How to Increase Social Media Engagement
Engagement is everything when it comes to social media. When fewer people are liking, sharing, and commenting, it means fewer people are seeing your post. So finding creative ways to increase engagement with your social media content is key.
Want to learn how to increase social media engagement? InnoVision’steam of experts is here to help. Leverage our top five ways for increasing social media engagement across all platforms.
1. Generate Buzz
The first step to increasing social media engagement is to increase excitement, or buzz, around your brand. One way to generate excitement amongst your followers is to host giveaways. For instance, encourage your audience to like, share, and comment on a specific social media post to earn an entry into the giveaway. That way, you can ensure that you’re getting enough engagement to make the giveaway worthwhile.
Another idea is to encourage your followers to tag a friend in the comments section. If you’re trying to grow your audience, incentivizing your followers to tag friends in the comments will get more eyes on your posts and potentially attract new people to your business. Contests and giveaways are also a great way to build interest and buzz around your brand.
2. Engage With Customers
Another key aspect of growing your social media following is engaging with customers on a personal level. Be relatable and interact with your customers often. If they provide feedback, whether through a positive review or a negative critique, respond to them and let them know you appreciate their insight. If there’s an issue, make an effort to address it.
Engagement is a two-way street. Just as you want to increase your social media engagement, your customers also want to feel as though they’re understood and heard. If your customers are providing thoughtful feedback and you implement it, make sure you show that on your social media.
Another way to actively engage your audience is by giving them an inside look at your business. For instance, using the stories feature on Instagram is a great way to give your followers a behind-the-scenes peek at your company’s day-to-day operations. You could showcase your staff, go through how you come up with new ideas, or simply show a process video on how your product is made. You can also share exclusive updates, product reveals, and insider information that makes your audience feel rewarded and in the know.
3. Be Clever
The content that is most likely to be shared is content that’s creative and fun. People gravitate toward humor and originality, so be witty and clever in a way that is on brand and not offensive.
One business that does this well is Taco Bell, which has more than two million followers on the Taco Bell Twitter account alone. One of the fast food chain’s most recent tweets reads, “It’s always ‘bring back _____’ never ‘how are you?’” It’s a playful tweet that garnered reaction from everyday Twitter users as well as other restaurant chains, with Little Caesars Pizza replying, “Relatable. Also, how are you?”
We can all relate to people asking things from us without always taking an interest in how we’re doing. Taco Bell’s playful take on this is an excellent example of how being clever and having a sense of humor can help you appeal to more followers.
People love to have a good laugh, and they scroll through social media looking for that dopamine boost that something funny can bring. They enjoy having fun and feeling good about the content they’re consuming. If you can be clever in a way that’s on target for your particular audience, it will drive engagement and make people want to interact with you more in the future.
4. Post Quality Content
People often turn to social media for a good laugh, but even if you’re not a stand-up comedian, you should be looking to post content that has value and meaning for your followers. For instance, you could create a video post that’s informative and shows them how to tackle a do-it-yourself project from start to finish or a video that breaks down a topic that isn’t always well understood.
Always think about the value of the content you’re posting and whether it has benefits for your intended audience. Whatever you’re posting, it should entertain, uplift, educate, or inform (or a combo of all four).
Be sure that you’re also posting visually stimulating content. Posts should be accompanied by high-quality photos, videos, or graphics, as interesting visuals will grab people’s attention. Creative and clever captions sustain that attention on your content.
If you find yourself needing some inspiration, just take a look at some of your top-performing posts across all your social media platforms. Your followers will show you what they’re interested in by how often they’re engaging with specific content. Use that information to your advantage by giving them more of what they want.
5. Know Your Audience
Ultimately, the best way to engage with your followers is to really understand who they are. You can figure this out by using each social media platform’s analytics tool.
For instance, what are the demographics of your followers? Knowing who is engaging with your brand will help you tailor posts specific to your audience. Most social media platforms offer their own analytics tool to help you gather this insight.
For instance, Facebook offers its Facebook page insights tool, and Twitter analytics will show you what content your audience is responding to most. Other tools like Hootsuite will also provide performance stats so you can identify trends among your audience.
Knowing your audience enables you to better cater to them while marketing your product in a more effective way. If you want more tips on how to increase your social media engagement, InnoVision’s team of experts can offer professional guidance on how to grow your audience quickly and efficiently. We’ll show you how to harness the power of social media to expand your immediate reach while creating a meaningful and lasting impact.
