality for a business to have. It is also interesting that the simple unattributed message, perhaps seen as less self-serving, was significantly more popular.

The same day, Disney posted a facequote from its CEO paying respect to the sad event:

“Steve Jobs was a great friend as well as a trusted advisor…” – Bob Iger

The post got over 66,000 Likes. Interestingly, they posted another quote from Mufasa, The Lion King:

“There’s more to being king than getting your way all the time.”

Despite the irony that Steve Jobs was not entirely used to not getting his own way, Mufasa’s quote got more than 80,000 Likes.

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