Does it really matter how many likes and comments you get on your business’s social media posts? In actual fact, engagement matters quite a lot. Comments are especially important as they suggest interest and turn your post into a talking point.
Having impressive numbers of likes and comments makes it more likely for your post to pop up in the ‘Explore’ page on Instagram and in ‘Page Suggestions’ on Facebook- leading to more clicks and more potential people engaging with your brand.
Don’t worry if you’re struggling with getting your engagement up; even big brands with high quality content sometimes miss the mark.
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These four engagement strategies will help take your brand to the next level on social media platforms.
1. Content, Content, Content!
At the end of the day, your levels of engagement depend quite largely on the quality of the social media content you are pushing out. Remember that in the ocean of social media posts, you want yours to stand out enough to inspire engagement.
Your posts should be:
- Surprising and unique.
- Cohesive to other brand content in terms of content, colour schemes etc.
- Customised especially to your target audience.
- Customised for each social media platform.
- Comprised of high-quality images and video, accompanied by flawless text.
- And remember to ALWAYS add value to your audience, they don’t care about you, so touch points that your target market care about and talk about those. This will assist your audience with “softening up” to your brand once they feel that you care about them first.
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2. Call To Action
Make it clear that you’d like viewers to take action and engage in your social media posts.
You can do this by:
- Asking relevant questions and asking your audience for their opinions.
- Creating a contest or giveaway where shares, likes and comments are required.
- Simply by adding sentences such as “share this post with your best friend”, “tag someone who can relate” or “comment on your favourite option”, which all ask for engagement in a fun way.
3. Post At The Right Times
Posting at the right times is exceptionally important, especially if your product or service is location dependent. CoSchedule, a popular social media planner, did some research and provided us with the optimal times for posting to each social media platform.
The optimal times include:
- Instagram– 2am; 8-9am; 5pm
- Facebook– 9am; 1pm; 3pm
- Twitter– 12pm; 3pm; 5pm; 6pm
- LinkedIn– 7-8am; 12pm; 5-6pm
The times above are the general times that are good for posting, but additional research can be done based on which industry you’re in.
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4. Use Pods
Pods have been proven to work wonders for social media engagement. Pods are groups of likeminded businesses or individuals who commit to supporting each other’s’ posts through likes, comments and shares.
This way, your posts are guaranteed to receive at least some engagement and all you need to do is give out some likes and comments in return.
Pods are usually created for specific platforms, with Instagram pods having become exceptionally popular.
Always add value to your potential audience. Don’t just talk about yourself, they don’t care about you yet. Give them a reason to take notice of you by engaging with them and providing value to THEM along the way.
This will allow them to establish a relationship with your brand and they will be more open to your promotional posts. Use the Jab, Jab, Punch strategy for your daily posts, or in other words, Value, Value, Promotion type posts.
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