Being a big part of our daily lives, social media networks can provide a great way to influence your own life and those of others. Did you know that more than 30 percent of world’s population are using sites like Facebook and Twitter all the time?
First of all, there are 2.3 billion active social media accounts in the world. This means that almost one in every three people you see walking down the street has a social media account. With so many people using these types of media, it’s natural that businesses viewing them as a marketing channel.
It’s not as easy as just getting people to ‘follow’ you, and it’s important to understand how to run it properly and “dig deeper”. Here are 21 tips on how to boost your social media engagement to firmly establish your brand’s identity online via social media.
- Build your own “Noah’s Ark”
In an ever-crowded sea of users and posted content, you should learn to analyze and observe the activity of your defined audience. You want to post daily, but posting incessantly is definitely something you DON’T want to do. It is important to find the right way to influence your target audience at a right time with the right “dosage.” Don’t flood your social profile with innumerable – rather just keep them updated with good judgement with when and how often you contact them. It’s true that more people trust a brand that is active on social media, but it’s possible to overdo it and that’s a no-no for any business – or individual for that matter.
So you’re left asking – That’s great, but when is the best time to post?
This depends on two major factors; first, your industry and the social media channel(s) you’ve chosen to be in touch with your customers and/or interest groups. Research has indicated that Facebook posts in general do better on Thursdays and Fridays, while Wednesdays at around 3pm are times for Twitter, depending on the time zone of your audience of course. These are based on averages across multiple industries. Tools like Fanpage Karma can be very helpful for determining the best time to post your own content. It may also help to take a look at analytical tools inside each social channel. Facebook, Twitter and YouTube all offer page analytics for users.
- Keep it short – Always
Some studies have shown that content presented in certain lengths in specific social channels perform better. According to one of the widely popular social marketing platforms Buffer, keying your posts to specifics can be very beneficial.
For instance, Tweets between 71 and 100 characters have a 17% higher engagement rate. Facebook posts with approximately 40 characters are 86% more likely to engage fans as opposed to longer pieces. The most popular YouTube videos are less than three minutes long.
Always be ready to improvise and test certain patterns, you can always discover a new way and it might just be that one thing that boosts your content’s appearance rates where you want it to be seen. Keep an eye on number of characters and description that you use in your post.
- Add Images
As kids, most of us look at the images before even laying an eye on a single character of any book. Image is important to us because there is an immediate visual stimulus from the eye to the brain. According to WebDAM, social posts that include imagery have a higher engagement rate by 650 % as compared to plain text. In fact, more than 90% of what we learn is through visualization. Adding a photo with a link could easily enhance your interaction with those who follow you on sites like Facebook and Twitter, and adding images is surprisingly easy.
- Emoticons Rock
Emojis are simple but powerful, and they’re a magical tool that can increase comments on a post by 33%! That may in part have to do with the visual aspect mentioned above, but they also add the human element to it – showing feelings and ‘emotions’ as their name suggest. They’re highly recommended for Facebook, Twitter and even SMS text marketing, and for ads they can and should even be included in the subject lines. All it takes is an extra set of characters when creating your post to increase interaction by up to a third and make your post much more interactive.
- Join Groups and Forums – and Participate
This is another simple yet powerful tool for most social media networks – be engaged yourself and you’ll promote further engagement and garner followers. It is a widespread method of sharing your info and thoughts on the Internet. Facebook experienced more than 25 billion “likes” within posts on the group platform in 2015, so don’t be afraid to spread the ‘likes’ around and comment on content that you find interesting, appealing, or both.
Virtually anyone can start a group. Maintaining it and keeping it “clean” with regular feedback, it takes a bit more effort. Keeping your organization active on the group page will boost your connection with others, it always does
- Get your #hashtags out
Most of us want to have an impact across the world. We want everyone to hear our message. By using a hashtag with any primary term for your product or content, you can include comments within virtually any conversation. With Twitter being so powerful (more than 313 million active users each month), there’s a lot to gain from putting your hashtags out there. For example, using “#Love” puts your message in front of everyone currently reading about “love.” The right comment – either positive or negative – has the potential to engage thousands of readers almost immediately.
- Call to Action
Never underestimate the true power of a good call to action. According to Adroll.com, these simple but yet powerful snippets can make people up to 3x more likely to click ‘through’ your content if you, quite simply, ‘tell’ them to do it.
A call to action is when you suggest to your readers to click to a link, make a phone call or interact with the company in some way using certain phrases like “Click to get 10% discount”, “Call us and get a free 10-day trial” etc. If there’s perceived value there, and they’re part of your audience, they’ll be enticed.
As you may know, most YouTube stars always suggest that their viewers “click the subscribe button” after the video. Another common practice for many businesses is to include the phrase, “Follow us on Facebook”. These and other phrases encourage people to interact, and it puts them in your sphere of influence for further communications and marketing efforts
- Awesome Blog Content
No one wakes up in the morning thinking today’s going to be the day for a bad piece of content. However, not everyone takes the time to make it picturesque either. Use content marketing tools and analytics to create something “worth waiting for”.
The more value someone finds within your content, the more likely he or she will be to share it. Try writing something unique and special. Keep in mind that if you write on something that you are interested in, the more likely others of the same interest will read it and share it.
Another good tip is to use sharing tools such as SproutSocial or Buffer. Tools such as these can help you share content across a wide scope of social media while saving you a lot of time.
- Share Your Videos
Now that you know how powerful images and Emoji’s are, imagine tons of images presented in a matter of second. That’s what Video can do for you!
Video content generates approximately 1200% more shares than using text and images combined. This includes everything from in-depth video programming video tutorials to a six-second Vine clip.
If you can make someone laugh, all the better. People want to be entertained as well as be educated. Making a comical “How Not To” video maybe your way of going viral.
- Get Some Surveys Running
Creating a Survey for your guests to use can help engage your audience while helping you learn more about their behaviors and preferences. You’d be amazed by how much data you could gather from those who follow your brand online.
A survey can also please your page visitors. It makes them feel like their opinion is important to your business. Put some effort into creating a series of meaningful inquiries that you can use to understand your audience better.
- Make some Winners!
It is always nice to get that surprise package from a unexpected friend. Being friendly and open with your customers is one of the key parts of social media marketing. Creating a contest is a nice way of letting your customers and audience know they’re important and that checking you out regularly has its benefits!
If you surprise them, there is a high chance they will stay tuned into your social media channel to see what’s coming next. Sometimes a freebie is can be worth its weight in digital gold when it comes to marketing.
- Making it Interactive
How many times have you taken a quiz to, for example, “find out who you were in your previous life”? Although this may sound funny, this is just an example of interactive content. This puts the user right in the center of attention and allows him or her to take over control.
This adds a great line between you and your audience. It offers them something else to do while keeping them interested.
By the way, I was a Bruce Lee in a previous life!
- Making Evergreen Content
Making, writing or creating takes inspiration, imagination and discipline. Making something that will stay true, interesting and unique doesn’t necessarily mean it will, but the key is in the writers hands, giving him or her a chance to open the doors of “time” without ever locking them. One of the reasons why Evergreen blogs are so important is because they can continue to generate visitors for an extremely long period of time.
It’s not unusual for a company to share an evergreen post on Twitter or Facebook from several years ago. It gives you a power to generate new users by re-introducing your previous valuable posts at certain times when you know they’ll be well received
- Integrate Your Social Media
One of the most important parts of social media is how well is it all integrated with each other. For example, you can create a YouTube video and share it on Facebook with a click of the mouse.
By the end of 2015, as many as 65% of adults in US were using some kind of social networking site. This even includes those who don’t have Internet in their homes in some cases.
By connecting your social media accounts, you have the potential to broaden your reach while engaging a portion of those individuals.
- Sharing Quotes
Quotes present a century old voice for our species and it’s easily accessible and broadly used on the Internet. Quotes play an important role since many people see visuals with inspirational messages that causes them to act, share, like or comment.
Sometimes quotes can be more effective than anything else you had in mind. If everything fails to surprise, quotes may well do!
- Host an Online Event
Events are great way to attract a group of people of same interests to interact with your brand. Webinars, Facebook Live’s and even Google Hangouts can all be used for your company’s purposes. Make experience for your users fun and educational. Most of us live for these types of experiences!
Once the event is over, don’t forget to share it on social media.
