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September 25, 2020
Posting on social media channels is essential for most businesses, but engagement can be even more important that the content you share. This means you should interact, comment, share, like and react to things that happen on your social channels. Strong social media engagement is a sign that your business is making an impact in the market, and some platform algorithms use your level of engagement as one of the key ways they gauge whether to feature your posts.
Check out a few benefits and ways to measure this engagement and how you can perfect it.
Enhancing your social media engagement with current and potential future customers can help you build a positive brand experience and boost ROI. It can also help you achieve the following marketing goals:
You can measure your engagement on social media platforms by a range of metrics, including the following:
These metrics can also help you find popular content among the audience and demographics of the people who visit your page: where they live; their age, gender and interests; the optimal time of visiting the page; how they find your page; what days and times they’re online and peak traffic hours.
Tracking the above metrics can provide you with valuable insights about content statistics — what’s working or what’s not — such as the average video playtime. The tools for social media analytics can help you save time and select your social media content. They can provide a general overview of your engagement efforts and in-depth reports on specific keywords or topics, thus measuring the success of your brand.
When you engage with your audience on social media, you might turn them into potential customers. The time you devote to building relationships with your audience can lead to an increase in customer loyalty and higher positive reviews. Therefore, it gives people a reason to follow and interact with you. You can increase your audience engagement with the following 14 tips.
You should create content based on your customers’ interests. There are different types of content suitable for each social media platform. The best way to figure out what content can work is to post and analyze both your posts and the posts of competitors. Keep tabs on current trends, upcoming events, launches or campaigns and try to develop unique social media posts to promote these.
Tracking the performance of posts helps you identify the content that engages your audience more. Content that can pique their interest may include blog posts, videos, infographics, downloadable guides, mini-courses, webinars and much more.
Use your brand name for your profile, and also include contact information and a description. If you are a solo entrepreneur, use your picture and if you are a brand, use your brand logo. Audiences often tend to engage more with a brand when they know there’s a real person on the other end.
Keep your responses thoughtful, informative and quick while engaging with feedback you receive on social media. A speedy response can increase customer satisfaction, but make sure the tone is warm, friendly and helpful. This will help customers trust your brand since you’ve answered their questions and resolved their issues. Both the person you’re responding to and other viewers may also respond by liking your comments, viewing your profile, following your page or visiting your website.
Posting content consistently is vital to keeping your content fresh on social media. Posting at the right time each day is also important to maximize audience exposure. Take advantage of marketing tools to prepare and schedule your posts in advance. CoSchedule pulled data from 14 studies and found how often you should post on each platform:
To connect with like-minded people, use the right hashtag that reflects your brand. Invite your followers to participate in hashtag-related content. When used correctly, hashtags can be a powerful way to grow your reach, boost engagement and get more exposure.
Use an engaging image, such as photos of people using a product or highlighting a client testimonial. Adding relevant images, emojis or GIFs to your post will help you boost social media engagement. Make sure your visual content shares information according to your target audience.
The contests you create may have a variety of objectives, depending on your business. They could include posting pictures, recipes, recordings, illustrations, poems, essays, stories and more. You can also provide compelling incentives in your social media contests to encourage readers to comment, like and share.
There are different types of offers, such as instant coupons and discounts, club membership and free shipping that customers respond to swiftly. You can allow readers to redeem offers online and in-store within a given time. Providing people with time to claim an offer allows them to share it among their friends. Also, pin a discount to the top of your social media page to get it noticed.
Offer people a behind-the-scenes look at your business or how you perform something special through photos or videos. Introduce your employees and let them talk about how or why they came to work with you. Showcase the technology or processes you use for a specific task. Tell a story about the challenges you faced and how you overcame them. Sharing customers’ experiences can encourage other customers to share their own experiences using your products or services.
Live videos are a great way to boost your social media engagement. Choose a trending topic to talk about and invite people to share expertise, from educational news to tech reviews, and so on. Notify followers in advance if you plan to host a live video — what you’re going to talk about and for how long. Hold a general Q&A, share some tips or host a webinar for your clients. Also, encourage your audience to ask questions and interact with you.
Articles can be about anything like inspirational quotes, infographics, blog posts or interesting facts. Use a compelling headline for your article and create content that your customers can enjoy. You can also share details about the product itself, how you designed it, the features of it, or any promotional deals that you might be running to give people a discount.
Share an interesting article link that corresponds to your business or industry and tag writers to let them know what you’ve learned from their articles. If the writer comments back, it can provide you with extra exposure and promotion. You can also connect with a relevant social cause that can make your business seem more human and personal.
Asking relevant questions is a great way to get customers to leave a comment on your post. You can ask questions through using hashtags or tweets, or by holding your own “ask me anything” event on your website or any other platform.
Interactive content such as polls, quizzes and contests work well to involve and engage the target audience in communication with your brand. There are two common polls used by brands. One is “what new products or features would you like?” The second is “which of these options do you prefer?”
Tasnim Ahmed is a content writer at Escalon Business Services who enjoys writing on a multitude of subjects that include finops, peopleops, risk management, entrepreneurship, VC and startup culture. Based in Delhi NCR, she previously contributed to ANI, Qatar Tribune, Marhaba, Havas Worldwide, and curated content for top-notch brands in the PR sphere. On weekends, she loves to explore the city on a motorcycle and binge watch new OTT releases with a plateful of piping hot dumplings!
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