Engage, engage, ENGAGE.
No, it’s not your grandma willing you to tie the knot every time you visit (true story!), but the advice given in pretty much any social strategy guide you’ll read today.
Creating killer content is one side of the coin and generating discussion, shares and action is the other. Bringing those elements together = good engagement.
So what are some tips for improving social engagement?
Sit back and engage :-).
People love to hear the sound of their own voice. Naturally, people also like to feel valued. So asking someone to voice their expert opinion on a subject goes a loooooooooong way. #doublewhammy
Hearing what other people think and being able to agree or disagree is a fave human past-time, too, so it’s essential to give folks an environment which welcomes that kind of exchange.
That means access. Not only to you but to each other, through you and your platforms. Be sure to nudge your audience to join in and share their thoughts via email or on social channels, often.
After all, encouraging discussion and prompting audience conversations in your engagement strategy is a great way to up the engagement ante. Be provocative! Propose wacky ideas. Ask tough questions.
Plus, the great thing about posting questions is that, by nature, a question encourages input from your audience and allows you to test their knowledge, discover unexpected opinions and explore personalities. Posting questions simultaneously gives your audience permission to express themselves. Winning! And, PS…posting questions through video is extra engaging.
Other great tools include polls, surveys and quizzes – totally fab and fun ways to kick up that engagement while giving you key insights to use as you continue to engage. Also Q&A-style formats (popular on Twitter, especially) can yield valuable quick-fire insight into additional questions audiences want answered.
Getting your audience to muck in on content creation can test how engaged they are with your business and social strategy.
Guest blog posts are easy. Be sure to guide any guest posting request with topic and length. Rather than post the standard bio of your guest, write your own intro that endorses them and conveys trust to your audience. Then, give them social posts to use to promote their guest blog post which includes your hashtags. (Hint, hint: one might use our Automatic Social Posted Generator for such a purpose :-)).
Speaking of… Hashtags help you to bond with followers and can lend an “I’m in the club” vibe to your conversations on social channels like Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and Facebook.
Plus, regularly reposting audience content from your business account supports the social proof and validation of others. And, as the saying goes, like begets like. You share. They share.
Photo contests, or other types of games and competitions can create fantastic crowd-sourced content while allowing you to give something back to your audience (read: compelling, interactive content). They can also serve as a great way to test and support the two-way relationship between you and your audience.
Encouraging reviews for your products or services with gifts or other incentives not only engages but also increases that social proof for your business. Don’t forget: you can always use reviews as content, elsewhere, quoting testimonials across social, in blogs, newsletters or on your website (a.k.a. see crowd-sourced content above ^).
You don’t have to ask for something from your audience first to offer them something cool either. The best kind of incentive is one that comes as a surprise. Because a surprise inspires a thank you. And it’s easy to make an ask after someone thanks you :-).
And we don’t want to forget good old old-school. Because an engagement strategy that employs offers like coupons, discounts, membership or free shipping is tried and true when it comes to incentivizing your audience to take action. Just remember that it’s important to take the temperature of the market and don’t overdo it. Because if you’re always on sale, the incentive is meh.
Topics of interest are naturally more interesting. Keep your finger on the pulse of emerging, relevant trends and seasonal events and show your audience your relevance.
Get involved by adding your voice to conversations around hot topics to boost engagement. And keep a record of what’s coming with a marketing calendar (ehem) so you can organize and schedule content around certain trends and events.
Connecting with hot-shots in your industry means you can piggy-back off the enthusiasm of their own audience. So make friends. Go to industry conferences and meetups. Get people to want to help you by getting to know you. Make your network work for you.
Keep in mind, it’s a slooooow build with influencers. You’ve got to put in the time if you want those relationships to pay off.
A great way to reach out to influencers is by interacting with them on social, building relationships to a point where you can pitch a request. Be helpful. Generate conversation on their behalf. Make them look good. Because remember what we said above… Like begets like :-).
When the time comes for your ask, make it as easy as possible for them to say yes. A win-win wins.
Hands down, the best way to improve social engagement is just to create ruddy brilliant content. Easier said than done, we know.
But here’s the best trick anyone ever taught us: if we care about it, others will, too.
And here’s the trick we’ve discovered on our own: the best way to inform is also to entertain. That means fun, compelling, interesting… More than information. Personality. Emotion. Inspiration.
So take the time to make your content meaningful, learn how with a mentor or course or hire someone to help you. The tools (blog posts, newsletters, videos, infographics, how-to guides, webinars, software, etc.) are a-plenty. The art, alas, is acquired.
