We’re all on social media for one reason or another. Businesses in particular have a certain goal or set of goals that they are hoping to accomplish through their social media presence. These goals vary from business to business. Some are as simple as interacting with customers or giving them a place to leave reviews and find information and some are hoping for more business, new customers, etc. What all of these goals have in common though is some level of engagement with customers and clients. So, how can we increase engagement?
How can you get people talking on your page and interacting with you? How do we get the conversation moving?
Have a little personality
If social media is about being social, you have to have a personality. We wrote a post about finding your social media persona. It may be worth checking out. As a brand, you have to find your social media persona and stick to it. Figure out who your audience is and go from there. Have a sense of humor, be an expert on your topic, and be an interesting person to have a conversation with. This is just the online coffee shop. How are you presenting yourself?
Ask Questions
Asking questions is always a great way to get the conversation going. The more interesting the question, the more likely you are to get a response. Use fill in the blank posts, questions about your business, or just general questions to get people talking. You should be focused on your brand, but not so hyper focused that you can’t have a regular conversation. You don’t want to constantly just be selling to people –lighten up a bit.
Engage
What’s the golden rule? Treat others the way you want to be treated. If you’re constantly asking for people to subscribe to your newsletter, follow you on Twitter, read your blog, leave a comment, etc. and you aren’t doing the same –are you following the golden rule? No one wants a one sided relationship –what are you going to put in?
Use images and video
Pictures, videos, infographics, and more are a great way to tell a story quickly and powerfully. They look good, they are attention grabbers, and you have a ton of opportunity for branding and getting your message in front of large amounts of people. Plus, people are more likely to share a post with a photo or video than just text.
Find a way to use what works
Maybe you don’t want to tell jokes and share cat videos; fair enough. But before you decide that something isn’t worth your time, remember that the panda photo just pulled in 30 likes for you and now the next time you send out a post 30 more people will be seeing it. Give the people what they want. Funny posts are attention getting, Throwback Thursday is officially a hit, and maybe featuring/promoting the top person interacting with you on Fridays is really popular. Do what works, and find a way to use that consistently. Nothing is going to work if you put in effort once every six months and then let it drop off.
The thing is, these tips really are painless. It’s about reworking your schedule and penciling in time to go through each of these specific tasks and making sure they are covered. So, I’ll pose a few questions to you. What do you find that people engage with the most? What kind of articles, posts or photos? What are your tips for increasing engagement in a simple way? What has another brand done in the past that has you engaging with their page? We want to hear from you –comment below!
