The term “Social media engagement” is very imperative for making social media campaign successful, but, however, it seems to be vague for many marketers. Engagement is a two-way communication process wherein you establish a talk between your brand name and target audience.
While Social Media Engagement implies that receiving a reaction from the target audience in terms of shares, mentions, likes, retweets, and comments, etc.
In other words, the content you share on social media platforms decides your engagement with consumers. But how may you engage with target customers? What sort of content should you prepare to engage the public? Today digital marketers are seeking the answer of these above questions.
But before move on, presume that unless you are not occupied with social media or brand, the entire points given below will go vain. Because consumers have nothing to do with your brand unless they are not interested, to stir up awareness about the brand you have to engage with people. There are certain tips thereby you may increase social media engagement.
# 1. Carve an informative content
Write articles/blogs and share it on your social media page as well as websites so as to connect with your clientele. As per internet stats about 2million content would post each day. So, follows certain rules to make germane content.
For reference, you may go through a few sites such as Hubspot, quicksprout and buffer.
# 2. Use glittering images to get attention
In contrast to words, images speak more clearly and render the message more effectively. And on social media channels, images are far more relevant and engage as well as create interest among target people. Research done in the United States, clearly stated that images induce the audience to interact.
But somehow avoid using old and already used images with your content. Make sure that the image you use is dazzling as well as fresh so that could stop consumers from your picture & engage with them. Here are some tools that will help you boost your engagement through images.
#3. Share appealing videos
Today with the help of videos you may build a strong bond with your potential customers. And in order to increase interaction, it is essential for brands to put in videos on Facebook, Youtube, Twitter, and Pinterest.
You may use the following tools thereby you may make social media engagement more effective.
# 4. Ask questions to your customers
Many social media marketer might think that why should ask a question to target people instead of requesting? But, however, asking a question to audience boost engagement. So ask them questions like how’s the content? what do they like? Compare two brands via images, and then ask their preference. In doing so you will create a special bond and build trust amid the audience. As a result, you will enhance connectivity with the target audience in terms of likes, shares, and comments.
# 5. Be genuine & don’t create fake accounts
Often some digital marketers create so many fake accounts to converse with consumers, and it forms a bad impression amongst prospective as well as existence audiences. As people are intelligent enough to make out the fake & authentic accounts. So instead of becoming too smart, be authentic.
# 6. Begin a Facebook group
Nothing can beat the efficacy of Facebook groups as it provides your brand and content better visibility in the newsfeed of Facebook. It implies that if any member of the group posts something in the group, the post will appear on the newsfeed of all members of the group.
In addition, the group comprises people allied to the same taste and are hoarded in a group for a certain cause. Therefore group participants in groups are voluntarily raising debates & discussions. So by making a group, you may engage more people to your objective.
# 7. Respond to questions & Be a part of dialogues
In order to boost up, the social media engagement involve yourself & your brand on forums like Quora & LinkedIn group. At present, there is a distinct type of forum that engages with the target public in terms of discussions.
# 8. Post at Right time
Sometimes you just post on social media sites early in the morning or in the evening, but do you know it shuns connecting with the target audience instead of engagement. Hence find out apposite time for different platforms to make a post.
In addition, there are social media tools such as Buffer, Hootsuite, socialoomp, TweetDeck, and sprout social, that help you out find the right time of posting.
# 9. Post on Thursday & Friday
Research says that generally majority of people engage with your post on Thursday & Friday as ahead of weekend the frame of mind of people would be positive. For the comprehensive details please check out this website.
# 10. Identify & Notice your regular consumers
Generally, everyone loves being noticed, so on social media, if you give them deserved attention on your brand page, they will not only engage but become loyal to your brand. For this, you just need to mention their names. Or tag them with your posts. In doing so will facilitate you build a relationship between your brand and consumers.
# 11. Must listen in to your target audience
As you know that social media is a two-way process, therefore, it is important that you listen to your audience instead of merely talking and propelling them. And real converse on social media begins when you listen to what your customers say. Today there are so many social media monitoring tools like Hootsuite, social mention, Klout, Facebook insights, Topsy, and Social Champ that will facilitate you know about your engagement with your target audience and help you establish clarity in communication.
# 12. Use Google+ features
Make maximum use of Google+ circles to spread out your blog content & hangouts to communicate with your prospects. Along with creating a Google + community according to your brand.
# 13. Make a Group Board on Pinterest
In order to connect with others on Pinterest, make a group board with a theme and ask others to add pints to it. By doing this you not only endorse your brand but also engage with target audience.
# 14. Make use of hashtags
If you wish to make your tweets or specific content go viral on various channels like Twitter, Facebook and Google+ must use #(hashtag) as it facilitates people to find out your content with ease. you might have seen that some topic trends on social media, for instance, # Narendra Modi, if you write any content with # Narendra Modi, your posts will be recognized, and will trend with the same hashtag.
In other words, it is a preeminent way to amplify engagement on social media, so always use# before you brand or for whatever you are marketing. At the same, don’t use too many hashtags for a single brand as it creates confusion amongst consumers. Read dos & don’t of using hashtags.
# 15. Share your Brand Story
Since the dawn of mankind, stories have been used to impart knowledge as people relate & engage with stories. So put your brand story in fascinating ways ahead of your target audience.
# 16. Become a problem solver for your Customers
The primary purpose of inbound marketing should be how the services or products that you offer is beneficial for your consumers. Hence make an edifying content that makes your consumer more conscious & knowledge.
# 17. Photo caption
In order to gain maximum response of your fans, followers & friends you must use good caption as it immensely increases the engagement rate. And photo caption must be a stimulating, amusing and questionable.
# 18. Quotes
Hope is one thing that keeps everyone motivated, therefore an inspirational & insightful quote always works. So as to engage with target audience share philosophers as well as spiritual leaders quotes on your social media pages. If feasible, share visual quotes. You may check out some sites like nonsencesociety, Goodreads and visual news for visual quotes.
# 19. Boost your Post
It is not possible that people take an interest in all of your posts shared on Facebook. So engage with huge mass with the paid post boost option of Facebook. In doing so, you may take up your specific post to a large number of people. You may do this frequently to get more likes & recognition.
# 20. Don’t Be too much promotional
Do you post self-promotional posts on your FB, Twitter, and other social media platforms? If the answer is yes, then don’t do it much as people begin getting feeling of monotony concerning your brand. Once the estranged feeling has aroused amid your consumers, they stop engaging with your brands in terms of likes and posts.
Hence more posts of yours should have nothing to do with promotion. Of course, you may share one promotional post once in a day or two days.
# 21. Call To Action
In your message, you must include a call-to-action as it renders apparent instruction that you really wish to convey to your target audience and how you want them to retort to your posts.
In addition, don’t make a request on your posts as it gives a wrong message to people about your brand. So you may ask them to read more or click here below this link. Or subscribe, share, like & comment about the post.
# 22. Called for an event
You might have been invited by your friend for some sort of event ever since you joined the social media site Facebook. So organize online events on Facebook, Tweet chat on twitter and webinar on Google + or any other kind of offline events such as press conference and seminar. According to research majority of people respond to events called on social media sites. In addition, generally many of your followers or fans may share the post that they are going for an event or they may be going or they attended an event. Along with you may also share event post that how many attended an event.
# 23. Post-consumer reviews & testimonials
Every brand gets reviews about their products and services from consumers, so share reviews on your website’s testimonial section & that link you may share on social media platforms, as it augments credibility of your company. Because they think that their feedback really does matter.
# 24. Felicitate Followers & Fans
Say big thanks to your regular consumers and reliable followers for like, retweet and share your posts on their profiles. It is considered an unsurpassed way to boost up engagement and build the brand.
# 25. Keep your post to precise
Today as you know that people don’t have time to do a long reading, and research done on social media posts says that posts with limited words get more likes, retweets, and shares. The word limit for various social media platforms.
# 26. Be Reliable
Social media management is all about regularity, the more consistent you are, more visible your brand. If you make post 5 times in a day, and then for a few days you don’t post anything. By doing this practice you may lose your current followers instead of gaining new ones. So make two posts in a day, but be consistent in doing so.
# 27. Care for others
There is a famous saying that treats others as you want to be treated. The likes and shares that you wish for your brand, others want too. So share others link & posts on your page so that others get inspired by this of your gesture. And it alike gives & takes a business that getting popular amid the world of social media marketing.
# 28. Make a presence in Local searches
If you are local brands and wish to amplify engagement on social media, then you must list about your brand on Google+ business listing so that your customers can easily come across you, and appraise your business on Google.
With the penetration of smartphones, to engage with a large audience, local listings are very imperative. If your business profile is created on Google+ business listing, Google will present you comprehensive insights & analytics about your engagement. And on Google+ business page you may share your blog posts so as to ensure consumer participation.
# 29. Headlines Optimization
You don’t read any blog, article or any content unless there is an appealing headline that propels you to read the content. So, instead of devaluing the efficacy of always creating something creative & catchy headlines for your blog posts.
The headline of your should be very short and specific to your topic and then optimize for SEO.
# 30. Engage With Social Media Influencers
If you are really keen to make your brand more popular in the meantime catch up with an influential people of social media. These influencers may be bloggers, leaders, stars, journalists, and experts of any field whose voice really does matter. As they enjoy a larger supports in terms of huge followers and fans on social media, so if they make any post on their profiles, it goes viral.
So engage with these digital media leaders, and increase your brand reach amid populace. However, it is a tedious process but will be paid you off in terms of better visibility of your brand.
# 31. Reply to negative comments
Many digital marketers avoid engaging with consumers on social media if gets negative feedback. but, if you are engaged with customer positively, and answer their complaints and vow to resolve it. In doing so, you may avoid serious damage or reputation of your brand.
# 32. Follow Your followers
You might have figured out some consumers who are engaged with you since you came on social media, so follow those loyal customers on Facebook and Twitter. In doing so, you win the trust of your followers, consequently, they begin more engaging with your brand.
# 33. Don’t overlook SEO & SMO
After writing many marketers don’t optimize their blogs, but it is preeminent to do social media optimization as well as search engine optimization in order to bring in readers to your content.
# 34. Be active on LinkedIn
As LinkedIn is a social networking site widely used by professionals of leading companies, so publish new posts on your account constantly so that people in your network get notifications, thus facilitate you to enhance engagement.
# 35. Make a mailing list
Prepare a list of subscribers who want to receive updates about your company. In doing so, you not only get constant traffic to your sites but also remain to touch with your regular consumers. In case, if you intend to build a few more pages, then you may mail your page to your email subscribers and invite them to follow.
# 36. Connect with Blog communities
If you are actually keen to take up your content to larger audience join famous blog communities, in doing so you may augment your social shares. But prepare content according to the guidelines of the specific community.
Conclusion
There is a fallacy that posting content on social media continually is the best strategy for boost up engagement, but it is erroneous. So, post not more than 3 posts in a day to enlarge engagement, says the research of Hubspot. For comprehensive information, you may go through a website.