Today, the social media world seems to be a pay-to-play sort of place. That is, you need to pay to boost the visibility of your posts for effective social media engagement. You need to pay to get your ads out there. You need to pay to increase your brand’s exposure to new audience members. In that sort of environment, it’s natural to wonder what social engagement has to do with your success in social media marketing.
There is True Power in Fostering Social Media Engagement
The truth is that while organic engagement may not seem as important as paid promotion, it’s actually the more vital of the two. However, it can be incredibly hard to achieve. Social media marketing for a business is vastly different from using these networks as a consumer, and generating engagement on your posts can be very difficult. What can you do to foster actual social media engagement with your audience? Keep reading to find out.
8 Social Media Engagement Tactics that Work
1. Ask Questions
One of the best ways to boost actual engagement in your social media marketing efforts is surprisingly simple. Just ask questions. Your audience is there. They’re reading your posts and watching your videos. They’re just waiting for a chance to chime in – to join the conversation. You can encourage them to do that by asking questions pertinent to their needs, your products/services, and the like.
2. Use Emojis
It wasn’t that long ago that emojis were the hallmark of high-school teenager text messages, but today they’re used almost everywhere. You can use emojis in your social media marketing posts to give your business a bit more humanity. It’s not just about humanizing things, though – they can also help you capture your audience’s attention and convey the appropriate emotion.
3. Time It Right
When it comes to social engagement, a great deal comes down to the time when you post your content. You need to know when your audience is most often online and tailor your posting schedule appropriately. This ensures maximum visibility for your posts and encourages social engagement from your fans and followers.
4. Respond to Comments
This one might seem like a no-brainer, but it bears mentioning simply because so many businesses fail to do it. If someone comments on your post, reply. If nothing else, thank them for taking the time to share their thoughts. If you build a reputation as a business that doesn’t bother replying to comments or answering questions, you leave your audience little reason to engage in the first place.
5. Use Shorter Posts
If you’re using text-based posts, consider reducing their length. While you might think that longer form content would perform better, shorter content actually gets better social engagement. Posts with 50 characters or fewer seem to perform best, particularly on Facebook. That doesn’t mean that you should only post short-form content, but you should sprinkle shorter posts into your social media marketing schedule.
6. Use Video Content
If you really want to increase your social engagement, use video content. Video is the fastest-growing and most popular type of content on social media, and it can be used relatively easily on pretty much every social platform out there, from Facebook to Twitter, Instagram and more. Video content is particularly good if you want organic shares, and not just likes or comments.
7. Post During Off-Peak Times
While you should certainly post when your audience is most often online, you should do your best to avoid peak times. This puts your content in competition with many other marketers, reducing the amount of attention your posts receive, as well as the amount of social engagement you’ll get on each post.
8. Don’t Link Everything
Sure, you can link from an image on a social media site to a blog post on your website to drive more traffic where you want it. However, there is evidence that supports the fact that you’ll get more engagement on social media if you share your information using a standalone graphic, instead of linking to another location. Of course, this shouldn’t be used for all of your posts, but it can be an important tool for building engagement on specific networks.
The Best Social Media Engagement Relies on Quality over Quantity
When it comes to social media marketing ROI, social engagement is a crucial metric for measuring success. It’s not all about the number of fans or followers you have, but how involved those people are in the conversation and how readily they communicate with you.
What’s your favorite engagement tactic from the above tips? Have a fave “to do” or even a “not-to-do?” Share your perspective in the comments below!
