Struggling to see good engagement with your social media content? While a lack of organic engagement could be caused in part by social media algorithms and how often your content is being shown to followers, it’s more likely pointing to an issue with your social media strategy. Learn more about how to improve social media engagement across various platforms and why it’s important below.
What Is Social Media Engagement?
Social media engagement is a measure of how active and interested your audience is with the content you’ve created. This involves various interactions, including comments, likes, shares, views, mentions, and more. High engagement indicates that you have a strong connection with your audience, which can lead to increased brand awareness, website traffic, and sales. Moreover, this level of engagement can help you collect important feedback, foster a sense of community, and boost customer loyalty—further strengthening your brand’s relationship with its audience.
Tips for Increasing Social Media Engagement
Boosting social media engagement goes beyond simply posting regularly. Use these 12 key strategies to effectively drive engagement across your social media platforms.
Grow Your Social Media Following
Social media engagement is a numbers game—if you get more followers, your social media posts should receive more interaction. However, gaining more followers isn’t just about quantity—above all, it’s about attracting quality followers that will engage meaningfully with your content. Focusing on attracting quality followers not only helps boost engagement but also provides the opportunity to convert those followers into loyal customers. To grow your audience and increase social media engagement, it’s important to first understand who your target audience is. Identify and develop buyer personas to hone in on the specific groups of people who are most likely to resonate with your brand, products, or services.
Hurrdat’s Social Media Director, Allie Gritt, gives advice on how brands can attract meaningful followers,
“Your content should be targeted to your current audience, as well as the audience you hope to gain. To do that, you need to engage with local businesses, current followers, and other brands in your niche via comments. Reshare stories from customers and employees who have had a positive experience with your company.”
Be Authentic
Many customers decide which companies they like and support based on their attraction to a brand’s voice and personality, so one of the best ways to increase social media engagement is to be more authentic. Find a social media marketing voice that embodies your brand and stick to it while interacting with your audience online. Many people prefer funny content, so you might consider using humor through trending memes or GIFs as a tactic to improve your shares, comments, or likes. Customers also respond well to brands that are honest. Whether it’s acknowledging mistakes or sharing your company values, integrity can go a long way in building trust with your audience and encouraging them to continue supporting your brand.
Practice Proactive Engagement
Proactive social media engagement strategies require you to start the conversation, not just play damage control if something goes wrong. Fortunately, social media is the prime opportunity for brands to engage with their audiences on a daily basis. Proactive engagement can include:
- Moderating branded groups with active forums
- Making & monitoring branded hashtags
- Creating social media stories with Instagram link stickers, filters, or polls
- Collaborating on Instagram Reels
- Hosting Ask Me Anything (AMA) sessions
- Responding to indirect social mentions
- Crafting posts with open-ended questions
Respond to Followers
A conversation requires input from both sides, and social media interactions are no different! By replying to incoming mentions, comments, and direct messages, you can show your followers that your brand cares about them—and that you’re interested in continuing the conversation. This attention to customer service will likely be rewarded with more mentions, comments, and direct messages. When responding to followers, make sure you address both positive and negative feedback—all preferably within 24 hours. And don’t be afraid to redirect the conversation to DMs for a more responsive and personalized interaction!
Gritt adds,
“Our social media managers love using social media management tools like Sprout Social and Social Assurance to make responding to followers online easier.”
Share Quality Content
Not only is creating unique, relevant social media content a great tactic for attracting new followers, but it also keeps existing followers engaged. When creating content for your social media channels, follow the 80/20 rule—where 80% of your social media posts either educate, entertain, or help followers solve a problem, while the remaining 20% directly promote your business. This will help you focus on creating quality content that your audience enjoys regularly seeing.
When it comes to brainstorming social media content that’s engaging but still on brand and appropriate for your niche, Gritt says,
“The more organic and natural your social media content looks, the more successful it’ll be. For example, if a law office specializes in divorce and family law, it may be wise to promote their blog posts on social media—or recommend local parenting classes or their favorite community counselors. And if you’re a bank on social media, you could share weekly tips and reminders on how to best mitigate fraud or give helpful financial or online banking account tips.”
Craft Effective Posts
Knowing the anatomy of a social media post is helpful when sharing social media content. No matter how unique your content is, nobody will read it if your headlines aren’t engaging, so that should be a big priority when crafting a post. The body of your post (whether copy or a visual asset) should contain useful information or provide entertainment. And if you want your audience to take further action after engaging with your social media post—such as clicking through to your website or signing up for a giveaway—you’ll need to end with a strong call-to-action.
Use Hashtags Strategically
Hashtags make it easier for your target audience to find your social media content and channels. Gritt discusses how she uses hashtags for clients, suggesting,
“You can be more liberal with tagging multiple keywords on Instagram, where Facebook uses hashtags much less. And TikTok is all about using hashtags efficiently. Typically, I look for the highest trending tag and choose the most applicable ones to increase exposure on all three of these platforms. ‘#fyp’ (for you page) should be added whenever possible on TikTok as it’s consistently a high-trending tag and can bring raw traffic to your account.
Some platforms like LinkedIn and Instagram allow users to follow hashtags as well, which means you can join ongoing conversations and become more visible to users beyond your followers.
Let’s say an Italian restaurant in Omaha just opened and came to Hurrdat as a client. Here are the hashtags I might use for them: #businessname #italiancuisine #newinomaha #supportlocal #omahaeats #omahafoodlovers.”
Whether new to town or an old staple, brands looking to increase engagement on social media platforms should consider using a mix of popular and branded hashtags to extend reach, gain more followers, and better optimize each post.
Incorporate Visual Assets
When your audience is scrolling through social media, you only have a few seconds to grab their attention before they move along to the next post in their feed. Visual assets like videos at the ideal length, photos, and infographics are more likely to stand out in the feed and grab your followers’ attention, which can lead to more engagement overall. In particular, video has become essential to most content strategies, with 90% of marketers stating their branded videos have given them a high ROI. Whatever you choose, look for ways you can work more visual posts into your social media content calendar.
Follow a Post Schedule
When and how often you post on social media has an impact on the engagement levels you see. To maximize engagement, figure out the best time of day to post for your audience. Your posting schedule should change depending on when your audience is most active online, as well as which platform(s) they’re using. Here are the general sweet spots for how often to post on social media platforms:
| Platform | Recommended Posted Frequency |
| 1-2 times per day | |
| 3-5 times per week | |
| 1-2 times per day | |
| TikTok | 3-5 times per week |
| X (formerly Twitter) | 2-3 times per day |
Also investigate how the algorithm works for each platform, as this plays a role in determining the visibility of your posts and how much engagement they’ll receive. That said, it’s more important that you track your audience metrics and adjust accordingly so that you’re targeting followers when they’re online.
Cross-Promote Content
If you’re struggling to get engagement with your current social media audience, one way you can expand your reach is to team up with another content creator. Cross-promotion on social media allows you to grow your followers by tapping into another channel’s audience. Consider pairing up with another company in the same industry that isn’t a direct competitor but offers complementary products or services. Or collaborate with influencers to expand your reach in a different way!
Run Social Media Contests
Hosting a social media contest or giveaway is a great way to spark conversations and encourage interaction while leveraging user-generated content—which has the added effect of reinforcing brand authenticity and building trust with followers. Conduct periodic giveaways, short-term promotions that create buzz, increase social media reach, generate new leads, and improve business sales. Host social media contests, which entice your audience with a prize they can qualify for by engaging with your content. Taking this a step further, contests that encourage participants to submit their own content—like photos, videos, or stories—not only effectively engage your audience but also allow you to gain valuable, shareable material.
For instance, an Instagram giveaway could require followers to submit a photo using a branded hashtag, follow your account, and tag a friend to be eligible for a spot in a raffle. Using creative or branded hashtags further amplifies the contest’s visibility, allowing both your followers and their wider networks to discover and engage with the campaign.
Track KPIs & Adjust Accordingly
Measuring social media engagement involves tracking key metrics such as likes, comments, shares, and saves, which show how well your content resonates with your audience. To measure engagement, use built-in platform analytics or third-party tools to track KPIs. By monitoring these metrics and leveraging social media listening, you can optimize your strategy for better results. Some top tools for measuring social media engagement include:
FAQs About Social Media Engagement
What Is the Best Content for Social Media?
The best content for social media aligns your brand’s goals with audience preferences—so it depends. Educational, entertaining, and inspirational content in single posts or threads is great for providing value and building relationships. Interactive posts like polls and live videos engage your audience directly, while promotional and user-generated content on social media help drive conversions and build trust. Creating a social media content strategy that balances a variety of post types can help you stay relevant, dynamic, and engaging.
What Types of Content Generate the Most Engagement?
High-quality visual content, such as images and videos, tend to perform well on social media. Timely content that is relevant to current events or trends can also capture your audience’s attention. However, posts that encourage interaction, such as short-form videos and user-generated posts, often receive the highest engagement.
What Are Ways to Repurpose Content for Higher Engagement?
You can repurpose content by transforming blog posts into social media graphics, videos, or infographics. Turning key insights from podcasts or reports into bite-sized posts is another efficient way to give new life to content you’ve already created, saving you time and energy. Or sampling customer reviews, testimonials, or community posts can boost engagement and highlight your audience.
How Can Influencer Partnerships Impact Your Social Media Engagement?
Influencer marketing helps expand your social media reach, introducing your brand to new, engaged audiences. Partnering with influencers who share a similar audience allows you to connect with people who are more likely to resonate with your brand and become customers. An influencer’s authentic content offers a human touch to marketing that can build trust and credibility, often resulting in higher engagement than brand-generated posts. Influencers also encourage interaction with their followers, driving user-generated content and conversations that can further promote your brand.
Need help boosting social media engagement for your brand? Hurrdat Marketing offers comprehensive social media marketing services to help you improve your digital content strategy. Contact us today to learn more!
