These are interesting and trying times, but as social media marketers and companies, we’re still seeing social media platforms performing very well for elevating our messaging. Here at BMF, our team is busier than ever, and our clients reach out daily for support and guidance.
Increasing social media engagement is the bane of everyone involved in marketing. Because the digital world is ever-changing, what is known and understood today, may not work tomorrow! But what has stayed constant with social media is that we don’t need perfection—we just need to strive to be as good as we can be. While we can’t be everything to everyone, we need to prioritize and focus on the right goals, help find the right audiences, and grow the business with its best interests at heart.
As a business, these ideas will help you on your way to increasing your engagement and reach on the various social media platforms, even during these unique times.
What is Social Media Engagement?
Social media engagement is measuring likes, shares, comments, click-throughs, mentions, direct messages, and shares. Having a big audience isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be—it’s having an engaged audience that matters.
Goals:
Your goals should be simple, but important, when it comes to increasing social media engagement. That old saying, “quality over quantity”, applies here.
- Build your social media engagement:
- Scrutinize your engagement – what is your number of followers and, on average, how many comments and shares do you receive?
- Is your post engagement on the rise or dropping over a period of weeks?
- What posts create the most buzz on your page? Is there a common look, theme, or feel to them?
- Choose the strategy and goals you think will work for you:
- Do you want to educate your audience, create a brand voice, etc.?
- What are your overreaching goals?
- Build customer leads
- Create or change the perception of your company or brand
- Gather feedback
- Provide advice, resources, or other info
- Know your audience:
- If you don’t know who you’re trying to reach, you’ll have a hard time growing your audience.
- The tone, the type of language, and the resources you provide have to resonate with the audience you want to reach.
- Do you know which sites you should be posting (and how often), when to publish, (at what times and on which days, and the types of content to share?
- Answer this question— How can I help my audience?
- If it’s valuable, they will read it! Connecting with people is how social media was founded so when you stop sharing personal stories, photos, and videos you stop truly connecting with others on social.
- What do you want to tell people? It should meet a need they have and be set up as a conversation.
- What wisdom can you give and what service do you provide?
- Focus on the right content:
- Capitalize on the power of videos
- Share quotes
- Create engaging original images
- Operate polls that are interesting and relate to your brand
- Provide information your customers need to know in order to help them with a question or problem
- Pose questions and ask FOR questions
- Run contests
- Spotlight customers and employees
- Use humor
- Be creative
- Use hashtags that help you find like-minded people or reflects on your brand
- Create meaningful conversations with followers and customers and nurture relationships.
- React and be proactive with posts.
- Keep conversations flowing when you receive comments.
- Ask questions to get conversations started.
- Answer questions and direct messages in a timely manner.
- Thank followers for mentions or positive comments.
- Be human in your responses and comments. Humor goes a long way.
- Nurture your leads and act on them. Be confident in yourself and what you have to offer and give to others.
- Apply FOMO to get people to pay attention.
- Join ongoing conversations with what’s trending that connects with your brand. If you’re a builder or designer, the color of the year is exciting. Sporting events, pop culture, holidays, etc. will all connect with people.
- Work with others in your industry and influencers to get your message out.
Social media now holds the most critical role in all marketing efforts and it can be hard to stay on top of trends and frequent platform changes. But know that we here at BMF are ready to help with your social media marketing.
*Photo by bongkarn thanyakij from Pexels