February 28th, 2021
Social media has transformed the way we do business. You put work into the content you post, but you know that engagement from your audience is the key to growing your following and increasing customer leads and sales. Social media engagement is everything from shares and retweets, comments, likes, to the use of mentions and branded hashtags.
Social media engagement is part of how you build and strengthen relationships with your customers. It is a powerful tool for customer service because it is quick and responsive. If you do this well, it builds customer loyalty which is something money can’t buy. Answering their questions is part of what builds trust, but engaging with your followers, making jokes, and showing your humanity is part of what builds a lasting bond. A strong customer relationship and loyalty can only benefit your sales. Your audience will want to vote with their dollar, and studies show that followers are more likely to support a business they feel they can relate to.
You need to know where you are before you can understand how to get to where you want to be. Understand your current engagement. How many followers do you have? How many comments and shares are you getting on average? Any other metrics meaningful to your social media presence and how you are currently engaging? There are tools to help you understand social media analytics.
Decide what your strategy is as it will affect tone and mood. Do you want to be playful? More reserved, professional? Are you looking to change the perception of your brand or cultivate one from scratch? Who is your audience? These things will have an impact on tone, content, and scheduling.
1. Post content your audience will want to engage with.
Choosing content that your followers can engage with involves posting content that your followers can relate to. A funny tweet, a poll, or a product post that your followers can share with their friends is content that is not only easy to schedule and easy for your followers to share and engage with.
2. Respond to all comments and mentions.
By interacting with your followers, you build a relationship that can generate loyalty. Always answer questions and concerns in your comments. Social media is not only for the content you share but also about customer service. In digital marketing, it is called “social service care.” When you get a negative review or comment, follow up on it. Your other followers will witness your customer service, which will increase the likelihood of further customer leads.
3. Encourage followers to like, comment and share.
A call-to-action (CTA) button is engagement instruction for your audience. Short sentences like “we want to hear from you” or “tag a friend in the comments” are examples of a call to action. It is a simple way to catch attention with your content and capitalize on that interest. With the call to action, you convert that attention into more clicks.
4. Contests and Giveaways
Giveaways increase awareness and engagement. It’s an easy thing to build into cost, and who doesn’t like free stuff? It also legitimizes your product or service when your followers see it promoted by someone other than you.
5. Post Multiple Times Daily
You want to maximize eyeballs on your post, and one way to do that is to post multiple times a day. Another way to post strategically is to look at your analytics and determine the best times of day to post. Don’t post when your audience is busy.
6. Connect content to current events
By connecting content with current events, you tap into what is already on your follower’s minds. Election Day, Christmas, Thanksgiving, and the Super Bowl are all great themes to integrate into your content.
7. Cross-promote your content across other social media platforms
Each social media platform has its own distinct demographic. Facebook content is different than Twitter content which is both different from Instagram content, and an engaged user acts differently on each one. Many users are on a variety of social media platforms, but some aren’t. By cross-posting, you ensure that your message is seen by a greater audience and more potential customers, but it also helps build legitimacy and trust between you and your followers. When they see you across platforms, they can have confidence that your business is legitimate and your strategies consistent.
8. Do surveys and question and answer periods.
Asking your audience questions, hosting surveys, and question and answer periods is an accessible way for your followers to interact with you. General questions are a simple way to generate interaction. But more focused, specific questions will help you learn about your audience and get conversations going. They also learn more about you as the content creator and adds a human face to the business.
9. Develop branded hashtags, and repost followers that use them.
Consider developing a branded hashtags or a hashtag specific to a campaign or initiative. Your followers can use them to generate interest and track the reach of your brand with social proof.
10. Follow relevant and influential people in your industry.
Following the right people is basic networking. Follow and interact with other people in your industry. Engagement and traffic will increase as you get connected with those more widely connected and influential than you. Getting connected with communities and groups will connect you with people who are already talking about your focus and specialty.
If you’re serious about increasing engagement on your social media, you need to be active. It’s quite simple. To be active, post regularly, engage your consumers, participate in trending conversations, and join in on sharing other’s posts, and you will reap the benefits. Increasing your social media engagement isn’t rocket science, but it does require discipline. With these ten strategies, you can easily get started and apply methods to see your social media audience grow.
Want to help other businesses increase their social media engagement? SocialOwl makes that step easy. SocialOwl is a one-stop-shop to meet your needs for all of these strategies, from content scheduling to analytics. Reach out to us today to see how you can be a local social media marketing superstar!