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Strong social media engagement is a sign that you are making an impact on the market when you are a brand with an online presence that has a strong social media presence. It’s not just about looking popular; it’s about building meaningful relationships with current and future customers, which will serve to boost your brand (as well as your return on investment) both online and offline.
Here is the ultimate guide to building, managing, and measuring social media engagement and all of its benefits for business that you should read.
What is the meaning of social media engagement?
As a social media engagement metric, the number of comments, likes, and shares is measured. It is of course important that you rack up your followers, but at the end of the day, what makes social media successful is an engaged audience, not just a large one. You should strive for quality, not just quantity, as a business if you intend to succeed.
Let’s say you were throwing a party, and tons of people showed up, but they all just sat there silently, and you were not sure what to do. It is not acceptable to engage in small talk, dance, have conversations, or play questionable drinking games. Did the party really turn out to be a success? We are sure that your RSVP list looks good, but did your guests have a good time?
In order for every social platform to build a positive brand experience, as well as to develop meaningful relationships with new and potential future customers, engagement and activity are vital.
In order to measure social media engagement, a number of metrics can be used, including the following:
1. Retweets or shares
2. The comments
3. Number of likes
4. Growth in followers and audience
5. Amount of click-throughs
6. Branded hashtags
While a lack of organic engagement could be caused by social media algorithms and how your content is being shown to your followers, it is also possible that there is a problem with your social media strategy that may be causing a lack of organic engagement. You might want to give some of these social media engagement tactics a try if you are looking to get your social media audience interaction back on track.
What can you do to increase the social media engagement of your business?
It’s possible to just cross your fingers and hope that your followers will spontaneously start interacting with you, but chances are they may require some encouragement in order to get started. The good news is that there are plenty of tricks of the trade that can be used to boost that engagement and get this virtual party rocking.
Analyze your engagement as a first step: Unless you know where you started, you won’t be able to measure how far you’ve come. You should put on your data scientist hat (it looks great on you) and jot down your current follower number, the number of comments and shares you are getting on average per post, or whatever numbers are meaningful to you.
Then, ensure that you continue to track engagement regularly so that you can catch jumps or dips in engagement that could give you valuable clues about what is working (or, just as important, what isn’t working) in your campaign. It is the hard work that keeps you going that makes a social media marketing campaign go viral.
Choose a strategy: There is no one-size-fits-all solution when it comes to solving this problem. Due to the fact that every company’s business goals are different, every company’s social media strategy will also differ from one company to the next.
You might want to consider the following social media engagement goals, depending on what is suitable for your brand and what your business has to offer:
1. The ability to change the public’s perception of your brand
2. The development of new customer leads
3. Collecting feedback about the new products that have been released
4. By providing your audience with resources and advice, you will be able to educate them
Make sure you know your audience: When you don’t actually know who you are talking to, it’s hard to get people engaged in your message. In the case of a skateboarding company, the kind of language, tone, and resources that resonate will likely be different than those that resonate with a gardening supply store.
By knowing your audience, you will also be able to:
1. Social media sites to be on
2. Publish at the right time
3. The type of content
4. Voice of the brand
Developing and sharing valuable content: In order for content to be successful, it must be helpful to the audience, address their needs and their pain points. Think of it as a “conversation” rather than a “broadcast.” If you talk about how great your brand is, or what you have for sale, it is going to be hard for you to connect with your audience. Posting pictures of your latest t-shirt design on your company’s social media pages will only take you so far.
You can also challenge your followers to share their own “wedding tee stories” with you. When it comes to content format, it’s helpful to understand which kind of content is most suitable for each platform. For instance, artful images for Instagram, text posts or videos for Facebook, and so forth.
Having said that, don’t be afraid to get creative with these post ideas and use them as a starting point:
1. Organizing contests
2. The act of asking questions
3. Surveys and polls
4. Encourage your audience to ask you questions by holding a session called “Ask Me Anything”
5. Take a quiz to see how much they know about your brand
One of the best ways to boost social media engagement is to be more authentic when it comes to your brand’s social media channels. 90% of customers say that authenticity plays a major role in deciding which companies they like and support. In order to achieve proactive social media engagement strategies, you need to initiate the conversation first.
We are glad to say that 85% of consumers actively engage with brands online. Similarly, the use of social media is a prime opportunity for brands to engage with their audiences on a daily basis.
In order to have a productive conversation, both sides have to involve together. Social media interactions are no different! Replying to mentions, comments, and direct messages from your followers will show them that your brand cares about them.
Moreover, it will depict that you are interested in continuing the conversation with them. The most important aspect of social media marketing is that it doesn’t feel like marketing at all. You simply need to be your brand’s story.