By Kirby G Mack, Vice President of Digital Media at Simplicity Lone Beacon.
Social media, in today’s world it seems like a must. Especially for businesses. But where do you start? How do you grow? What do you do? Well, it takes time, and with time, patience, consistency, and a little bit of creativity.
Everyone has their own take on social media and how to capitalize on it. Social media best practices can vary depending on the platform and your specific goals. However, there are some overarching principles that can help guide your approach to social media marketing. In this article, we are going to look at just one. Engagement… and how to encourage it.
Encouraging engagement on social media is essential for building a thriving community, increasing your brand’s reach, and fostering meaningful interactions with your audience.
Here are some quick effective ways that you can encourage engagement on your social media.
Ask Questions:
- Pose thought-provoking questions to your audience to spark conversations and ask them to share their opinions, experiences, and ideas. Let them know you are genuinely interested in them. Make sure the questions are relevant to your audience’s interests. These questions don’t need to always relate to your business. You can ask for “Favorite rainy day movie recommendations?” or “Best fireside book?”. Remember the purpose of the question is to spark conversation. Here’s a free one for you, do an “Ask An Advisor” question of the week and take user-submit questions. Pick one to highlight weekly in a video or short post.
Respond To Comments And Messages:
- Actively engage with your audience by responding to comments, messages, and mentions in a timely and personalized manner. Show appreciation for their feedback, address any questions or concerns, and foster conversations to deepen the connection with your audience. All too often, the larger companies and individuals get, the less and less they interact with their social media followers. And it doesn’t feel good. It leaves a bad perception. Be sure to set some time aside, even if for only an hour, to show love to those on your page.
Run Polls And Surveys:
- Polls and surveys are great interactive tools that allow you to gather feedback from your audience while also encouraging engagement. Use polls to ask for preferences, opinions, or feedback on specific topics related to your brand or industry. And just like the first tip, these polls or surveys don’t also need to be business-related. Get to know your clients on a personal level. The more you connect the more they return and engage.
Host Contests And Giveaways:
- Contests and giveaways are effective at driving engagement and increasing brand visibility. Encourage users to participate by entering the contest, sharing the post, or tagging friends for a chance to win prizes or rewards. The act of having people tag or share the post with a friend for an entry, not only pushes that engagement but it also is a quick and easy way for you to get “referred.” Give away gift cards, a spa day, or company swag. Tell your followers to enter all they need to do is “like this post, share this post on your profile, and tag two friends!”
Share User-Generated Content:
- Showcase content created by your audience, such as testimonials, reviews, photos, or videos featuring your products or services. User-generated content not only encourages engagement but also builds trust and authenticity around your brand. Have a pet of the month, allowing users to share their animals with you. Or spotlight a client’s favorite retirement vacation. There are many ways you can ask your follows to contribute to you community with their own content.
Encourage Sharing And Tagging/Create Shareable Content:
- Encourage your audience to share your content with their networks by creating shareable posts and incentivizing sharing through contests or rewards. Encourage users to tag friends, family, or colleagues who might be interested in your content or products. Be sure to craft content that is entertaining, informative, or inspirational and is likely to be shared by your audience. Shareable content can help increase your reach and attract new followers while also encouraging engagement from existing ones. Your content has to have value, not only to you but to your users. They have to feel it’s worth it to share it.
Use Visual Storytelling:
- Visual content tends to grab attention and evoke emotions more effectively than text-only posts. Use compelling visuals such as images, videos, infographics, and GIFs to tell stories, convey messages, and evoke reactions from your audience.
Be Topical:
- Try to be aware of the trends. Which hashtags are currently being used? What memes are popular? What’s happening in the world or in pop culture and how can I relate them? Get involved in the conversations and topics your followers are.
Share ‘Behind-The-Scenes’ Content:
- Give your audience a glimpse behind the scenes of your business, including sneak peeks, day-in-the-life posts, or behind-the-scenes videos. Highlight employee’s by asking them questions, be it silly or business-related, or ask them to share their experience working with you. Authentic and transparent content humanizes your brand and fosters a sense of connection with your audience.
Incorporating these strategies into your social media and consistently engaging with your audience, can help you create a lively and interactive community around your brand that drives meaningful engagement and fosters long-term relationships with your audience. But remember what I said at the beginning. It takes time. For every viral video or overnight influencer sensation, there are millions of people out there that we aren’t even aware of. You have to keep at it. It’s like I said in my previous article, to build a good brand, or in this case a thriving social community, it takes Performance, consistency, and time.
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