Having a solid social media strategy for your business is a crucial element of brand marketing. The average person spends about two and a half hours on social media every day while millennials, the largest consumer demographic, spend closer to three.
Social media engagement—or the comments, likes and shares your posts receive—are the best indicator of an effective social presence. If your account has tens of thousands of followers but little interaction with those followers, your content is falling on deaf ears. As a commercial brand, your social media accounts should strive for quality over quantity and help you build a solid foundation of loyal fans and customers.
Whether you are a social media novice, or have an established company brand online, here are seven tips for improving engagement with your audience.
- Post eye-catching photos and videos. On social media, striking photos and video content coupled with text get significantly more engagement than a block of text on its own. Incorporating multimedia is especially important on platforms like Facebook and Twitter that don’t require images for posts. Your photo only needs to be loosely related to your content, but make sure it isn’t click bait or you will lose the trust of your audience and the social media algorithms may work against you.
- Ask questions. Polls and questions are great ways to interact with your followers on social media. Whether you post the question in your feed, stories, or in a live video or reel, you are sure to connect with your audience in a deeper way.
- Be funny. A Sprout Social survey found that humor is the most desired brand characteristic after honesty, helpfulness and friendliness. Three out of four respondents said they wanted their brands to be funny, although only one in three thought snarky humor was appealing.
- Get personal. Studies have shown that more and more consumers favor brands that feel personal and personable. Don’t hide behind a professional veneer (unless that supports your brand image). Try posting behind-the-scenes-content, personal photos, and posts that show you are a real company run by real people.
- Partner with other brands. Cross-promotions and collaborations can be a very effective way to increase followers, sales and engagement. Partner with brands that have a similar audience and style to yours so that you can double down on what your followers already know and love.
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