For most brands in our modern world, maintaining a steady amount of user engagement with your social media accounts is a great sign that you’re becoming an authority in your market. Engagement on a social media platform can include likes, shares, and comments which are all different ways your audience can interact with your account, and the content you post.
However, the ultimate goal of increasing engagement isn’t about looking popular. It’s about connecting with existing and potential customers in order to boost your brand both on and offline. Let’s take a look at some different ways you can increase engagement on your brand’s social accounts.
Starting Your Social Media Strategy
When you’re first starting to look at how you can boost your engagement on social media, you should begin to jot down how your current strategy is going. Take note of your current engagement numbers and calculate what you think an achievable benchmark and goal should be. Be sure to regularly report on monthly statistics to track whether your strategy is working.
Next, you’ll need to devise a strategy. There’s no one size fits all approach to increasing engagement. For instance the Slim Jim Instagram and the Sephora Instagram are going to have different approaches to generating engagement due to their audience base, and the products they offer. By staying in tune to what your audience is wanting to see, or hear, you can come up with a strategy that best fits your needs.
For some brands, their strategy may be to improve their overall brand image, while others may aim to increase leads, or try to educate their audience on what their company offers. At the end of the day, choosing your strategy is dependent entirely on what you’re hoping to achieve for your brand.
Creating Strong Content
When you’ve done the research, found out the strategy you want to use, and have your goals set, it’s time to produce content. Content can be different for each social platform. Twitter is good for images and short remarks, Facebook is good for long form copy, and Instagram is ideal for photos and videos. However, regardless of where you post your content should always be follower focused. Creating content that highlights what your customers want and speaks to their pain points is paramount in generating engagement. It’s always better to remember that you’re talking with your audience, not at them.
For example, let’s say you’re a hardware store. While posting a fresh shipment of lumber will let your followers know you have a nice product in stock, posting instructions to building a matchbox car will give them a reason to come buy the wood and engage with your post. You can also take it a step further to ask people to share pictures of their creations for you to share on your social platforms.
This is just one example of how a business can utilize their content to increase engagement. Other options include contests, giveaways, polls, quizzes, or Q&A’s. Anything that will get your followers to engage with your content is a good idea so long as it doesn’t tarnish your brand image.
The Takeaway
The main takeaway from this blog is that increasing engagement on social media platforms is all about focusing on your audience. If you can create content that invites your followers to interact with your brand, you will quickly start to notice the number of engagements on your posts increase. Be sure to keep updated reports of how engagement is trending, and don’t be afraid to think outside the box when it comes to producing content.