In the modern world, social media permeates every aspect of business, but especially marketing. When using these digital platforms to promote your company, creating content is only half the battle; you must also connect with your audience in a meaningful way.
With this in mind, let’s talk about boosting your brand with social media engagement.
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What is social media engagement?
Before you can engage with an online audience, you have to understand what that means. You can typically measure social media engagement by keeping tabs on likes, comments and shares. Naturally, you want to rack up as many followers as possible. However, it’s less about the number of followers than the number of people who interact with your brand. Those are distinct goals.
You should consider quality over quantity. If you have tons of people viewing your page, but no one starts a conversation, shares a story, or likes what you have to say, are these efforts making an impact? Probably not.
Truly engaging content should get the audience to interact with the copy, photos and videos incorporated into each message. It’s crucial to create posts that build positive experiences and offer meaningful information and entertainment. In doing so, brands can form relationships with current and future audiences.
Related: 5 Common Mistakes Startups Make with Facebook Ads
How is social media engagement measured?
There is no one-size-fits-all process for digital engagement. Success will largely depend on the strategies you devise at the outset of your journey.
Your metrics could be measured by any of the following characteristics:
- Shares or retweets
- Comments
- Likes
- Followers
- Click-throughs
- Mentions
- Use of branded hashtags
In short, social media engagement is about growing brand awareness by creating conversations with your community. There are plenty of online tools and agencies that can help develop and measure metrics to ensure you’re hitting those goals (or redirect you when there are better opportunities). Be sure to utilize the information at your disposal to bolster an online presence that keeps people talking about your brand.
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Tips to increase social media engagement
Remember, social media engagement is about making a genuine connection with your audience.
Try the following tips to boost your digital interactions:
- Don’t just talk about your brand. Discuss a topic on which you or your company could be considered an expert. Obviously, you want to publish content that communicates your mission, values and capabilities, but don’t make it all about you.
- Join groups. On a group page or forum, you can engage in conversations with like-minded people who could benefit from the knowledge you have to provide. Don’t just join any old group, however. Look for those that include people who are talking about your industry.
- Participate in online Q&A sessions. Whether you’re hosting a Q&A or partaking of one, you can easily hand out nuggets of information in ways that showcase your expertise. If you are able to offer relevant tidbits before competitors, you’re more likely to become the go-to seller.
For more tips on how to engage with your audience on social media, check out the accompanying resource.
