Social media has become a huge part of our lives. According to Statista, in 2019, users spent an average of 144 minutes per day on social media. While most businesses use social media as a part of their online marketing strategy, many of them struggle to increase engagement.
There are so many tactics you can choose from, but how do you choose the ones that get results? We’ll take you through marketing tactics that will help you increase engagement and make meaningful connections with your audience.
What is social media engagement?
Social media engagement is some form of interaction between your audience and your brand, which happens on social media networks. It measures the likes, comments, shares, and other interactions on your business’s social media efforts.
Why do you need to measure social media engagement?
Measuring your engagement rate can provide insights into whether you’re providing value to your audience.
A low engagement rate shows that you’re not providing value to your audience and this may cause you to end up losing followers. If your engagement rate is high, you will gain followers and improve metrics, such as impressions and conversion rates.
There are lots of metrics you can track when it comes to engagement, but what it comes down to is:
Is your audience interacting with your account and how often are they interacting?
All social media networks have engagement metrics that you can track, how are a few examples:
Individual engagement metrics, such as likes, comments, retweets, and shares
Engagement rate, which is the number of engagements you receive divided by the reach or impressions. If your reach and impressions are high, but your engagement rate is low, this may be because you’re not providing the right content for your audience.
Account mentions, which indicate great brand awareness.
The best way to track engagement is to look at a combination of metrics. This way you can adapt and change your strategy holistically to meet your marketing objectives.
How can you boost social engagement?
Publish when your audience is most likely active on social media. Below is an example of when IEDM’s Facebook fans are online. We can see that most of our audience is online on Saturday and are most active during the middle of the day. Find out when your fans are most active on social media platforms and then schedule posts accordingly.
Engage with your audience. Post, comment, speak to your audience, and make sure they know that you’re current. Posting frequently can help you retain and grow your follower base. When it comes to engagement, it’s important to note that comments are more valuable than likes so make sure you encourage your audience to interact with your content. Always respond timely to comments and messages and, when your audience provides feedback, use it to improve your content.
Repurpose content for different social media platforms. You can save time by using the same content across certain social platforms or by breaking it down into pieces for different platforms. Here are two examples: (1) a blog can be repurposed into an infographic for Pinterest and (2) you can share a snippet of one of your YouTube videos on Instagram or Facebook.
Give shoutouts to partners and clients. If you mention a partner or client in an article or post, make sure you tag them or their company to increase post reach and engagement.
Run competitions and giveaways. Offering your customers something in exchange for liking your page, sharing a post, or interacting with your brand is a great way to increase engagement.
Use hashtags. Hashtags are an effective way to increase reach and engagement as well as gain more followers. Do some research to ensure that the hashtags you use are relevant and targeted. This way, they will reach your intended audience.
Publish surveys and polls. Surveys and polls are a great way to increase engagement while receiving valuable information from your audience. Find out what type of content your audience wants to see more of or their pain points and then make sure you provide feedback so that they know you’re listening to them.
Use analytics to improve your content. Gather important data, such as who is your audience, when are they engaging with you, and what content performs best. This way, you can adjust and improve your content strategy to improve engagement and reach your online goals.
We’d love to talk social with you. Please hit us up with an email at in**@*****co.za or fill in one of our contact forms.