Engaging your audience is the key to maximizing the potential of your media traffic.
Simply for somebody to engage with you means that you have caught their attention. The likelihood is that they are trusting your message and your post is working.
Let’s get sharing!
When your viewers share that post your audience is further widened. Plus, the quality of those viewings is increased. Rather than simply stumbling on your message, it has been actively recommended, and therefore is likely to garner greater attention from the recipient.
Therefore, the more you can increase social media shares and engagement, the more effective your marketing has become. The wider your message will be spread. The success of the goals you have set is more likely to be achieved.
Newsagents estimates that there are now over two and a third BILLION social media users on the planet.
An impressive audience for your message.
There are many techniques you can employ to increase the shares and engagement you achieve. Here are some of the best.
Use Video
According to social media giant Facebook, one hundred million hours of video is viewed by their members every day. And that is just Facebook material.
Consider carefully the video you upload. On most networks, you have limited time to capture your audience’s attention. Think about the purpose of the video, the advantages in communicating your message that video brings… and then create.
Twitter, who say that over 80% of their users follow videos on their platform, gives you two minutes and twenty seconds of upload time, whilst Facebook is just 90 seconds.
However, there is nothing wrong with creating one video, then adding it to a range of your media profiles.
Tag your references
When you create your own posts which reference other people, perhaps because they have caught your attention with a blog, you need to tag them. It is easy enough to find their Twitter handle.
You could even go further and tag their business. That way their success in engaging you is shared with their business.
Everybody likes to be recognized, and tag and sharing can may create a pyramid effect with more people sharing your blurb.
Optimize the timing of your references
A company called CoSchedule undertook studies of the best times to post your social media entries in the United States. Comparing 16 studies, they concluded that, with 80% of the US population living in the Eastern and Central time zones, it was best to follow their time zones.
For specific platforms, these are the times to maximize your chances of shares and engagements:
Facebook - the end of the week, Thursday to Sunday and between 1.00pm and 3.00pm will get you the most responses.
Twitter – Wednesdays especially during the afternoon commute, between five and six, gets the biggest following.
LinkedIn – follows Twitter quite closely, with again between five and six in the afternoon being the optimum time, with Tuesdays to Thursdays being the most popular days.
Instagram – specifically for videos, 9.00pm is the best time, but avoid posting during the midafternoon period
Google Plus – the data here suggests that engagement with this platform is hard to achieve, but if it is going to happen, Wednesdays are best.
A different approach to getting better share rates and, especially, engagement is to create motivations for responses.
There is a risk with this method that, although the figures might increase, the quality in terms of your business may not be as high. People are choosing to engage for external reasons. However, working on the basis that any residual gains are worth pursuing, it is an approach for consideration.
Create Competitions
This is a popular, and growing, method of increasing engagement. You might need some outlay for a prize, and need to think creatively to invent a competition that both relates to your message and is sufficiently challenging to hold visitors’ attention.
Design your competition around your users’ interests
The ecommerce company Comalytics stated that this is a technique used even by major multinationals such as Pepsi. So, there has to be some merit in it. Again, careful thought needs to go into the design of your competition.
You need to gain some data analysis around your existing visitors – perhaps even a simple question on your page. It is surprising how readily social media users will respond to this.
Especially if it is a multiple-choice question that does not take too long to send a response.
Starbucks came up with a creative and effective competition generated by the interests of their users.
Realizing that customers doodled on the endemic white cups in which they served their coffee, they took this activity and formalized it.
Their plan was to create a hashtag, encourage customers to make designs on the cups, photograph and post them. They achieved over 4000 responses in just three weeks.
Make use of people’s conscience
There may be a moral duplicity with this one. On the one hand, promoting a social cause is a worthwhile action, supporting others and bringing about good. On the other, if you are doing it to generate business for your own ends, some might find that morally dubious.
However, there are plenty who would say that the good cause is benefitting, and that is the main thing.
The beauty product chain Estee Lauder followed this route, creating a Breast Cancer Awareness campaign. In this they created a call to action, asking their customers to share their stories, and read those of other users.
Create Question and Answer Opportunities
If it takes off this can really encourage engagement. Starting with, say, a hangout session where you seek to answer yourself, as interest develops your own traffic will start to deal with new questions. This creates a chain that is self-perpetuating, but takes place on your platform. An excellent way of generating visitors – and also engaging with them.
Make use of your employees
Encouraging your employees to put a link to your social media site on their own materials. Blogs, posts, profiles etc. It is easy to do, and most will happily follow your request. After all, you can easily checkup whether they have done so, and most employees like to stay on good terms with their bosses.
Make use of clients and your own providers
The same theory can apply to those who your business has supported. Engagement is likely to be good through this approach since if a client posts your details, then there is an implicit recognition of strong quality and service in this.
When you use agencies or traders to work for you it is easy to ask them for a message on their own platforms. Somebody you are looking to hire is likely to take on this simple request to secure your business. You then increase your changes of engagement because you become larger through association.
You benefit from the good reputation of the agency you have used.
Match your content to your network
There are now many networks out there on which you can post. But they tend to appeal to different audience types. It is easy to see the difference between Snapchat and LinkedIn, to take extremes, but even similar networks have subtle differences between their users.
The high academic and business expertise of LinkedIn users requires more evidenced justification of claims, whereas the same message can be communicated visually through, say, Pinterest.
Making use of a site such as HubSpot can help you with reworking your content for your various sites.
Tell your story
Forbes highlights the personal nature of a social media post. It is easy to lose sight of the original goal of a post when it becomes just another weapon in your armory.
Forbes reminds us to go back to the beginning. Users will be looking for something personal about you. A hard business sell, or simple factual information, can be better gained elsewhere, so they are looking to find out personal stories.
Clearly, it is best to avoid a thirty page life story (a lot of Tweets to achieve that!). But offer some insight into your story.
Be sure of your facts
This tip may be the most important facts of them all.
Whilst it is relatively easy to measure the amount of times your post is shared and the engagement that follows what it trickier is to assess the quality of these actions.
Your research into the quality of your followers is very important. If somebody has answered a question, then they have engaged, but that might be that. Ten high quality communications that lead to business are much more valuable than a hundred that end after one share.
The answer is to take advantage of the myriad of free tools now available to monitor and interpret views of your business.
If the quality is already there, increasing activity might not need to be a priority.
Simply for somebody to engage with you means that you have caught their attention. The likelihood is that they are trusting your message and your post is working.
Let’s get sharing!
When your viewers share that post your audience is further widened. Plus, the quality of those viewings is increased. Rather than simply stumbling on your message, it has been actively recommended, and therefore is likely to garner greater attention from the recipient.
Therefore, the more you can increase social media shares and engagement, the more effective your marketing has become. The wider your message will be spread. The success of the goals you have set is more likely to be achieved.
Newsagents estimates that there are now over two and a third BILLION social media users on the planet.
An impressive audience for your message.
There are many techniques you can employ to increase the shares and engagement you achieve. Here are some of the best.
Use Video
According to social media giant Facebook, one hundred million hours of video is viewed by their members every day. And that is just Facebook material.
Consider carefully the video you upload. On most networks, you have limited time to capture your audience’s attention. Think about the purpose of the video, the advantages in communicating your message that video brings… and then create.
Twitter, who say that over 80% of their users follow videos on their platform, gives you two minutes and twenty seconds of upload time, whilst Facebook is just 90 seconds.
However, there is nothing wrong with creating one video, then adding it to a range of your media profiles.
Tag your references
When you create your own posts which reference other people, perhaps because they have caught your attention with a blog, you need to tag them. It is easy enough to find their Twitter handle.
You could even go further and tag their business. That way their success in engaging you is shared with their business.
Everybody likes to be recognized, and tag and sharing can may create a pyramid effect with more people sharing your blurb.
Optimize the timing of your references
A company called CoSchedule undertook studies of the best times to post your social media entries in the United States. Comparing 16 studies, they concluded that, with 80% of the US population living in the Eastern and Central time zones, it was best to follow their time zones.
For specific platforms, these are the times to maximize your chances of shares and engagements:
Facebook - the end of the week, Thursday to Sunday and between 1.00pm and 3.00pm will get you the most responses.
Twitter – Wednesdays especially during the afternoon commute, between five and six, gets the biggest following.
LinkedIn – follows Twitter quite closely, with again between five and six in the afternoon being the optimum time, with Tuesdays to Thursdays being the most popular days.
Instagram – specifically for videos, 9.00pm is the best time, but avoid posting during the midafternoon period
Google Plus – the data here suggests that engagement with this platform is hard to achieve, but if it is going to happen, Wednesdays are best.
A different approach to getting better share rates and, especially, engagement is to create motivations for responses.
There is a risk with this method that, although the figures might increase, the quality in terms of your business may not be as high. People are choosing to engage for external reasons. However, working on the basis that any residual gains are worth pursuing, it is an approach for consideration.
Create Competitions
This is a popular, and growing, method of increasing engagement. You might need some outlay for a prize, and need to think creatively to invent a competition that both relates to your message and is sufficiently challenging to hold visitors’ attention.
Design your competition around your users’ interests
The ecommerce company Comalytics stated that this is a technique used even by major multinationals such as Pepsi. So, there has to be some merit in it. Again, careful thought needs to go into the design of your competition.
You need to gain some data analysis around your existing visitors – perhaps even a simple question on your page. It is surprising how readily social media users will respond to this.
Especially if it is a multiple-choice question that does not take too long to send a response.
Starbucks came up with a creative and effective competition generated by the interests of their users.
Realizing that customers doodled on the endemic white cups in which they served their coffee, they took this activity and formalized it.
Their plan was to create a hashtag, encourage customers to make designs on the cups, photograph and post them. They achieved over 4000 responses in just three weeks.
Make use of people’s conscience
There may be a moral duplicity with this one. On the one hand, promoting a social cause is a worthwhile action, supporting others and bringing about good. On the other, if you are doing it to generate business for your own ends, some might find that morally dubious.
However, there are plenty who would say that the good cause is benefitting, and that is the main thing.
The beauty product chain Estee Lauder followed this route, creating a Breast Cancer Awareness campaign. In this they created a call to action, asking their customers to share their stories, and read those of other users.
Create Question and Answer Opportunities
If it takes off this can really encourage engagement. Starting with, say, a hangout session where you seek to answer yourself, as interest develops your own traffic will start to deal with new questions. This creates a chain that is self-perpetuating, but takes place on your platform. An excellent way of generating visitors – and also engaging with them.
Make use of your employees
Encouraging your employees to put a link to your social media site on their own materials. Blogs, posts, profiles etc. It is easy to do, and most will happily follow your request. After all, you can easily checkup whether they have done so, and most employees like to stay on good terms with their bosses.
Make use of clients and your own providers
The same theory can apply to those who your business has supported. Engagement is likely to be good through this approach since if a client posts your details, then there is an implicit recognition of strong quality and service in this.
When you use agencies or traders to work for you it is easy to ask them for a message on their own platforms. Somebody you are looking to hire is likely to take on this simple request to secure your business. You then increase your changes of engagement because you become larger through association.
You benefit from the good reputation of the agency you have used.
Match your content to your network
There are now many networks out there on which you can post. But they tend to appeal to different audience types. It is easy to see the difference between Snapchat and LinkedIn, to take extremes, but even similar networks have subtle differences between their users.
The high academic and business expertise of LinkedIn users requires more evidenced justification of claims, whereas the same message can be communicated visually through, say, Pinterest.
Making use of a site such as HubSpot can help you with reworking your content for your various sites.
Tell your story
Forbes highlights the personal nature of a social media post. It is easy to lose sight of the original goal of a post when it becomes just another weapon in your armory.
Forbes reminds us to go back to the beginning. Users will be looking for something personal about you. A hard business sell, or simple factual information, can be better gained elsewhere, so they are looking to find out personal stories.
Clearly, it is best to avoid a thirty page life story (a lot of Tweets to achieve that!). But offer some insight into your story.
Be sure of your facts
This tip may be the most important facts of them all.
Whilst it is relatively easy to measure the amount of times your post is shared and the engagement that follows what it trickier is to assess the quality of these actions.
Your research into the quality of your followers is very important. If somebody has answered a question, then they have engaged, but that might be that. Ten high quality communications that lead to business are much more valuable than a hundred that end after one share.
The answer is to take advantage of the myriad of free tools now available to monitor and interpret views of your business.
If the quality is already there, increasing activity might not need to be a priority.
Tips for Increasing Social Media Engagement
Reviewed by I
on
March 24, 2019
Rating:
Reviewed by I
on
March 24, 2019
Rating: