How to engage your audience!
Before we dive into the best practises to increase your engagement on social media, it’s worth defining exactly what counts as “engagement.” Essentially, it can be classified as anything that gets someone to interact with your post, from a simple “like” to sharing and commenting. To understand more about why this is important, check out our article on the Importance of Digital Marketing.
Know your customers
This sounds obvious… If you want to connect and engage with your audience, then you need to know who they are and how to connect with them. This is more than just knowing their age; it includes the language and tone you use to communicate with them. Matching the tone of your audience and keeping it consistent can help them relate to the brand.
Nailing down these important details should give you a much higher level of engagement.
For some great examples of brands knowing their audience, check out this article
Know your habits
Can a post be engaging if there’s no one around to react? To really maximise engagement, you need to know what platforms work best and what times to post. Most platforms have some great tools for seeing when your audience is most active and when you should post. Even without the tools, a bit of trial and error is all you need to see what time of day you get the most responses.
Encourage participation
In a face-to-face situation (remember those?) you wouldn’t talk at a customer without listening to them, and online interaction is no different. Social platforms are incredible tools for having real conversations and even have features like opinion polls designed especially for this purpose. When asking open-ended questions and interacting with people through comments, your audience is much more likely to engage. Many platforms’ algorithms even favour posts that have lots of comments, so you should see an increase in reach too!
Share things with value
If you are aiming to improve your engagement, you need to post content that has value for the audience. Think about things that your audience would find interesting and how you can use your content to start a conversation with them. For example, if you are selling wine: Rather than tell them which wine is best and why, you make a recommended pairing list and ask people to share their favourite combos.
Use the right type of media
Different platforms will get better results with various media types, from photos to animated videos (we may have a bias for these). Even simple things like asking a question can perform better if you use a text-based image or some animated text, as they will stand out much more in a feed.
For conveying a lot of information, video or infographics will generally work better than paragraphs of text. This is where animated content can really excel (you must have seen this coming): not only does it allow for an eye-catching style that compliments your branding, but it is also an extremely effective way to convey information in a way that is concise and memorable. There’s a reason animated explainer videos are so popular: They work!
It’s also good to think outside of the box and really get into the mind of your audience. Do they use Instagram Stories or SnapChat? Make custom-branded stickers that they can use! Is your audience creative? Have a contest where they can submit creations! Don’t be afraid to try something new to get people engaging with your brand.
Treat it like a science
There’s no perfect formula that anyone can give you; all audiences are different, and it comes down to experimentation and analysis. Most platforms have built-in insight and analytic tools and are a brilliant way to see what works best.
