Social media is great for connecting your customers and creating positive conversations surrounding your brand. With almost 4 billion social media users in the world, it's important to stay engaged with your audience or clientele. Not receiving social media engagement can be extremely frustrating if you aren't seeing likes, comments, shares with your followership. You might be feeling like you're doing everything you can and still not getting the engagement you want. This is completely valid and it happens to a lot of brands….even ones with thousands of followers! Getting constant engagement on your social profiles can be tricky, but a few strategies can help improve your social media engagement. If you put enough time and dedication into your strategy you should begin to see your engagement increasing. Below are 7 strategies to help improve your social media engagement:
Understand Your Audience
Understanding your audience is one of the key steps in your engagement strategy: Knowing what your audience likes to see will guide your content creation in the right direction. Engagement comes when people are interested in a topic or idea. Finding out your followers' interests allows you to create relevant content accordingly and add value. A great way to discover what your followers have an interest in is by using social analytics. Social analytic tools such as Sprout Social can help you discover which of your posts have gotten the most engagement, reach, and likes lately. This can help guide you in what future content to produce.
Get Your Team on Social Media
Having your team on social media helps spread your content and increase engagement. It’s important to not only have your team members on social media, but they need to be active! When your team shares, likes, and comments on your social posts, it pushes your post in the right direction for social media algorithms. Another plus is that users tend to feel more comfortable engaging with comments when they see others have already engaged as well. You know how it works, a lot of people tend to be followers! If they see comments, likes, and shares they will feel like they should as well. A great place to start this is by getting your team to like, share, and comment, providing engagement with your social posts as much as possible!
Post During Optimal Times
This is one of the biggest mistakes people make when posting on social media. Think about this: if you are posting something when no one is online, how would you get top engagement? Many people tend to think “If I post when kids are in school and people are working, my post should be the first they see when they get off." That’s not necessarily true, chances are by the time they get off your post will get lost in the mix of hundreds of other posts from people they follow. You have to analyze when to post based on who your audience is and what their days look like (these can be ever-changing, too). Instagram Insights is a great tool to use to find your optimal posting times.
Make sure your profile is set as a business profile
Click "Insights"
Click "Total Followers"
Scroll down to the bottom to find your follower’s most active times
By analyzing these insights, you can potentially find the optimal posting time for your content which is sure to get your engagement going!
Respond Quickly
Often, engagement will fall because you aren’t taking the time to promptly respond to comments and messages. Engagement isn’t a one-sided thing. When people comment on something they usually expect a reply or a comment back. The more you respond to comments and messages, the more it makes them feel like they want to keep doing it. We all LOVE attention and generally when people comment on a post, they usually want some kind of recognition. Delayed responses or no responses at all will likely cause your follower to feel unappreciated and you might lose their engagement or even their follow. Make sure you give your followers the attention they need.
Engage With Your Follower Posts
We all know we pay attention to who likes and comments on our posts. Even celebrities notice when other social media users unfollow them or stop engaging with their content. This is the same for your followers! They notice when brands like their posts or give a comment, and it makes them excited. For other people to want to engage with your content, you need to engage with theirs. Take 30 minutes out of your day to just scroll through your feed, like some pictures, and leave a few comments on your followers' content. This will make them feel like you notice them and also inspire them to engage with you. You know how the saying goes, “I’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine." It’s a follow-for-follow kind of world, and we need to take notice of that!
Good Calls-To-Action
A call-to-action is a vital part of increasing your engagement. You can’t complain about your followers not engaging when you don’t even prompt them to do so. Often, you may think your followers aren’t engaging because they hate your content, but the truth is they probably just don’t see a reason to do so. If you give them a call-to-action it will likely spark their interest and make them respond to what you are asking. Some examples of CTA’s on your social posts can be:
"Like this photo, if you want to learn more on social media engagement.”
"Tag a friend in the comments who should try this strategy!”
"Comment below your favorite social media platform and why”
"Share this post with someone who could benefit from this information.”
These statements tell your followers that you want them to engage and you are also giving them a way to do it. Users like things to be easy, they don’t want to think of a comment or something to say. This will guide your followers to engage more with your posts.
Get Involved in Social Communities
Finally, get involved in social communities. You aren’t alone in wanting more social media engagement. There are tons of brands and businesses out there who feel the same. The good news? You can probably help each other out! Getting involved in social communities builds relationships with the right people who appreciate what you’re doing. The truth is, you might just not have followers who are generally invested in the topics you are posting. You can find like-minded people who might enjoy your content and boost your engagement by getting involved in social communities. It’s not always about the number of followers and likes you have, it’s about having VALUABLE followers and likes.
We understand how frustrating a lack of engagement can be, and that’s why we want to help with some of our favorite social media engagement tips. Getting your engagement up isn’t an easy task and can take a lot of time and continuous effort. If you want more help on your social media engagement strategy, reach out to 30|90 Marketing today!
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