Now you're speaking my [love] language ❤️

You may have heard the term ‘love language’ thrown around when watching an episode of The Bachelor or upon overhearing a group of friends at brunch gossiping about their partners. But what actually are they? And how can we employ them in social media?

A concept helmed by Dr. Gary Chapman, love languages help individuals effectively identify how they best communicate and receive love. There are five key ‘languages’ - Words of affirmation, receiving gifts, quality time, acts of service and physical touch. You can complete a short quiz here to find out which is your number one! And while you do that, we’re going to give you some ideas on how you can best utilise your love language to show a little love to your audience online this week (and every week after).

Words of Affirmation

Time to comment on those photos and reels! Let your audience know that you love how they’ve used your product in a unique way, cheer on your clients, or share a word of encouragement or support to other business owners. We all know comments help boost engagement, so not only are you giving them a confidence hit, you’re helping out the algorithm by showing that you like to share the love around by dropping meaningful comments and engagement to your audience! To make it extra special, send a direct message and really strengthen that connection. 

Quality Time

For this one, we recommend doing a ‘Live’ to spend that extra quality time with your audience. Open the conversation for your audience to ask questions about your product/service, get to know you and your business, or share some news or updates in your business or industry. Make sure you’re responding to your audience directly, or better yet, asking them to join you in the Live show your returned interest in them as much as they’re interested in you. Set aside the time before and after to really engage with people who have engaged with you, chat and listen. Both your heart, and the heart of your audience, will feel a little more full afterwards.

Acts of Service

How could you help our your audience or business friends in a way that’s serving them? We’re not recommending giving away your products or services for free, but maybe you could share some words or wisdom or advice, offer to help create/film content, recommend other businesses that could help them out, or create a collaboration with a business that compliments yours. Offering value to your audience will not only set you apart in the newsfeed, but it will also mean that your audience will remember you for future reference (so next time they need an illustration, candle, Google Ads manager, or yoga instructor, you’ll be the one they think of!)

Receiving Gifts

Everybody loves free stuff, and often, giving away free stuff is a great way to generate conversation, expand your reach, and connect with a wider audience, while also encouraging UGC (user generated content - our FAVE content). Giving gifts to your audience can sometimes prove a little hard, particularly if you’re an online store or a service-based business, so Instagram giveaways might be the best way to approach this love language! Now we know that Instagram has some pretty strict (and VERY clear) rules surrounding giveaways, but as long as you abide by them, you’ve got yourself an excellent gift-giving strategy.

We found this excellent guide to giveaways HERE, but stay tuned for a fleshed out Gabbi J Blog about giveaways soon!

Physical Touch

Potentially the hardest one to do via social media - we know nothing quite compares to a real life hug. And we’re not magicians, unfortunately the technology doesn’t exist to hold hands through a screen (yet). But you can still absolutely add personal touches to your social media strategy. Firstly (of course, no surprises here) featuring your beautiful face on the feed more often will instantly add a personal element to your strategy! But why not share more about your in your posts, show up more on stories, and share your personality through Reels. You could even respond to DMs using the voice note function, which adds a beautiful personal side to your DMs.

We love love, and we know understanding your love languages (online and IRL) can be an absolute game changer when it comes to connecting with the people around you. Play around with each of these love languages this month, and take the time to listen and understand which ones resonate the most with your audience. You might just find that you develop deeper connections, advocacy, and love amongst those who love your brand, and isn’t that everything we’re working towards on social media? 😍