Boosting Social Media Engagement: Strategies and Challenges

As an online brand, it’s important to not only increase the number of your potential customers but your social media engagement rate as well. Social media engagement refers to how customers respond to your content. Key social media engagement metrics include likes, comments, shares, DMs, etc. When you engage with your online audience, you build lasting relationships with them. A high social media engagement rate further increases sales and customer loyalty.

In this article, we look at how to increase social media engagement and the benefits of boosting your engagement levels. You’ll also learn the common issues of social media engagement and how to resolve them.

Social Media Engagement: Important or No?

According to research, the average person spends 30% of their online time on social media. If you want to capture the attention of your target online audience, you have to post engaging and quality content. Engaging with your followers on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and other social accounts can have a positive impact on your business, as we’ll find out below.

• Improves customer relationships – Social engagement helps improve customer relationships. A customer response to a post on any of your social media accounts is an opportunity for you to know them.  Besides, when you respond to your audience queries, you create meaningful interactions that are likely to improve customer satisfaction. Engagement is also a form of feedback that you can use to improve your product offerings.
• Improves SEO – Social media engagement improves search performance. Real people are more likely to search for what has lots of likes, shares, retweets, and comments compared to content that has zero engagement.
• Improves customer service – Engaging with your target audience on social media allows you to respond quickly to complaints and inquiries, which improves customer service and satisfaction.
• Wider reach – Posting engaging content gives you an opportunity to reach more people and build your brand awareness. People are likely to follow you and refer your brand to their friends if you regularly post authentic content.
• Humanizes your brand – There is a vast amount of data on social media that you can use to gain valuable audience insights on their demographics, likes, and dislikes. You can then analyze and use this social data to tailor your content to your customers’ preferences.
• Increases sales – Social media gives you an opportunity to get your products in front of countless numbers of prospective customers. When you share interactive posts, you get the attention of numerous social media users, and the result is improved social media presence and more sales.

How to Increase Social Media Engagement?

Struggling to increase engagement on social media? You aren’t alone. Many brands struggle to get their social engagement rates up. However, to help you improve your social media engagement rate, here are a few suggestions you can try.

1. Post Quality Content

Posting valuable content is a sure way of capturing your audience’s attention.  Quality organic content helps you to connect better with your online audience. Such content also expands your reach and attracts new audiences. To post content that resonates with your target customers, consider sharing topics that add value to them. In addition to being informative, make your content entertaining.

2. Make Use of Hashtags

Hashtags increase your visibility as they categorize your content into topics that are easily searchable by your audience.

Hashtags should be:

• Short
• Relevant
• Memorable
• Related to your content
• Creative and unique.

3. Engage Your Audience

Keep the conversation going by talking to your audience at a personal level, answering their questions, following them, and acknowledging their mentions. An engaged audience will have meaningful interactions with you. Such an audience also gives you a chance to share insights about your brand that your potential and actual customers may be interested in.

4. Share User Generated Content

Running out of content ideas? Share user-generated content (UGC). UGC is content that is shared by your audience. It humanizes your brand in addition to increasing engagement and customer loyalty. A popular way to encourage your audience to share content is to come up with a hashtag trend that is specific to your brand. You can then ask your followers to share content related to this hashtag. Remember to acknowledge and thank people who take their time to share UGC.

5. Attractive Visuals

Content that has compelling visuals, such as funny memes, GIFs, informative infographics, quality videos, and captivating photos, will always attract more likes and shares.

6. CTAs

Calls to action (CTAs) are simple words or phrases that encourage your satisfied or happy customer to take action. For instance, you can ask your followers to take part in a survey, subscribe to your YouTube channel, or share your Facebook content with friends.

CTAs should (be):

• Clear
• Concise
• Easy to follow
• Motivate followers to take a specific action.

7. Partner with Influencers

Consider using influencer marketing to attract more traffic and improve engagement with your brand. As a business owner, work with influencers whose content is relevant to your niche and whose ideas align with your business goals. Also, research on the influencer’s credibility, authenticity, content quality, impact, and engagement rates. Don’t forget to build a genuine relationship with the influencer before requesting them to promote your content.

8. Contests, Giveaways, and Challenges

People are always attracted to free stuff. Come up with creative contests, challenges, and giveaway ideas to create buzz around your products and services. Ensure the prizes you give to winners of contests and challenges are desirable to your audience. Also, give clear directions on how users can participate in the contests or giveaways.

Challenges of Boosting Social Media Engagement

There are several challenges that can get in the way of boosting your social media engagement, as discussed below:

• Few post interactions –  Likes, comments, and shares can be an uphill battle, even for experienced marketers. If your posts aren’t getting the attention you desire, research the type of social media activities and content that drives positive interactions among your target audience. Also, focus on sharing UGC or any other content that can motivate your followers to interact with your brand. Further, consider partnering with popular influencers and brands to increase your brand mentions.
• Competition – One of the biggest challenges brands face when it comes to engagement is standing out from the competition. The solution here is to first focus on building a loyal customer base. A loyal community, even when it’s small, is more valuable than a large, unengaged audience.
• Poor understanding of the target audience – Although quality content earns engagement, it should be tailored to your audience. Research your target audience and tailor your content to their needs and preferences.
• Lack of social media understanding – One cannot expect to create quality social media content without knowledge of how common social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter work. For your social media engagement efforts to bear fruits, ensure you hire the right talent who can positively contribute to your brand’s social media strategy.

Conclusion

In conclusion, as online brands strive to expand their reach and customer base, enhancing social media engagement emerges as a pivotal strategy. The significance of social media engagement lies in its ability to foster meaningful connections and its direct correlation to improved sales and brand loyalty. Through this article, we have explored the benefits and strategies of increasing engagement levels on various social media platforms. We hope the above ideas can help increase your social media engagement rate.