Social media is a powerful tool that can be used to engage your audience and turn them into loyal customers. Social media engagement has been proven to increase trust in brands, as well as generate more traffic and conversions. In this blog post, we will go over 5 ways you can start engaging with your social media audience today!
What Is Social Media Engagement?
Social media engagement is the process through which someone interacts with your social media profiles. This can be done by reading and sharing content, engaging in conversations, or even starting discussions themselves!
Why Is Social Media Engagement Important?
It’s no secret that having an engaged audience on social media means more traffic to your website, but what many fail to realize is why this works so well. Having an active audience will increase trust in brands as they know you care about their feedback and are willing to interact with them.
Having great audience engagement on your social media platform also boosts your posts in the algorithm, which means that your content will show up in more feeds and reach even more people!
How to Gauge Social Media Audience Engagement
Now that you know how powerful audience engagement is on social media, it’s time to learn how you can start engaging with your fans.
If you’re looking for an easy way to gauge your social media audience engagement, look at these two key metrics:
- comments per post
- number of posts sharing your content
Some other great ways for gauging social media audience engagement include:
Track Your Community
You can use social media management tools to keep an eye on the people who interact with you and those that don’t. If there is a group of fans that seem unresponsive, consider creating targeted posts for them!
Look at Engagement Rates
The number of likes, shares, or comments per 100 followers will give you great insight into how engaged your audience truly is. A high rate here means they are very active and likely will want more content from you in the future!
Use Hashtags Strategically
Using relevant hashtags not only helps you grow your reach but also helps users find similar profiles. This could result in new followers for yourself! Be sure to make these hashtags part of each post so they are easily found by your audience.
Engage With User Generated Content
If you have great content from fans, be sure to give it a shout-out! Acknowledging this type of content will help build trust with those who shared and encourage similar posts in the future.
Additionally, showing appreciation for fan-submitted photos or videos will make them feel special and more likely to continue sharing their creative ideas with you.
5 Quick Ways to Engage Your Social Media Audience
At McWilliams Marketing, we believe that social media engagement can have an incredible impact on the success of your marketing strategy. We have seen it time and again, when brands engage with their followers on social media they start to see a difference in traffic, conversions, and more!
For this to work though, you need your audience engaged. Social media engagement can boost trust between products or companies as well as help grow the brand’s online presence.
1. Respond to Comments on Your Posts
People are more likely to click through when they see that there is a real person behind the profile. This also helps encourage an active following, as people know you’ll be responding!
Additionally, by responding to comments on your posts, you can boost your post in the algorithm. If you get lots of comments, your post will start to show up in many more feeds!
2. Post Relevant Content That Interests Your Audience
There’s no point engaging with followers who aren’t interested in what you have to say. By posting content your fans want to see, they’ll be much more likely to engage with your posts moving forward which means higher placement for future posts too!
Content should not only be relevant but should also be exciting. Post visual content, such as pictures or videos, consistently. Visuals get more engagement than text alone.
People love to share content they find interesting or exciting. If you want people to engage with your profile, make sure the posts and profiles are bound to get a response!
Some of the factors that make content exciting to viewers include:
- new content
- memorable titles
- providing value through your posts
When it comes to posting good quality content, quality trumps quantity every time. It is better to share one amazing post that gets incredible engagement than to share several mediocre ones.
3. Integrate Social Sharing Buttons
By adding social sharing buttons to your website, you are encouraging visitors to share their favorite content with friends and family! This can help spread awareness about your brand.
Social sharing buttons will increase audience engagement by making it easier for people to share your posts with their contacts.
4. Reward Your Top Fans
People who engage the most with your profiles will often have a “top fans” badge on their accounts. As a small thank-you for engaging so much, send them something special like an exclusive discount code or swag items.
Having top fans means having more people engaged in what you have to say online. Incentivizing your social media audience to engage in your posts with the hopes of scoring a “top fan” badge will encourage them to keep coming back for more.
5. Schedule Time For Engagement Throughout The Day
Scheduling time throughout the day dedicated specifically for engagement helps ensure that someone is always there responding to posts quickly. If something goes wrong, it’s better if it is addressed immediately.
Having a plan for your social media strategy, including a scheduled posting time each day, encourages follower engagement.
If you’re stuck on what to post, look at your competitors’ posts and see what they are doing well. This is a great way for you to get inspiration as well as motivation. If people respond positively or negatively to their content, consider using those responses in some of your social media updates too.
While there’s more than one way to go about engaging with followers online, we hope these quick tips will show you how easy it can be! If you are interested in learning more about our social media services, contact our team today.
