When compared to traditional marketing methods, social media marketing has a lot higher lead-to-close rate. No digital marketing campaign can go without it, and marketers know that. It’s the easiest way to reach out to your audience. Before, you wouldn’t know how your ads were performing. Today, you’ve got a constant influx of data every minute regarding your social media campaign’s performance. Also, when you boost engagement on social media, it strengthens brand loyalty and improves relationships with consumers. But more importantly, it increases viral advocacy of your brand.
Having a social media channel isn’t enough. How do you communicate with your audience? Do you do it every day? The participation in real interactive dialogue is what drives engagement. You need to be proactive and reach out to them instead of waiting for them to act. You need a two-way conversation, simple as that. Here are 8 tactics should spark your imagination and help you get some ideas.
Humanize Your Brand
Infuse your brand with personality. You always need to be authentic as people will inevitably make judgments about your brand by the voice by which you engage with them. Find your voice that will resonate the best with your target audience. If your brand doesn’t seem to feel real or sound authentic, people won’t follow it. People unfollow brands when they use jargon and slang that doesn’t match their brand voice or lacks personality. One way to add some fun to your page is replying to messages and comments with memes and GIFs occasionally. Dating apps like Bumble, StarsAlign.co, and Tinder do a great job of humanizing their brands to appeal to more potential customers.
Respond Consistently
Building meaningful and long-term relationships with your consumers is crucial to your social media success. Consumers today want interaction, conversation, and to know that their input is valid. However, businesses still make that mistake of one-way communication. When you don’t respond to messages and comments, the impression you make is that you just don’t care. Social media management apps like eclincher can make responding to comments quickly very simple.
When you establish two-way communication with your audience, it leads to a positive domino effect. It further increases your content’s organic reach, visibility on the news feeds, and eventually boosts your engagement. To manage all your conversations and make sure that no comment remains “unresponded,” you can leverage the power of a social media inbox.
Post Relevant Content
There is always some news from your industry that you can share on social media. You can also do some event-based marketing or tap into trending topics. Use social listening tools to stay on top of current trends. Look to popular hashtags and answer some common questions. If you can’t manage to be consistent with creating your content, post weekly roundups of the latest news from your industry.
Use Live Video
Large bodies of text take time to read, so marketers often opt to use video, which is easier to consume. Thanks to new features in social media, you can go live instantly. Why live? Well, the numbers say that users watch live videos three times more than the prerecorded ones. You should also know how to make a social media headline as well!
Live videos are great for hosting Q&A sessions, taking your audience behind the scenes, or for sharing private moments from an event. Also, after you’ve broadcast the video live, make sure to revisit the video, edit the footage, and compile the highlights. Releasing this as an after-video will make sure your videos continue to add value and boost engagement long after the live session.
Boost Engagement with the Right Images
Visuals are another element that boosts engagement. Tweets and Facebook image posts generate a lot more engagement as compared to text updates. To make an image in your content as useful as posting a link, change the thumbnail whenever you re-share it. When you share the same page or post multiple times, the preview link won’t always look the same. Also, images entertain, explain, and invite. They communicate opinions, evoke an atmosphere, and convey emotion. So, grab a camera or get some high-quality stock photos and add them to your social media posts. You can also use Buffer Alternatives to boost engagement as well.
User-Generated Content (UGC)
People love recognition and validation. When a brand they love shares their photo, more and more customers share pictures of them using your products. All it takes is to add your branded hashtag in the photo caption, so you can easily keep track of the user-generated content. It’s a great way to include them in the conversation and strengthen your community. Take a look at some of the best user-generated campaigns that drove incredible results.
Ask for Reactions
If you are giving your best to boost engagement on social media, be sure to ask the users to like, comment, or share. People are more likely to share posts that end in “please share” or “please retweet.” Make sure that you have someone who’s responsible for monitoring your social media and responding to their reactions promptly. An experienced social media manager will send out helpful replies and speak in your brand voice. In case there are complaints and issues, contact them via DMs and work to solve their problems as quickly as possible. The key to boosting engagement on social media is to interact frequently and keep the conversation flowing. That will show your consumers that you want to hear what they have to say.
Partner Up with Influencers
In the last few years, many companies have increased their budgets to cover their influencer marketing campaigns. It’s one of the most successful tactics for growing a following and generating leads. People engage with influencers because their stories are relatable and authentic. Many of them have high engagement rates because of their sense of humor and honesty. And by having an influencer share your content, your brand gets exposed to their audience.
How Can Eclincher Help With Social Media Engagement?
Eclincher supports Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and Instagram Business, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, Pinterest, and other networks. It’s a platform that centralizes all your social media efforts into one place.
First, you can reply, comment, like, and follow because you have all social media feeds in one place. Next, you can interact with people from multiple accounts thanks to the Eclincher Social Inbox feature. You can follow mentions and discussion, as well as start new conversations. Engage in social listening by staying on top of new trends by listening to conversations on industry-related topics. Also, you can watch what and how your competitors are doing.
Building and maintaining your engagement on social media is a never-ending task. To boost participation, you will need to get to know your audience by listening to what they are talking about. After interacting and learning about their issues, you address them with the right content. After you’ve made your moves, analyze the results of your campaign to see which tactics yielded the best results.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are some quick tactics to increase social media engagement?
Quick tactics include posting consistently, using eye-catching visuals, and responding promptly to comments and messages.
How can I leverage user-generated content to boost engagement?
Encourage users to share their content related to your brand, and feature their posts to foster a sense of community and involvement.
Is it important to analyze metrics when trying to improve engagement?
Yes, tracking metrics such as likes, shares, and comments can provide insights into which content resonates best with your audience.
How do I make the most of hashtags for engagement?
Use relevant and trending hashtags in your posts to increase discoverability, but avoid overloading your content with too many hashtags.