5 Tips for Increasing Social Media Engagement

Build a Strategy to Engage Users 

With 80% of small to medium businesses using social media marketing, your company is wise to have a presence in order to drive the growth of business. However, if your posts aren’t getting enough social media engagement, you may be wondering what you’re doing wrong. Use these tips to help you become more successful and increase social media engagement.

1.   Talk about more than your brand.

Any good relationship has to have a give and take. Don’t just shout out your brand message. Instead, chat it up with visitors. Create and publish content (such as blogs) and post on social media. It’s a great way to build relationships and establish trust. However, if you’ve got a small following, consider creating or joining a social media group such as Facebook group. These forums provide the opportunity to ignite discussions about the industry, latest trends and interests. Consumers like brands that are relevant and useful, and don’t simply boast about themselves. 

2.   Ask questions.

The easiest way to get users to respond to you is by prompting them with a question. Interest breeds interest and people like to share opinions, especially online.  Keep in mind that not every question is equal, however. Research shows that words such as “should,” “would,” and “who” get more comments than “how” and “why.” It helps to keep a record of posts to see which work best for you.   

3.   Have a Q&A session.

Today’s consumers are impatient. People are looking for quick answers to their questions. Q&A sessions are a great way to provide users with valuable insight and get your brand noticed for being helpful. That said, it’s helpful to do some research on commonly asked questions for your brand and products/services. Remember, you want to provide relevant information. Be clear and accurate with responses. A quick answer that’s actually incorrect could damage your reputation. Instead, be prepared with responses that can be quickly personalized. Also consider providing links to content on your website that offer more in-depth information. This shows how willing you are to go the extra step to help your customers.

4.   Add images.

 When it comes to user interactions with brand posts, Twitter has 0.03%, Facebook has 0.07% and Instagram jumps to 4.21%. Why? The old saying that a picture is worth a thousand words still holds true in the digital age. Tourism marketers know using Instagram is a no-brainer, but many other industry brands also gain favorable engagement by adding photos, video, animated GIF or emoticons in posts. Research shows the use of emojis on Instagram dramatically increases engagement by 48%. Larry Kim, the founder of WordStream, did A/B testing on two different ads on Twitter (one with emojis and one without). The tweet with emojis received 25.4% more engagement.

5.   Use ads.

Define your target audience and discover which platforms they use most. Create and place ads there with a clear message and call-to-action. Boosting social media posts can increase the amount of people that see your content and enhances the chance of engagement.

Remember to measure, too

Keep in mind, the only way to see how much you’re improving is to create a benchmark and keep track of analytics after instituting changes. As you work to improve your social media marketing strategy, remember to use these five great tips to increase your engagement:

1. Talk about more than your brand.
2. Ask questions.
3. Have a Q&A session.
4. Add images.
5. Use ads.

The team at T.E. Digital knows social media marketing has the power to dramatically change the way you acquire customers. Need some help getting to where you want to be? Just give us a call.