Engagement should be one of the most important aspects of your social media strategy. Just as with a proposal of marriage, engagement signifies a long term relationship. A bringing together of two people. And in social media terms, it’s not much different! Engagement will help your brand build relationships with customers and potential customers, and convert those potential customers in to customers, bringing them together with your brand!
Engagement is also really important for increasing reach. Many platforms now favour posts with high levels of engagement, giving them higher reach and displaying them higher in feeds. Engagement also leads to more engagement, as the more people who engage, the more people who see the post, who may then also engage too, and so on! It’s essential in going viral!
So, how can we encourage more engagement on social media?
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Ask Questions
If you don’t ask them to comment, how likely are they to comment?! Posting statements will generally lead to far fewer comments than posting questions. Questions open up conversation. That question mark leads the reader to want to respond. Think of how you can turn the majority of your posts in to questions. Got a blog post to share on social media? Ask a question about the blog post at the end of your update. Telling people what’s happening in your business that day? Ask them what they are up to. It doesn’t have to be a complicated question. Just a question that encourages people to respond.
2. Ask For Engagement
If you don’t have a question to ask, instead ask them to engage how you wish them to. For example, on Facebook you could use the reactions as a polling system – e.g. happy face for agree, angry face for disagree! Or you could add a photo and ask people to suggest a caption for it. Or ask them to fill in the blank – “The best thing about today was_____”. People like to complete sentences! Ask them to comment below, or to click that like button, or to tag a friend. Whatever the action is, give them a call to action to take that action and they are far more likely to do it!
3. Give Them The Content They Want
People are more likely to engage with your content if they are interested in it or if it is of value to them. Make sure you understand your target audience inside out and post content that will be of interest to them. They are more likely to click, watch, like or respond if it’s the right content for them.
4. Look At Your Stats
How do you know what they want? They are telling you! If you get low levels of engagement on a post, chances are you haven’t hit the right note with it. If you get high levels of engagement, then it’s resonating with your audience. Make note of what is working and what isn’t and stick with what is!
5. Try Something New
One thing that really helps boosting engagement is doing something different. If you’ve never gone live, give it a go. Never posted a video, record one today. Never shared a selfie, go ahead! Success happens outside of your comfort zone. So, head there and see that engagement go up!
Let me know how you get on and what type of content gives you the best engagement! And, don’t forget, if you struggle with creating content, I’m running a LIVE online course from Tuesday 11th July that will help you create social media content that sells. CLICK HERE FOR ALL THE DETAILS!
