With the power of social media, we want to make the most out of them. They are the best platform to gain more audience, but you have to think and work smart on using social media networks.
Social media platforms are arguably the best way to connect and engage with an audience. But it is not an easy task. You need to understand your audience, create relevant content geared towards them. That’s why you have to learn the necessary methods and effective ways to engage with the audience.
Social Media Engagement
How well do you know audience engagement in social media? Comments, likes, and shares measure social media engagement. Of course, we aim to have a high number of followers. The number of followers is not the basis for successful social media marketing– it is the number of a real and engaged audience.
You should strive for quality and not quantity.
Engagement is like throwing a party, and everyone should be having fun.
Picture this out:
You are having a party, you have invited tons of people, and they eventually showed up. But, they were just there, sitting silently. No conversations or dancing. How did you feel? Do you think your party is successful? Your invitation might look cool, but– are your guests having fun? Did they like the activities?
Like parties, social media needs fun activities or content to build engagement, leading to a positive brand experience. You have to develop meaningful relationships through the content you provide.
Social media engagement is not measured by the number of followers you have. It is through a range of metrics that includes the following:
✔ Audience growth
✔ Branded hashtag
✔ Click-through
✔ Comments
✔ Likes
✔ Mentions
✔ Shares or Retweets
You will know that the audience or follower growth is real once your audience interacts with your account. But how can you increase social media engagement?
✔ Throw Questions
✔ Let them Express
✔ Give Out Incentives and Giveaways
✔ Offer Discounts
How to Increase Audience Engagement
Your audience will not magically become engaged with your content. They need some encouragement, and here are some of the tricks you can do to boost your audience engagement:
Throw Questions
The best way to get someone’s attention is to ask questions, but there are dull questions for social media. “What’s your name?”, “how are you?” are dull and forceful. These questions can’t win the attention of your audience.
What do you think?
It got you thinking, right? That’s a winning question!
People are curious. They think things through, and they want to hear what others think. But most certainly, they want other people to ask their opinion.
That’s why it is best to prompt them with the strategy of asking them: What do you think?
When you prompt them with this question, you are:
- Probing their personality: Post a question that invites people to share their opinion about a topic relevant to your business.
- Play the “test your knowledge” game: Some blog posts use personality quizzes. They are the most engaging magnet games.
- Post a poll: Most social media platforms, such as Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, allow their users to post a poll. You can learn more about what’s meaningful to your audience through the polls.
- Simply throw a question: Ask followers relevant and timely questions in social streams, online groups, blog posts, or question and answer sites. Asking a question provokes thought and interaction within your followers.
- Make the audience respond to my email: You might notice that most brands are bound to ask you to watch, read, or buy something. But, do they ask you to write back? Try asking them to respond to your email. Do not say “respond to this email,” instead, make it more personal– tell them, “respond to my email.”
Let them Express
Social media platforms are built to express oneself. Make your audience express themselves about the product or services you offer. It does not matter how they create the content.
They can have a boomerang, video, stickers, or anything they want to apply to the posts. But, how can you encourage them to create content that will feature your brand?
- Collect Reviews: Online reviews, ratings, and testimonies are significant in eCommerce and digital marketing. It builds trust among prospective consumers.
- Conduct upload contests on social media.
- Relevant Hashtags: Hashtags are keywords that like-minded people search for or connect with.
- Showcase partners, employees, and clients: Give out information about what your company is up to. You can share advocacy programs or charity works with your employees. Amplify your voice and give your employees a platform to express themselves.
Give Out Incentives and Giveaways
You can achieve audience interaction through several types of content. But to continuously get the attention of prospects and loyal customers, you have to introduce gamification.
If you are not familiar with the term, gamification is introducing games or competition among your target audience. Those who will participate must win in the games.
Gamification should be done on social media. You will satisfy the competitiveness of your audience by giving out compelling incentives. Incentives should be valuable to the participants.
Some businesses give out their products or services for free, or they provide discount coupons to the participants.
Offer Discounts
But, you can apply another engagement strategy that does not involve games but your customers will love it! You can give out attractive offers such as:
- Free shipment
- Membership Exclusive Offers
- Discount Promotions
- Instant Coupons
Take time to experiment and determine which type of offer is best suitable for the type of audience you have. What offer do they best respond to?
The best social media platform to promote offers is Facebook. They have an “offer ad” feature, which can be redeemed online or saved through Facebook to be redeemed later in-store.
“Offer ads” on Facebook has the following best practices:
- Give out valuable discounts: There’s a higher chance to reach more people if you offer free products or services or with at least a 20% discount.
- Use engaging photos: Post images that have people using your product or services. It has been observed that it performs better than photos of a product or service alone. But, photos of a product or photos of a person with the product performs better than your logo alone.
- Sets expiration date: A few days to allow your audience to discover, claim your offer, and share among their circle. The ideal period for promotional offers is up to 7 days.
- Helps promote offers: Pin your ads to the top of the Business Page so the visitors will immediately notice the offers.
Final Thoughts
So, how will you engage with your audience? You throw questions to spark conversations and let them express their opinions. Provide incentives and make offers to keep them more interested in your product and services. Create ways on how you can know more about your audience.
