Social media engagement is a key factor in effectively using your social media to increase brand awareness and find new leads. Many businesses are so focused on growing their audience they fail to engage their current audience.
When it comes to social media, the quality of your followers is more important than the quantity. A large number of social media followers can be beneficial in creating a more well-known brand. However, this audience will only be beneficial to your brand if you have mastered the art of engagement.
By focusing on social media engagement over growth, your brand will be able to convert followers into customers and strengthen existing customer relationships. Follow along to learn how to improve your social media engagement rates.
Use Images in all Posts
Using an image to post on Instagram is required, however, this is not the case across all social media platforms. Platforms such as Twitter, and Facebook do not require an image to post, but it is still important to include a relevant image in every post. Images are great ways to boost both social media engagement and reach. Images are eye-catching and provoke emotions whereas posts with only words blend into the feed and are not easily attention-grabbing. According to Twitter, Tweets with images are boosted in retweets by 35%. Facebook posts with images receive 37% more engagement.
LinkedIn is the one exception to this rule as text posts tend to outperform posts with images and videos. It is important to do your research on how to optimize engagement for each social media platform. However, in general, posts with images tend to outperform those without.
Use a Call to Action
A key element in increasing social media engagement is always including a call to action at the end of your posts. A call to action will help remind your follower to take the actions you want them to take. Encouraging your followers to like, comment, or share can help increase engagement on a post. Without any reminder, a follower may see a post with no call to action and simply scroll past it.
Including a creative, funny, or thought-provoking caption can entice your followers to comment their thoughts on your post and therefore boost the post. Liking every post on your feed and commenting on posts is not routine for everyone. A gentle reminder can help convert more of your followers into followers that consistently engage with your content.
Engage With Your Audience
Interacting with your followers is key to improving your own social media engagement. When your followers comment on your posts or send you a direct message, this is an opportunity to create a relationship.
It is important to respond to any questions or concerns your followers may have as well as show appreciation when followers give you positive feedback. Responding directly to your followers or engaging with their social media content will make them feel special and in turn, leave them wanting to engage with your content more often.
Additionally, frequently engaging with your followers will help to boost your profile on their feeds. Many social media algorithms are based on which profiles interact with each other most often. Social media platforms such as Instagram want to show their users relevant content they believe they would like based on who they interact with. Interacting with your followers will help to boost your profile and engagement while strengthening your customer relationships.
Post Engaging Content
If improving your social media engagement is your focus, make sure you are posting engaging content. This means posting more content that encourages follower participation. Posting polls, quizzes, and questions on your stories is a great way to creatively and quickly engage your followers.
Contest and giveaways are another way to engage your current followers as well as draw a new audience to your profile. One great example is to post a product or services giveaway and encourage your followers to like, comment, and tag three friends. Make sure the rules of the competition require anyone who is participating to follow your profile. Posts like these will certainly receive more likes and comments than regular posts and may gain you some new followers.
The more your business can encourage its followers to engage with your content through polls and contests, the more likely you are to consistently show up on the feeds on those who are participating in your content.
Use Analytics to Your Advantage
If your business wants to improve its social media engagement, you must first look at where your engagement currently stands. Whether you use a third-party tool for your social media analytics or the built-in analytics tools, this is something every business has access to and should be utilizing.
Social media analytics have crucial information regarding engagement. Gathering information such as the times your followers are most active, which types of posts have performed the best, and which ones have the best engagement rate is key in trying to improve your engagement.
Consistently posting at the time your audience is most active and posting popular types of content can help your future posts perform better since you know that is what your audience likes.
Looking at your individual account’s analytics is important because everyone’s analytics will be unique to their specific audience. Let’s say you read online that the best time to post on Instagram is 1 pm. Using analytics to gather where the majority of your audience lives in this scenario is key. If your company resides in pacific time but the vast majority of your followers are on eastern time, you want to make sure you are posting at 1 pm eastern time rather than pacific time.
On top of that, your audience behavior may vary from platform to platform. Look at your analytics for all your social media platforms. You may find different content performs better on different platforms or that your audience demographics are completely different on Twitter than on Instagram.
Using a social media scheduling tool can help your company stay consistent with this approach. Many of the tips and tricks you need are already sitting in your analytics so make sure you are checking them in order to successfully cater to your audience.
Social Media Engagement Takeaways
Improving your social media engagement strategy takes time and effort as every audience is unique. The end goal is to increase the quality of your followers, not just the quantity.
Redirecting your efforts towards catering your posts to your current audience can make a significant difference in your engagement rates. Increasing your engagement rates will not only help to convert your followers into customers, but it will improve your social media reach. Finding your groove can be time-consuming, however, putting in the work to engage your audience will help your company in the long run.
Do you need more in-depth guidance on how to improve your social media engagement? Take the next step towards increasing your brand’s social media game and sign up for a complimentary strategy session! Simply click the link below to get a jump start!
