We all know by now that including social media as a part of your business is no longer something “nice to have”, it’s actually a necessity. If you use it correctly, it can benefit you and your business in both, the short and the long run.
What is Social Media Engagement?
Social media engagement refers to the comments, likes, mentions, shares, and reposts you get on your content. You might be thinking, what about the followers? Yes, followers matter too, but only the followers that engage. Remember, quality over quantity.
Now that you know what social media engagement is, you should also know how to maximize it. Sure, you and 3.78 billion others are using social media platforms, but are they using it the right way? Let’s find out.
In order to maximize your social media engagement, here are 5 things you could do.
1- Know Your Audience
You might think your content is extra interesting, trendy, and inviting, but this doesn’t mean that you have guaranteed your audience’s attention. Knowing who your target audience is gives you optimal results. Look at who your current customers are, what are their likes and dislikes, how old they are, what are their incomes, what pain points do they have. If you feel like these are difficult and impossible information to find out, trust me, it’s not! A lot of customer information can be found only by looking at your analytics and tracking your campaigns.
You can also find out more about your customers by:
- Looking at your competitors
- Checking out similar Facebook groups
- Sending out surveys
- Using google analytics
After all, it is hard to engage with your customers if you don’t know who you are engaging with. Would you become friends with someone you have absolutely nothing in common with?
2- Initiate Conversations
Firstly, start by showing that you are a human too. A lot of brands nowadays encourage their social media team to sign off their posts to appear more friendly and encourage engagement.
You can also initiate conversation in many other ways.
- Show people what goes behind the scenes by posting photos or videos.
- Post content that is relatable, modern and includes humor. This way, your conversion rate will increase since your customers will mention their friends who will show it to their friends who will send it to their friends.
- Like the comments that people leave on your posts. You can even go to an extent of responding to them and asking questions.
Once you initiation is a success, it is important to keep the conversation flowing, but don’t let it become annoying.
Therefore, it is best for brands to practice both reactive and proactive engagements. Let me explain, a reactive engagement is when you are answering people who initiated the talk. That is, replying to direct messages, comments, mentions etc. Proactive engagements are when you initiate conversation with the people who although are talking about your brand but haven’t sent any messages to you.
did you know that approximately 97% of all Fortune 500 enterprises use at least one social media platform as of 2018?
3- Prepare Competitions, Giveaways and Contests
How do you expect people to engage with your posts, if there is nothing engaging about it? One of the ways to grab people’s attention is evoking their competitive side. Running giveaways, competitions, fun games, and contests is considered to be one of the easiest ways to encourage engagement.
- Ask people to follow some pages in addition to your page. (In order to be considered a contestant of the contest)
- Ask them to mention as much friends as they can. (The more mentions, the more chances to win the competition.)
- Ask them to like and comment under your recent uploaded images. (Their comments can be an answer to a question, a favorite movie recommendation, their birthdays…)
- Ask your followers to share your posts on their stories. (This can help your page to be much more recognized, therefore increases engagement)
- Ask them to solve a riddle. (The first one to answer wins the competition)
Of course, you will need to congratulate the winner with a prize with the expense of your business. The prizes can be one of your products or services, a discount code, or a cheaper membership.
If you think about it, it’s a win-win situation. You’ll get more engagement, and they will win free stuff.
4- Post Consistently
In order to keep your content fresh and your account active, you have to post constantly. Nobody wants to keep getting alerts about things that has happened 2 months ago, therefore staying up to date is vital for the success of your business. Keep in mind that social media trends move very fast, so posting once a month is not ideal.
Always remember that you are not the only one that is posting things on the platform, so when you post something, your customers won’t see it after few days. If they don’t see what is going on with your brand, what updates, deals, and discounts you are offering, then the only one seeing your brand will be… you.
- It is ideally recommended to post 2-3 times per week, and no more than 1 times per day. However, you can post more frequently on your stories.
Having a consistent posting theme also attracts customers because people are more likely to follow you if they know what to expect.
In addition to posting constantly, you have to post at the right time too. Get ready to learn your customer’s routines so that you post at the times they are most active. Of course, you don’t want to stay Infront of your devices 24/7, so it might be the best to get used to preparing schedules and working depending on it.
If you have no new updates about your business, you can post:
- Customer feedbacks
- Motivational quotes
- Tips and tricks about your product or industry
- Behind the scenes photos
Google uses “freshness” to rate a website, so unless you don’t want to boost your SEO for better ranking, do not worry about posting consistently.
5- Conduct Q&As, Surveys and Polls
Next on our list is conducting polls, Q&As and surveys.
What’s amazing about this tactic is that it gives you customer feedback smoothly. You can easily know what your customer’s pain points are and what solutions they need. Knowing this information accelerates the success of your business because you can use them for your and your customer’s benefits.
Asking fun but informative questions, such as “which one do you prefer?” is a great way to keep your customers engaged with your business too. Make sure they are brand and industry related. If you owned a baking business, you wouldn’t ask if your customers like wearing short shorts or long pants.
You’re free to go beyond traditional questions. For example, you can ask:
- What is your favorite — ?
- Would you rather – or — ?
- If we gave you 100$, what would you buy from our products?
Question and answer sessions gives a company a chance to not only have a conversation with their audience and to get to know them but also to identify their audience’s views about the products and services of the business.
In conclusion, knowing how to use a social media platform is just as important as the amount you’re using.
Keep in mind that posting images of your products or offering your services isn’t what’s getting you sales. You have a better chance of a successful business if you know how to engage with your customers, that’s what’s going to pull them to you.
So, which tactic do you use to keep your peers engaged?
