Audience engagement on social media is an incredibly important to help increase visibility of your post. It is also an effective way to help boost brand awareness, and connect with your audience. We have provided 11 tips to help boost audience engagement from industry professionals in the digital marketing industry.
- Ask a question
Amanda Sexton of Focus Works Marketing suggests “A great way to increase social media engagement is to add a question into your post. You want to make it one that’s easy to answer.”
Judy Galens of Woodshed Agency says “Asking a question works well across nearly all platforms, and particularly on LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram. It gets your audience involved and makes them feel like part of the conversation rather than just a passive observer. Don’t forget to respond to the people that engage!”
“One of the best ways to constantly boost engagement is to give audience members two reasons to comment on a photo. Some examples are: Dope or Nope? Yay or Nay? Would you wear that on Tuesday or Saturday?” Shares James Oliver of Evolved Toaster.
Solar Nicholls of Social Souls suggests “Make use of interactive features on the social media platform. For example, the polls or questions sticker in Instagram stories.”
Jay York of Grove Brands says “One thing that works well is creating Did you know? content that seeks to share a bit of little known information that complements your brand, paired with high quality photos and followed up by sharing the fact across relevant groups.”
- Analyze your engagement
Jenny Abouobaia of Clever Touch Marketing suggests “Analyze your engagement, make a note of the number of followers, likes, shares and comments you get per post and keep track to see what works and what doesn’t.”
- What’s trending
Digital marketing consultant Jon Torres says “Live videos. Reels. Unfiltered content. Relatable influencers. These are all trending on Instagram right now. But look at what’s common among them, and you may see why they are trending. They all make social media as close to real-time human interaction as possible. It can be as simple as using a person’s voice. You can also show unfiltered behind-the-scenes clips of your team hard at work in an ongoing project. Let people see the people behind the project.”
Daniel Foley of Daniel Foley SEO says “When it comes to achieving high levels of social media interaction, timing is crucial. Creating or curating trending content will also help you get to the top of social media feeds, ensuring that your audience sees your posts in the first place. Taking advantage of current events and trends is a great way to get your content noticed and attract the interest of your target audience.”
Stacey Elicker of Involve Marketing Agency suggests using episodic content to capture your audiences attention. Stacey advises “Audiences have shifted from consuming traditional forms of media, like TV and radio, to digital media. While some consumers will watch their favorite Netflix series on a schedule, it’s also pretty common to keep a viewer engaged for an entire weekend binge-watching their favorite series. This form of on-demand episodic content provides flexibility, but more importantly, it provides an ongoing storyline that keeps your audience either engaged or regularly coming back for more. It sets an expectation with the consumer that they can rely on you to provide regularly updated content as part of a series. Breaking content into smaller, more digestible pieces requires less commitment on part of the consumer and also makes it quicker for you to produce.”
Emily of LuxStory Media suggests “Stay up to date on new features on each platform. For example, using Reels on Instagram. Using new features when they first launch will put the algorithm in your favour.”
Nadia Kaminskaya of Branding Bosses says “Creating short-form video content. Right now, videos are booming, and companies that are using them effectively are seeing great ROI in audience engagement.”
- Engage
Lauren Amor of Tandem Interactive says “News spreads fast on social media. Nowadays, that’s where most trends are born and where everyone can connect with other people who share the same interests. Successful social media accounts are led by people who engage with their audience. They make them feel a part of the decisions they’re making daily and in their companies. The more engaged you are with your audience, the more they’ll feel like they have a place in your community.”
Jake Edmisten of Troubador Design Co. shares a tip he found value in from Gary V. called the $1.80 method. Jake explains “He advocates for young entrepreneurs to engage and give their thoughts on the top nine posts in the top ten hashtags that relate to your niche or business. “The idea behind this method is rather that trying to make your social media so much more valuable as content, you instead try to make the value of your social media the community that you build.”
Tessa May Marr of Marr Media Group says “We find that daily targeted engagement is crucial to boosting audience engagement. We recommend at least 15-30 minutes daily via hashtags, geotags and similar accounts. This is applicable to all platforms. Targeted engagement allows you to interact with audiences interested in your brand and grow a robust organic following.”
- Strategically capture your audience’s attention
Stefanie Siclot of Growth Rocket suggests “Try focusing on video format rather than strictly photos. Most people stop scrolling on their feed if they see cute or humorous content. To capture your audience’s attention try adding cute or humorous content to the start of the video.”
Ryan Edwards of Camino 5 advises to tailor your content depending on what platform you are using. Edwards says “Every channel is different. For example Instagram is about instant value; for Youtube, it is about longer-term education. Understanding how the channel nuances the need is important.”
Brian Town of Michigan Creative says “The best tip for driving audience engagement on your social media platform is supplying valuable and relevant content to your target audience. When you provide content that your audience can relate with, they are more likely to interact with that post. With that being said, things like giveaways, videos, trivia questions, did you knows, giveaways, and promotions are most likely the best way.”
Alexi McKinley of Upwest Social Agency says “Use call to actions. Tell your audience what you want them to do (leave a comment for example). It’s important because Psychology says that we respond better when we’re given direction.”
- Tag others in your post
RJ Huebert of HBT Digital Consulting says “One hot tip to boost your social media engagement is to tag people and or businesses in the post. This increases the likelihood that they’ll see your post, engage with it, and possibly share it on their own profiles, thus extending the reach and engagement. This is important not only to increase engagement, but to connect with people/businesses in a deeper fashion. Plus, it’s always great to show others a little love. This tip works great on Facebook.”
- Collaborate
Sirarpi, Director of Marketing at PMG360 advises “Collaborate with other brands in your niche. Even if your brand is new to social media platforms, lots of other brands will be eager to collaborate with you. Interview a CEO, CMO, CTO, or other relevant C-level executives, share the information on your social media pages. The interviewee will share your social media post on their pages. This way, you will get more engagement and exposure. Collaboration is important because, first of all, you build a huge, powerful network. Secondly, you get a chance to attract your target audience through other brands.”
- Ask your team to share your posts
Kirsty Peasley of Framework Design says “It’s frowned upon to straight out ask your followers to share your posts, but within your own team (or indeed speaking to friends directly to help you spread the word) it’s a good idea to encourage people you know well to share your posts.”
- Be authentic
Dan Bennett of 1 Minute Media suggests utilizing authenticity to boost social media engagement. Bennett says “I have good engagement (as a small creator) because of my own engagement and being myself- which includes how much I love to educate, empower and entertain. My platforms are YouTube and my newsletter and both get fantastic engagement numbers.”
Amber Vilhauer of NGNG Enterprises says “Have an ideal client avatar. This way you can write your social media content to speak directly to your ideal client. Which will create authentic connection to your audience.”
- Avoid external links
Nat Miletic of Clio Websites says “It is a good idea to avoid hashtags and external hyperlinks in your posts, particularly on Twitter. This is important because posts that include too many hashtags are distracting, look spammy, and almost never yield the desired result. There have also been multiple studies that have found that posts with external links don’t get as much engagement and get punished by social media platforms. This is to prevent spam and users from leaving the social media platform.”
- Use Stories
Diamond Starkey of Starbound Social advises “Have a strong story strategy. Using your stories to boost engagement is an easy and less stressful way to engage with your audience. Stories are used as an insight into your day to day life, and its more raw and unfiltered, so if you add a poll or question sticker to your stories people are more likely to engage with you via the stickers or DM because now you seem more approachable. Having a story strategy is important because stories stay top of mind for most Instagram users, it allows them to feel connected to the person they’re following almost like an icebreaker. This tip is most relevant for Instagram but you can use it via Facebook since Facebook also offers a story option.”
In conclusion, effectively boosting your audience engagement is important when it comes to increasing the visibility of your post and boosting brand awareness. This can be achieved through a combination of posting interactive content such as stories, video, and reels while also engaging with your audience to create organic growth.