Seven Ways To Increase Your Customer Engagement On Social Media
Take a moment and try to imagine the worst case scenario for your social media strategy. Is it amassing a huge potential customer base? Or is it gaining enough traffic to your website? In truth, while user engagement may not have crossed your mind, it is indeed what marketers fear most today.
Social media marketers literally live for increasing customer engagement. Of the existing marketing strategies, social media is by far the most effective method to market a product/service to your target audience. Don’t believe us? Check out some of the hard data from the Social Media Marketing Industry Report conducted by Social Media Examiner, which illustrate that social media marketing is more than just a fad.
In a nutshell, social media marketing is integral in maintaining customer interactions and engagement. So, how do you increase customer engagement on social media? Let’s find out with the help of the following pointers.
Seven Ways To Increase Your Customer Engagement On Social Media
1. Initiate Conversation
The first step to increasing audience engagement via social media is by initiating a conversation. However, you don’t necessarily have to begin a direct conversation with your audience per se, but rather give them something to talk about.
One of the best examples is the award-winning #LikeAGirl Campaign by Always, which garnered millions of views on YouTube. “The idea was explained as: ‘like a girl’ has been around forever and is uses in derogatory ways, let’s change the meaning of it. From that day on we started to build on that idea.”
Always’ campaign went viral with the hashtag #LikeAGirl being used left, right, and center across every social media platform. Take a page out of Always’ strategy and pick a relevant topic to open up a dialogue. Your conversation starter can be inspirational, educational, controversial, etc., but no matter the content of your message, remember — choose a topic of relevance to your audience.
2. Participate in Real-time Conversations
Asking questions may not directly give your brand mileage, but the regular engagement will help you corral an audience. For instance, during an event like a debate, sporting event, or ceremony, you can tune in and hold a conversation and not fret over participants. Your tweets, posts, and/or uploads are a blog of record proving you’re always up for conversation.
One of the ways to speak with your audience are through surveys and polls. Social media platforms like Twitter offer Twitter Polls during live events where you can ask your followers/subscribers to make a prediction. Real-time interactions like Twitter polls increase brand relevance are a more direct method of increasing user engagement.
3. Produce Quality Visuals
Impress upon your audience the importance of your ability by producing quality visual images. Whether they be photos, GIFs, video, or infographics, your visual media should hold the attention of your audience. Their attention and gaze is in constant competition from the millions of media files (sponsored & un-sponsored) uploaded every minute. A unique, creative approach is difficult to achieve, but through consistent posting and tweaking your brand can develop a stream of quality visuals.
For instance, live streaming videos — especially when 360 degree views are achieved — are proving to resonate well with audiences in increasing customer engagement. A few other creative takes on visual images include:
4. Humanize Your Brand
The idea of business organizations being sales-driven machines is becoming antiquated. Modern organizations have had to update their strategy as users can simply block the advertisements.
Brands who won’t adapt their hardcore selling tactics for social media stand to lose significant traction with an audience. To keep your followers engaged, make it a point to create humorous content. Even if you’re tone is more educational or instructional, remember, learning should be fun. Here are a few ideas to maximize the fun in your social media posts:
5. Throwback Thursday Posts
If you are having an “off-day” with nothing queued up for your social strategy, try re-introducing a Throwback Thursday post.
A TBT can be any piece of content you’ve created, for instance, pictures from your first product OR how you almost settled for a ghastly logo in your early days. These types of post show character and are a great refresher for folks who may have missed your content the first time — use the hashtag #ICYMI to denote ‘In Case You Missed It.’ Throwback posts can also be used with a current trending topics, where you can incorporate humor to make your messages more impacting.
6. Understand Your Audience
Not so long ago, Facebook brought forth a completely new array of reaction emojis — Love, Haha, Wow, Sad and Angry— so that users could express their feelings about a post.
Facebook changed the game of audience engagement by providing a small range of emotional values to analyze user reactions. This feature has provided a way for marketers to gauge audiences on a slightly more acute scale. Being able to define a set of emotional values — you can determine whether or not to assign numerical value — brings brands a step closer to understanding their audience via social media.
7. Host Giveaways
There is nothing that increases audience interaction and engagement as a good giveaway. Just like you and I, people love getting things for free! Giveaways are one of the easiest options to generate instant interest and engagement from your target audience.
Your social media freebies can be merchandise adorning your company’s logo, promotional products, and/or discounts. Getting an increase in your social media following can come via contest winners by generating word-of-mouth. Duly, asking contestants to repost and share as a part of your giveaway promote the spirit of healthy competition a.k.a. fun!
These are our picks to increase customer engagement on social media. Which of these tactics will you use for the same? Let us know!
