Are you fed up of posting content tirelessly to see hardly any engagement in return? Are you putting in all the groundwork to get nothing back?
The truth is, all brands have struggled with social media engagement at some point. Some have been stuck in old ways that simply don’t work in this day and age, while others just can’t get their heads around the ever-changing algorithms.
We understand that engagement on social media strengthens your customer relationships, builds customer loyalty and essentially increases sales which in turn grows your brand. It’s certainly not something that just works itself out.
So, here’s 7 ways to amplify your engagement on social media:
#1 BE BOLD.
Create unique content. If you want to stand out from a saturated market, then unique content that resonates is an essential place to start!
A Social Personality report found that 3 in 4 consumers want humour from brands, but only a third want that humour to be snarky. (The Sprout Social Index, Edition XI)
Our personal favourite example from this year was from KFC.
Whatever your industry, you can tailor your content to meet what your audience wants, see what they engage with the most and keep producing that good stuff. Another way to be unique and bold is to invest in influencer marketing.
The influencer marketing industry has seen tremendous growth in recent years and is currently forecast to hit $15 billion by 2022, up from $8 billion in 2019. (Business Insider, 2019)
A celebrity or well-known individual endorsing your product or service can have a significant impact on your engagement. The key for this one is to make sure the values of the influencer align with your business, or no one will buy into their #ad. But also aim for the micro-influencers, as it has been proven that those with fewer followers drive higher engagement.
#2 ASK QUESTIONS.
Asking questions is one of the simplest ways to drive engagement as it requires a small amount of effort. The thinking behind these posts needs to go into WHAT TYPE of question do people want to answer. A great place to start is to assess what content you engage with and what type of questions you want to answer online.
Controversial and influential questions are great for capturing your audience. Still, they are also likely to drive engagement higher as people will have conversations with others on your post, and not just like it. Getting a reaction from your audience is vital and pushing out thought-provoking questions is one way to do just that!
#3 OOZE CREDIBILITY.
Engage with customers, build a relationship, earn trust. These three steps are paramount to any brand when engagement is involved. You need your audience to trust in your product or service, to allow for an honest relationship where they will likely become return customers. Some questions you can ponder over may help you understand this better:
Who are your customers? What are their interests? What types of posts do they prefer? How do they consume information? Would they prefer videos, blog content, or image posts?
Focus on creating content your customer would enjoy, as this builds, so does the business to consumer relationship and in turn, trust for the brand is earned.
#4 EMPOWER OTHERS.
From personal to professional lives, empowering others should be up there on your daily to-do list. Many brands may see this as promoting competition, but there are ways to empower others (yes even in your industry!) without losing out on custom yourself.
One effective way to execute this is to collaborate with brands. Collaboration might include a contest, giveaway, blog post promoting their products, or post on social media. Bringing other companies into the giveaway means a broader audience for everyone, especially if they have similar target audiences. Some Instagram giveaways also ask for comments or follows for increased engagement.
Another way of empowering others is to host an Instagram story ‘take over’ – so invite someone to host your brand’s stories for the day. This gives your audience something different, meaning they will likely be intrigued and will, therefore, engage with this type of content.
9 out of 10 consumers say authenticity is an important factor in determining which brands they like and support. (Stackla, 2019)
#5 USE EMOJIs.
Most people will naturally associate emojis with bright, bold and jokey type content. This is not always the case. If you are a local dentist practice, a recruitment company, or a bank, you can still use emojis in your content without discrediting your brand.
You have to be selective in WHAT emojis you choose. For example, your audience will not welcome laughing faces and hearts if you fall into the above industries, but specific emojis will lift your posts, and people will react better as they break up a chunk of text!
Recruitment: 💡 🎓 📅
Banking: 📶 ℹ️ 🔢 ✔️
Task: Browse at all the emojis on offer, you will undoubtedly find a few that will resonate with your brand.
According to OPUSFidelis, a grimacing emoticon can increase engagement by 138%.
#6 CULTIVATE ADVENTURE.
The fear of missing out (FOMO) is a strong tactic to use when you want people to pay attention to your brand. It makes people feel part of an exclusive club when they’ve seen something others haven’t. Flash sales and intriguing content both fall into this category.
Instagram story ‘takeovers’ fall into this one too, as this type of content may be new to the audience. The stories last 24 hours so once they’re gone; they’re gone – hence FOMO (unless you categorise them into IG highlights for later viewing which we highly recommend).
Fitting your brand into awareness days and holidays through storytelling is another way to cultivate adventure amongst your audience. Certain days throughout the year will resonate with your following (depending on your industry) meaning you will have relatable content and therefore engaging content.
#7 GET CONTENT SAVVY.
Analyse the type of content users want to engage with. What is your highest-performing post? Do more of that! Use stickers that encourage engagement. We’re talking specifically about IG stories here – Questions, Polls, Challenges. Get involved.
It’s common – and almost human nature – for consumers to resort to their close circle of family and friends when seeking brand recommendations. So when it comes to the impact on purchasing decisions, user-generated content deserves more credit! In fact, eight out of every ten consumers say user-generated content highly impacts their purchasing decision.
FYI – Direct messages, replies and story interactions all count towards engagement numbers, remember this when replying to your audience!
To help you kick your social media journey in the right direction, why not check out our Social Media Kickstarter package: https://www.brandlective.com/packages/
