Social media is an ever-changing landscape that, if leveraged correctly, can help you grow your business. With multiple social media platforms to choose from when posting your unique content, the process can become overwhelming; we get that. That’s why we’ve compiled our top three tips for expanding your social media engagement across platforms.
Because of its power to attract attention from the right people at the right time, social media engagement is a vital aspect of brand growth. Engagement across channels also helps strengthen your customer relationships. When a potential customer engages with one of your posts, either by liking it or messaging your company directly, you gain an immediate opportunity to get to know your customers’ wants and needs and how to answer them.
Here are our top three tips for enhancing your organization’s social media engagement. Even if you’re new to social media, these simple tricks will guide you toward success.
1. Create Unique and Engaging Visuals
Did you know that Facebook posts with images get over 2.3 times more engagement than those without images, and Tweets with images receive 18% more clicks and 150% more retweets than tweets without images?
Not only should you be posting visuals to your social channels, but posting unique visual content can help you stand out and enhance your engagement across your desired channels. Canva, Figma, and the Adobe Suite are all custom design platforms that can help you create unique and personalized content.
Canva is a free custom design platform that allows you creative flexibility when designing your visual content. You can even upload your own photos and add them to Canva’s templates. Whether you’re new to designing or a pro, Canva is a great tool to use.
What makes a good visual?
- Each visual should be relevant to your brand’s message. Are you posting an image just because it’s catchy, or does it actually align with your brand?
- Incorporate custom design. Stock photos are often impersonal. Unique visual content is a personal touch that shows your brand is committed to quality.
- It minimizes text. Audiences don’t have time to read a lot of text, so you don’t have much time to catch their attention. Personalized visuals encourage readers to stay on your page, engage, and maybe even share your post.
2. Choose the Right Platform
You’ve created some catchy and unique content. Now what? First, you want to choose the right social channels. You can’t be everywhere at the same time, so choosing the platforms that best reach your audience is key. You can find out what channel(s) your audience prefers in several ways:
- Look for niche groups that your audience is involved in across various platforms, e.g., Facebook, Twitter, Quora.
- See what your competitors are doing. After all, they chose their social channels for a reason.
- Read reports online that share user and usage trends on platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.
Once you know where your audience is spending most of their time, it’s time to learn the game on those channels. Learning what makes a good Instagram post versus a good Facebook post can help your business stand out by speaking directly to users of each channel. From there, it’s time to start creating content that attracts followers and engagement on those channels.
Facebook is a great place to get started sharing your visuals and engaging content. Posting text and uploading pictures, videos, and graphics is a powerful way to connect and engage with your customers. In 2020, more than 200 million businesses used Facebook to connect with customers, and Facebook reports that more than 2/3 of its users visit the page of a local business at least once a week.
3. Get Involved With Your Followers
Finally, interacting directly with your audience fuels further engagement by showing you’re committed to understanding your audience’s wants, needs, and priorities. Follow these guidelines for engaging with your social media followers:
- Reply directly to comments and tags on your channels. This proves you’re paying attention and will help potential followers see your value.
- When creating your unique content, make sure to always add a CTA (call to action).
- Encourage readers to comment, like, and share your posts to friends, colleagues, etc. Your audience is more likely to share or like a post if you simply ask. When a post is shared, liked, or commented on, it allows a wider audience to see—and potentially engage with—your content or page.
Engagement on Facebook is important, but how do you track it? Use the Page Insights tool to see how and where your audience is engaging. This can help direct your social media strategy going forward.
Implementing these tips and tricks will help engage your followers, and help point your social media strategy in the right direction. Learning what platforms to use and why will allow you to reach your audience and engage directly with them, allowing your brand and your unique content to stand out. Likewise, getting involved directly with your followers shows your brand’s commitment to your followers. For more information on social media engagement and other tips and tricks, subscribe to our blog!
