“The more you engage with customers, the clearer things become, and the easier it is to determine what you should be doing.” — John Russell
Social Media started as a way to connect with friends and family online. This further evolved into a broadcasting medium. And now is an ideal marketing place for many brands to showcase their products by providing personalized human experiences. It is not just a platform to share content. But to engage with your audiences with a more tailored approach.
What's All About Social Media Engagement?
“The key to engaging content? Think bigger, bolder, and braver.” –Ann Handley
Think of social media engagement as a long-term relationship. You're committed & it takes a lot of dedication. The capability to think about the future, willingness to adjust, & make sure that the other party is also happy and satisfied. For now & for years ahead.
User engagement is not about single interaction with any one of your customers. Or a specific lot of users. While "Strong Customer Relationship" means to create an open line of communication with a period, engagement is entirely a different concept. It has its own level. Only a few brands on social media know the exact meaning of engagement & have achieved it indeed.
Is Social Media Management Overwhelming for Many Brands?
Because of their niche, many businesses think of social media as a noisy or jam-packed scope to strengthen brand awareness. The entire idea of social media management is quite powerful.
Many brands get into the game by feeding Facebook about their services or tweeting updates about their products. Or posting educational content on LinkedIn but still getting a small amount of engagement.
If you fall in the same category for a starter, let's see how you can be comfortable with building brand awareness & engagement on social media platforms. It is not an easy task to produce genuine engagement. You have to be engaging according to your business niche. The "like my page" approach doesn't work as effectively as you might think. Let's start with the A B C D of social media engagement.
A: "Ask"
If you want engagement, be engaging. Be conversational. Ask questions. Leave room for your audience to add their voice. — @problogger
One of the best ways to engage your audience is to "Ask a Question." Usually, when you meet someone in real life, the first thing you do is ask, "How are you?" Or maybe "How's life going?" to break the ice. The same goes for social media.
But since questions like "What's your name or email address?" can be too dull or forceful. Something like "What do you think?" or "What's your opinion on this?" would be much better.
Most of the audience likes to think through & want to hear what others think of the subject. The "What do you think" strategy can work to prompt your audience to share their opinion on something.
You can also play a "Test your Knowledge" game. Or the simplest one is to "Post a Poll" to engage with your audience on Facebook or Twitter. It's easy to create polls on Twitter & Facebook. And now on Instagram stories too.
The point is to "Start Asking." Post a simple question. If you're offering any product or business services, you can ask simple questions like "Which product do they like the most?" through any social stream: a blog post, an online community, a Facebook page, or Q&A sites like Quora. The questions shouldn't have to be business-oriented all the time. You can show your funny side too. Or share others' content that is relevant. People react & relate more to humor than anything else.
There can be many forms of interactive content that can encourage people to participate like competitions, polls, games, Q&A series. And to satisfy your audience's competitive spirit, you can add some prizes for the winners. To encourage people to participate in the activity, you can also ask for their ideas.
“The best listeners often make the most engaging conversationalists.” — Brian Solis
B: "Boost"
The audience reach can be of two types. The first one is an organic reach. This means people are reaching your post or page without any paid promotion. But recently, a significant decline in the organic range has been observed by many social media platforms like Facebook or Instagram. The number of people who are reaching your post organically is falling.
Instagram & Facebook give a "Boost Post" option to overcome that shift. With the boosted post, you can reach more comprehensive, targeted, and specific audiences by spending a few dollars wisely.
Your audience wouldn't be just limited to the people who are already following your page. These boost post options have the parameters to set your audience reach with particular demographics like gender, age range, country, interests, etc.
Your post will get live as soon as you click the button & will start reaching more people. The analytics in the "View Insight" will let you know the user engagement on the boosted post.
C: "Communication"
“Just be nice, take a genuine interest in the people you meet, and keep in touch with people you like. This will create a group of people who are invested in helping you because they know you and appreciate you.” — Guy Kawasaki
If you're a product development team exploring ways to interact with your products/services more, maybe you need to rethink your communication part with the audience.
Make sure that customer feedback is heard & your communication process is complete. Users usually trust the businesses that reply within 2–4 hours. Even if you have got a little engagement through queries, don't miss the future opportunities by neglecting them.
Keep asking them for their feedback and try to improve your product using customer reactions. When the brand's relationship with the customers gets strong through communication, it increases user engagement. And doesn't let all the work of the product development team go overlooked.
For inspiration, have a look at some of the most refreshing social media engagement examples from different brands:
D: "Discount"
A successful engagement strategy is not always about interactivity or using the latest trends to engage.
One of the most attractive yet old-fashioned ways to engage prospects is by offering discount cards or coupons. Experiment with different upcoming events like national holidays or festivals, or if your brand's nature allows you. Go for a personalized gift/discount on birthdays.
Some of the ideas for discounts can be:
- Free shipping offers
- Membership cards
- Instant coupons
- Weekend discounts
- National Day promotions
- International holiday discounts
- Seasonal discounts
Pro Tip: People are more attracted to products/offers with free items or more than 20% discount. An ideal length for an offer/discount usually is for seven days.
By using an engaging image of the product/offer, you can also increase user engagement. While promoting an offer on Facebook, always pin it to the top of your page to get noticed quickly.
There is no more B2B or B2C. It’s H2H: Human to Human. — @bryankramer
To Be Precise,
Social media marketing is not as simple as you might think. To run an effective & successful user engagement strategy, one needs to be focused & sure about
Asking,
Boosting,
Communicating,
Discount Offerings, so that the
Engagement plan wouldn't be a
Failure in any regard & on any social media platform.
