Tag: content engagement

Categories
Social Media

6 Ways to Engage Your Audience on Social Media

There are several ways to engage your audience on social media, some of which are more effective than others. Effective ways to engage audiences on social media include creating interactive content like polls and quizzes, hosting live sessions or Q&As, responding promptly to comments and messages, sharing user-generated content, personalizing content to audience preferences, and storytelling that resonates with followers. Consistency in posting and authentic communication are key to maintaining engagement.

Social media development can sometimes be a beast and leave you and your team frustrated. There are some methods that work for one group and others that work for another. Sometimes, you just have to experiment and take notes on what works and what doesn’t. But what if you’re stuck on where to start?

Take a look at these six ways to engage your audience on social media to help you get started.

Use Hashtags to Build Comradery

Hashtags are extremely popular and have a dual purpose. You can search a hashtag on any social media platform and see what others are saying while using your hashtag. Every business should already have a main hashtag (ie: #sachsmarketinggroup) and create specialized hashtags for major events, contests, or changes in business.

Let’s say you have a donut delivery business and you plan to release a new donut in September. You can create a lot of engagement on social media if you use a hashtag designed for that release (such as #WheresTheDonut2019 or #DonutSurprise92019). When creating a specialized hashtag, search for that hashtag to see if it is already being used and if you can tweak it to make it yours. Continue to use main business hashtag alongside the event/promotion-specific hashtag so that people who discover you through the promotion can easily find out more about your brand.

Use Live Videos to Your Best Advantage

Creating video content is one of the best ways to get social media engagement. Video should be a part of any marketing plan, but it’s even better if you can include live video. Live videos air live on a social media platform (YouTube and Facebook are the popular options) and allow you to see comments posted as you move through your script.

It’s best if you have a script, or at least a general idea of what you plan to cover before going live. Practice can help you figure out how to speak naturally without getting flustered, which is important if you have a fear of public speaking or are camera shy. If you have a script, you definitely don’t want to read from it during the live event – it’s just meant as a guide to help keep you on topic.

What are live videos good for? Product line release parties, introducing new members on your team to your audience, contest and winner announcements, and good content encouraging a call to action. If you want to see how others have used a live video for sales, look for  lives featuring the Paparazzi Jewelry line. The men and women who sell the jewelry on live videos have seen major sales increases and were some of the first people to use lives to sell items.

Use Tools for Better Engagement

One of the hardest things many businesses struggle with is the time factor. Live videos will require a specific time frame that you can schedule in, but the rest can be automated. Plenty of automated tools will post your content across a wide range of social media platforms. Automation is every marketer’s friend because it allows you to keep a steady flow of content without additional work. This can be an invaluable tool for you while deploying your content strategy.

This is especially helpful if your audience is spread out across time zones or primarily in a time zone different from your own. It is also extremely helpful if your business will be closed for long holidays or other special circumstances. It’s particularly useful when you’re a one-person team, or your team has other priorities to focus on.

Be Responsive to Comments on Content

Whether it is a blog post, Facebook review, or a comment on an Instagram post, always make time to be responsive. You want to nurture the positive comments so that people feel like they can speak freely with you. You also want to tackle any negative comments to curb any issues.

It is always worth investigating every complaint, even if the complaints are unfounded (some people refuse to be happy). It is especially important to respond to feedback about any campaigns that are well-received or not. While some people can be particularly ferocious when it comes to a campaign that triggers heavy emotion, those are the comments you will not want to respond. Vicious commenters are usually the ones you don’t want to engage because they are soliciting for an online argument. Save the energy for those that are respectful and to the point.

Contests and Giveaways Are Your Best Friend

If you are struggling to gain new followers or even getting your audience to engage, a contest or giveaway can fix that quick. People love contests and giveaways and are willing to do a few steps in order to win. You can require that they visit the landing page and then a pop up shows up so they can include email and name information. If they want extra entries, they can fulfill other tasks. Blog posts on their website, following on Twitter/Facebook/Instagram, or sharing the contest announcement are few great ideas you can start with.

Offer just two or three extra entry options. Offering too many will overwhelm people and cause them to skip entering the contest. As they spread the word about your contest, more followers are likely to join in and take the time to learn more about your business. If you keep the engagement up and quality content flowing, you will retain a majority of the new followers. Always be sure to learn about the guidelines for running contests and giveaways on any social media platform to keep your accounts in good standing.

Share Content That Is Relevant To Your Audience

The general rule for content on social media is that only 20% of the content you share should originate with you – and not all of that content should be promotional. Social media isn’t about tooting your own horn. The remaining 80% of the content you share should come from other sources – but still be relevant to your audience. You want to establish yourself as a source of credible information, not as a constant sales pitch.

Social media engagement doesn’t happen overnight. Constantly test and experiment, focusing your efforts on what your audience responds to the best. You can always ask them what kind of content they’d like to see more of, then make an effort to give it to them.

Categories
Content Marketing

8 Surefire Ways to Increase Content Engagement For Your Brand

If you’re struggling to get engagement on your content, you may be discouraged. It’s a little disheartening to spend hours crafting content that you poured your heart and soul into, only to find it’s not resonating with your audience. But, it’s not the end of the world. If you know you’re creating quality content, here are some tips that can help you increase the shares, comments, and mentions of your content across the web.

Create Controversy

In today’s climate, it’s easy to create controversy, but it’s risky if you don’t do it just the right way. When I say you should make your posts more debatable to encourage conversation, I’m not telling you to discuss things that are intentionally offensive or take a stance on something you don’t believe in. Instead, it’s best to find topics and angles where there are two sides, and take one side. This will encourage people to respond, and get them talking to one another about the issue.

Ask People to Share Thoughts and Opinions

If you want your readers to talk to you and with one another, one of the easiest ways to do that is to start the conversation yourself. Ask them a question, like you often see me do at the end of my blog posts. This will naturally prompt people to respond. But, it’s not always effective. You can expect to see more results if you combine it with controversy, by asking a question you know to be debatable. If you can’t ask something you think people will debate, do your best to ask questions your audience is passionate about. The stronger your audience feels about the topic, the better the chances of sparking engagement.

Surprise the Audience

Everyone enjoys a surprise. Immediately, your post will stand out from the others, ensuring it gets more attention and visibility. Some of your audience will feel the need to reward you for the surprise. When this happens, they are likely to leave a comment or share the article on their social media marketing platforms, increasing engagement either way.

Create Interactive Content

Encourage active participation when and where possible within your content strategy. Interactive content makes it easier to boost engagement. Though you are fairly limited in what you can work with you, you can develop quizzes, surveys, pools, and interactive infographics based on what your readers need, or how your readers feel about a certain topic. While these are not your only options, of course, they are some of the most effective.

Reward Engagement

People who don’t feel appreciated won’t do anything for you. That’s why it’s important to let your readers to know you appreciate them and the time they take to engage with you and other readers. It’s up to you to determine how you reward them – you can make it as simple as a thank you in reply to their comment or share, or as complex as rewarding them with a discount code of some sort to use in your shop for a limited time… or a random act of kindness gift. The efforts you make, especially if you take the time to get actively involved in the conversations with your readers, will go noticed.

Use Video

Using video will definitely increase your engagement. One study shows people spend 100% more time on pages with video than they will on pages with other media. Why? They are a kind of content that’s easy for people to digest, and generally people will watch the entire video. When it comes to an article, people generally only read the headline, and scan the content if they even decide to read it.

Adding a video to a text piece can improve engagement, and are especially helpful for concepts that require demonstration or some other kind of visual aid. Though they can be difficult to produce, they are often worth the investment since they can attract 300% more inbound links than plain text blog posts.

How can you make video work for you?

  • Keep the videos short. One study revealed that going an extra 10 seconds can impact engagement.
  • Put any important material at the beginning of the video because attention span will decline as the video progresses.
  • Include a call to action. Users need to know what you want them to do next, especially when it comes to video. Do you want them to share the video with their friends? Do you want them to go check out a certain page on your website? Whatever the case may be, tell them at the end of the video.

Mention People in Social Shares

If you’ve mentioned or quoted someone in your content, make sure to find their social handle and tag them in the content when you post it on your social media platforms. They’ll appreciate the mention and more than likely share it with their audience to demonstrate they’re credible enough to get press from other publications.

Create a quote graphic with Canva or a similar tool. Tag the person you quote or the business they work for in your social message. Search for their Twitter handle and Facebook business page so you can tag them appropriately.

If you’re sharing curated content, tag the writer or creator so they know you’re sharing their work. They’ll appreciate it and likely return the favor for you when they get the chance.

Remember to adjust your content sharing for each platform and medium. The commentary you include on a Facebook share likely won’t fit in Twitter.

Pay Attention to Timing

Every social media platform has their own “best time” of the day to post content to increase the post reach. That doesn’t mean your audience follows that timing, however. Start with these general guidelines to help you get a frame of reference if you don’t have data on your audience yet.

If you do have audience data, take a look at the times of day your audience seems to be the most active, and then post content at those times. Many social media scheduling tools allow you to customize the posting schedule, not only in terms of daily frequency but also in the exact times the content is posted. You can use a set schedule every day, or you can set it up to be random.

The more data you have, the better you’ll be able to adjust your timing to improve engagement.

Engagement Doesn’t Happen Overnight

None of these strategies will skyrocket your engagement overnight, but if you consistently practice these, you should see an increase in your engagement over time. You’ll start to see more shares, comments, and participation with your content over time. Use the engagement metrics to determine how effective your content is, and use the feedback to keep improving your content for your audience.

What keeps you engaged with content? Tell me in the comments below.

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