In the world of social media, people are always talking about engagement — likely you’ve heard a thing or two as well. If you want to succeed, you need to engage with your audiences, customers, and followers. In short, the growth and success of your business lie in the capability to connect and engage with your targeted audiences.
Now let’s dive into the world of social media engagement so we can address these key questions:
- What is social media engagement?
- What are the different types of engagement?
- Why is social media engagement important for your business?
- What constitutes an engaging post?
- What can you do short-term and long-term to increase engagement?
What is Social Media Engagement?
Historically, businesses communicated with their customers and prospects by purchasing TV, radio, or print advertising. However, these mediums promote one-way conversations: the company creates a message and spends money to get that message in front of customers; customers read the message and respond to it by visiting the store and making a purchase.
Social media has fundamentally changed how businesses and their customers communicate, essentially creating a public forum for sharing. Communication between companies and their customers is now a two-way street, enabling customers to engage with their favorite brands in entirely new ways.
Engagement is an excellent way of measuring whether your content is actually resonating with your audience, which brings us to our next question…
What are the Different Types of Social Media Engagement?
When people are interacting with what you post, they are engaging with your content. These are the metrics that matter when determining the success of your social channels and social media campaigns.
Simply posting on social media without interacting isn’t enough to keep your followers involved. Engagement can cover a broad range of actions across all social platforms, including:
Clicks
If you’re posting content to social media, you should track how many users click on the links. Additionally, by measuring bounce rate, you discover how many users click the link and only view that one page. You take it a step further by adding time-on-site into the equation — you can see if users even consumed the content on the page.
Likes, Comments, DMs
In addition to clicking on links, you want users to like and comment on your posts. Keep in mind, it’s much easier to like than comment. A “like” requires just a click of a button; a comment involves typing a response. This is why most posts receive more likes than comments, and social media algorithms give greater weight to comments. In other words, posts that prompt discussions rank higher in newsfeeds than those with just likes. Encourage more comments on your posts by asking for users’ thoughts and responding to their questions or feedback.
Shares and Retweets
Even more important than comments are shared posts. Shares indicate that users found your post interesting and important enough to share with friends or colleagues. To see a boost in shares, post content that relates to trending topics and post at a time when your followers are active. Also, ensure that your post is visually appealing that you include a description that explains what the content is about.
Followers
Gaining followers to your social channels is imperative to reach your prospective audience. It isn’t enough to receive a handful of followers and be satisfied – a successful social media profile continues to gain followers over time. Having a steady growth rate indicates that you continue to serve up relevant, engaging content and have an influence in the space.
Why is Social Media Engagement Important for Your Brand?
Social media is a perfect place to learn what people like and dislike about your products and services. It can also help you gain more customers because:
1. You Reach A Bigger Audience
According to the Pew Research Center, 72% of Americans use social media to connect, engage with content, share information, and entertain themselves. The wide usage of social media provides the opportunity to reach out to more people at the same time and increase your brand awareness. If you post regularly, people will view your posts, which can significantly improve your engagement.
2. You’ll Earn People’s Trust
When you’re active on your social media, you’re probably focused on producing quality content and offering your audiences valuable services. Seeing these posts helps build the trust of your visitors and turn them into potential customers. People will begin searching for your brand, and when you get enough likes, shares, and comments, newcomers think your post is trustworthy and explore it further.
3. Your Search Engine Ranking Will Improve
Social media has a significant impact on SEO. There is a correlation between social media and search performance. This correlation means that the more likes, comments, and shares you get on your social platforms, the more likely Google will direct a sizable traffic volume to your channels.
4. You’ll Get Valuable Feedback
Social media is not only important for gaining (and retaining) customers, but it also can help you improve your products and services by learning from users’ feedback. For example, you could improve your customer support by addressing complaints. You can analyze your customers’ suggestions and feedback for your products/services and think about launching new offerings.
5. You’re Not a Chatbot
Social media engagement is all about interacting with people, answering their questions, addressing their concerns, and analyzing their feedback. When people know that you will respond to their inquiries, they are more inclined towards your brand and think that your services are personalized — not robotic. This personalization helps improve your relationship with your customers and creates an interactive environment.
What Constitutes an Engaging Post?
Visual content is more engaging and often tells the story quicker and more succinctly than words alone. Additionally, an image or video can often stand alone in social media posts while still conveying the entire message to your audience. So, use images, graphics, and videos to tell a story where possible.
Video, in particular, better enables you to connect with your audience on a deeper level. People respond well to video, as it can humanize you and allow them to know you more intimately.
For best results, optimize each piece of visual content for the platform you’re posting it on to ensure your message is shared and that you look professional.
What Can You Do Short-term and Long-term to Increase Engagement?
First and foremost, if you want to increase social media engagement, you need to create content that people can engage with. It could be a Twitter poll, a Facebook video people can relate to, a graphic that makes people laugh, or a product photo that encourages someone to tag their friends. Methods encouraging engagement include:
- Post multiple times daily
- Respond to all comments
- Encourage readers to comment, like, and share
- Run contests and giveaways
- Use images in every post
- Start a Facebook group
- Share content relevant to your audience
Do you regularly get likes, comments, and shares on your posts? Are you looking to take steps for your brand to increase social media engagement?
At Jungle Communications, our marketing experts understand the formula to a solid social media marketing plan. Contact us today to learn how we can help you drive strong, qualified traffic, increase social engagement, and directly influence your sales and revenue.
