Struggling to see good engagement with your social media content? While a lack of organic engagement could be caused by social media algorithms and how your content is being shown to followers, it could also be pointing to an issue with your social media strategy. If you’re looking to get your social media audience interactions back on track, give some of these social media engagement tactics a try!
Grow Your Following
Social media engagement is a numbers game—the more followers you have, the more interaction you’ll see with your social media posts, which means one of your goals should be to get more followers. Keep in mind, though, that you don’t just want any followers when it comes to increasing engagement. You want quality followers who are interested in your brand and who will interact with your social media content in a meaningful way. Not only can this boost your engagement, but you might even convert followers into customers.
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
90% of customers say that authenticity plays a role in deciding which companies they like and support, so one of the best ways to boost 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. The majority of users prefer funny content, so you might consider using humor as a tactic to improve your shares, comments, or likes. Another tactic you could use is to be honest. Whether it’s acknowledging mistakes or sharing your company values, honesty can go a long way in building trust with your audience and keeping them interested in your brand online.
Practice Proactive Engagement
Proactive social media engagement strategies require you to start the conversation. Fortunately, 85% of consumers want to be proactively reached online, and 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 and 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 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.
“Our social media managers love using social media management tools like Sprout Social and Social Assurance to make responding to followers online easier.” – Allie Gritt
Share Engaging Content
Not only is creating unique, relevant social media content a great strategy 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 promotes your business. This will help you focus on creating quality content your audience likes.
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. In fact, eight out of ten people only read the headline of posts, which means good headlines can be a deciding factor for engagement. Additionally, if you want your audience to take further action when engaging with your social media post—such as clicking through to your website or signing up for a giveaway—you’ll need strong calls-to-action (CTAs).
Use Hashtags Strategically
Hashtags make it easier for your target audience to find your social media channels and content. Some platforms like LinkedIn and Instagram allow users to follow hashtags, which means you can join ongoing conversations and become more visible to users beyond your followers. Consider using a mix of popular and branded hashtags to extend your reach, gain more followers, and boost your content’s social media engagement.
Gritt discusses how she uses hashtags for clients, adding,
“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 as it’s a highly trended tag and can bring raw traffic to your account.
Let’s say I had a restaurant in Omaha that just opened come to us as a client. Here are the hashtags I might use for them: #businessname#italiancuisine#newinomaha#supportlocal#omahaeats#omahafoodlovers”
Incorporate Visual Assets
When your audience is scrolling through social media, you only have about three seconds to grab their attention before they move along to the next post in their feed. Visual assets like videos, photos, and infographics are more likely to stand out in the feed and grab your followers’ attentions, which can lead to more engagement overall. For example, Twitter posts with videos get ten times more engagement, while Facebook posts with images see 2.3 times more engagement. 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. Your posting schedule should change depending on when your audience is most active online, as well as which platform they’re using. Of course, there’s a general sweet spot for how often to post on social media platforms. For Instagram, it’s about three to seven times per week; for Facebook, it’s about once or twice daily; and for Twitter, it’s about one to five times per day. That said, you should still 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. You might consider pairing up with another company with a similar audience to yours or even collaborate with influencers to attract new followers and see more engagement.
Run Social Media Contests
Hosting a social media contest or giveaway will get people talking and interacting! Giveaways are short-term promotions that can create buzz, increase social media reach, generate new leads, and boost business sales. Social media contests should be designed to entice your audience with a prize they want and push them to engage with your content by following, liking, sharing, commenting, or tagging. For example, you could run an Instagram contest where entrants must follow the main account and refer a friend to be eligible for prizes.
Need help boosting social media engagement for your brand? Hurrdat Marketing’s comprehensive social media marketing services can help you improve your digital content strategy. Contact us today to learn more!
