Note: These tips are for you if you want to grow social media the organic way. Even if you run social media ads, these are foundational tasks that you need to know to plan, strategize and track your growth effectively. The baby steps are essential to help you appreciate running.
If you don’t understand these organic social media basics, then you will most likely be wasting money on your social media ads. Figure out these basics first before running ads.
With an immense amount of social media posts online, gaining sustained social media engagement can be extremely challenging.
In just 60 seconds, a whopping 3.3 million fresh contents are being posted on Facebook alone.
That is not to mention the half a million tweets on Twitter and roughly 70,000 new images uploaded on Instagram.
The data provides context on how difficult it is to stand out and get engagement each time you post amidst the torrent of posts and information flowing daily across different digital channels.
What lack of social media engagement means
In the world of social media marketing, low [or the lack of] engagement could mean that you are not connecting with your audience. Your message is not resonating with them. That means it has no value to them.
If it they do not have perceived value to what you post, what value does your product provide [to them]? And why bother engaging.
As a marketer that looks up metrics every so often, I find that it can be discouraging when you check your data and find that your engagement rate isn’t up to par despite all your social media efforts.
BUT.
Should it really have to be that way?
7 tasks to boost social media engagement
Task 1: Understand your target audience
This is the first step. It dictates your content and who you engage with.
This is a crucial component of a careful assessment and planning of your social media strategy. If you haven’t done one, it is never too late to stop doing anything and figure this out or get a social media strategist to guide you.
You wouldn’t know exactly what to say if you do not know who you’re talking to.
Or if you are engaging, your content will be off and your message out of sync with what you want to attain.
And your target users won’t pay attention to you eagerly if they do not find relevance in what you’re trying to communicate.
Dissecting that to pinpoint what they are in relation to your brand can help you create content with added value to attract them and make them engage.
You want them to stop scrolling – and engage.
This leads to a higher engagement rate.
Remember, hard selling frequently can turnoff your audience.
My tip: Create a target persona to understand your audience in order to be able to speak to them at their level
How to create a social media client persona for engagement
A social media target persona is a fictional representation of your ideal customer.
Making a detailed outlook of this persona will help you create customized and targeted content.
You can create a persona by specifying their demographics, buying behaviors or digital habits.
You can go as far as creating a different buyers’ persona for every social media platform.
It doesn’t have to be complicated.
What I found in my over a decade of experience in social media marketing is that different platforms have different users, and they consume content differently.
That is, also, why I do not recommend cross-posting.
There are several social analytics tools available online to aid you in understanding your target market and create hyper-targeted and engagement-worthy posts on social media for each social media persona.
Once you have created your buyer persona, you will be able to use a social media voice consistently through your engaging posts.
Stephanie Schwab through Social Media Explorer shares these tips on how a persona impacts social media messaging.
Task 2: Be mindful of when you post and engage
Although this is affected by a few factors, being cognizant of the time to engage on social media is essential.
It is crucial, especially if your prospects are in a variety of locations which could mean different time zones.
Given the unrelenting surge of social media posts every second, your post may be pushed down to oblivion when shared at a time when your audience isn’t around.
There is a timing decay determined by the algorithm when a post is shared without engagement.
Since your goal is to boost social media engagement, that means you literally have to be present by the time they’re online, so you get engagement results right away.
According to an industry research conducted in 2018, the best times to post on Facebook (which has about 1.4 billion daily active users) are Wednesday at noon and 2 PM and Thursday at 1 and 2 PM across the globe. The study also found out that Saturdays have the least engagement within the week, especially evenings and early mornings.
Considering your time of posting may help you gain organic engagement, which in return would result to lead generation and increased ROI when done right.
Task 3: Put extra effort on creating good content
Rather than resisting the temptation of relying on a quick fix, such as buying followers, likes, and shares, why not focus on crafting contents that are more appealing to your market?
Content is usually compromised as we’re busy trying to get all the ROI we want without giving too much effort on what value we can offer.
Some tips which you can do to increase engagement through your content are:
- Take advantage of the potential of visual content.
With the growing number of users in visual platforms like Instagram and Pinterest, visual contents are a must-have for every company‘s digital marketing communication kit.
Your company is no exception.
Your target audience is visual, no matter the age.
That is according to science, so get your visual marketing strategy hat on.
If you need help, reach out to a company that does social media graphics. *Cough us.*
Well crafted visual contents are scroll-stoppers. It has been proven to increase social engagement.
According to an analysis conducted by Buffer, tweets with corresponding images are 18% more likely to be retweeted and 89% more likely to be “favorited”.
Some user-friendly platforms to create visual content are GetStencil, Canva, Studio, Adobe Spark Post to name a few.
If you are creating your social media graphics on your own, check these tips to help you get started on how to create attention-grabbing images.
- Repost old content
Coming up with new ideas to post every single day can be mentally draining, right?
That’s why reposting old content is helpful.
Reposting means republishing your or other page’s old post.
You can add something to it to provide new information to attract a new audience or leads who weren’t able to see your posts before.
It can be as easy as making your “Top 10 Most Social Media Tips for Business of all time” and many others. Making the best use of this strategy could boost your traffic by up to 75%, according to Cloohawk.
Visit this here for more tips on how to repurpose content.
- Use appropriate #hashtags to reach prospects and engage with them.
Not using hashtags is a major shortfall for marketers.
This trendy social media tool helps your prospects see and notice your content, even if they’re not following you. - Run contests and giveaways from time to time.
The words “FLASH SALE”, “BUY 1 TAKE 1”, “FREE SHIPPING” and “50% OFF” are in no doubt some of the most eye-catching elements in your social media feed.
This strategy creates buzz and makes your prospects/loyal customers crave for more as you unlock several exciting prizes they could dive into at a discounted rate. At the end of the day, who doesn’t want freebies, right?
Task 4: Ask for feedback and review
Make your audience feel engaged and valued as you seek their suggestions and give them the freedom to voice out their concerns on how you can improve along the way.
You don’t have to go through sending direct messages to random people via social media channels to ask for a review.
You can just consider asking them to put a brief remark on the comment section to get a direct insight towards a certain content.
Reviews can lead to an improved customer loyalty.
Moreover, your credibility and trust ratings may go high up and can help you achieve business success in the long run.
Remember, your ultimate aim is to increase your ROI. But I like to call it ROS or return on social.
With good feedback and reviews, clients may easily trust you with their money and purchases, and hopefully, may repeatedly buy from you as you develop a stronger relationship with them.
Task 5: Collaborate with influencers to share your content.
In an article published by Forbes, it said:
84% of marketers were planning to work with influencers.
Forbes
Influencers are social personalities who are perceived to be thought leaders in the industry and/or niche.
They are trendsetters with high levels of social media engagement.
Since they are experts at what they do and are tightly tied to the passion or thought they’re promoting, their contents come across as more sincere and more personal, leading to a higher credibility rate.
Taking advantage of collaborating with influencers to produce content or to expand your business exposure by having them to try your product or service is a must-try for marketers.
Their very engaged followers could help you gain newer audiences that may result to an increased engagement.
If you’re not yet into influencer marketing, it may be time for you to unleash its fullest potential by joining in.
Imagine the impact that social media influencers can lend to your brand if you leverage this.
Task 6: Use analytics tool to monitor progress
To keep track of all your social media marketing and engagement efforts, an analytics tool would be an enormous help.
Let data guide your next steps.
There are too many marketers that skip this part.
Without tracking your metrics, it is like you are navigating an unfamiliar jungle without a compass.
You need a compass, in this case metrics, or you will get lost.
Knowing what, when and how to improve on your efforts, and pinpointing what to eliminate would make you more confident in taking your next steps towards achieving a higher level of engagement.
Having a business is a risk and leveraging analytics/data tools is a huge help to plan and strategize social media.
So what tools are available for you?
- Google Analytics:
This analytics tool focuses on website traffic gained from other sources, including the different social media platforms. You can also add goals to keep you on track on the impact of social media on your target conversion rate. - Twitter Analytics:
It has details of what posts get the most engagement daily, monthly and all-time. Also, if you want to see a detailed breakdown of your progress in terms of activities and following, this tool is for you. - Facebook Insights:
As you manage your business page, you get to have a full view of the data behind your post’s engagement. - Pinterest Analytics:
Pinterest is the last, I think, of social media platforms to open their walled garden of analytics for use by pinners. Its data offer interesting insights to anyone that wanted to wield it to good use for his/her company.
Task 7: Engage
If you want engagement, start engagement. Don’t wait.
Go out of your way to speak with those whom you want to be part of your circle.
It is called “social” media, after all.
What Social media marketing engagement is not
Social media engagement is not a one-off activity.
If done consistently, it is the building block to building your online community.
If you run social media ads, social media engagement is one of the touch points of a company’s social selling funnel that can help drive ads cost down.
Common forms of social media engagement metrics
Since engagement on social media is an important key social media success metric, here are some common engagement metrics per SproutSocial:
- Facebook: Organic Likes, Paid Likes, Unlikes, Mentions, Impressions, Post Engagements, Links Clicked, Reactions, Comments and Shares.
- Twitter: Organic Impressions, Links Clicked, Mentions, Direct Messages, Retweets, Replies and Likes.
- Instagram: Likes Received (Including Live and Stories), Comments, Engagement per Media and Most Engaged Hashtags.
- LinkedIn: Impressions, Clicks, Likes, Comments and Shares.
It’s a Wrap
The success of your direct response social media marketing ads could be impacted by high social media engagement through useful and appealing content.
It springs from putting your digital consumers’ interests above yours.
Don‘t view the post positively because it appeals to you; it should appeal to your audience.
The more they see value through your content, the more your voice will stand out amid the din of social media noise.
How do you grow social media engagement for your company?
Updated: July 10, 2020
