7 Simple Ways To Increase Engagement On Social Media

Understanding the results that you are generating thanks to your Social Media content is key to success. It’s all well and good posting frequently across your platforms, but if your engagement levels are dropping or stagnant, then it might be time to review what you’re doing.

Here are seven simple ways to increase your Social Media engagement. 

1. Mix Up Your Copy and Creative 

It might be time to take a look at the copy, imagery and videos that you’re posting. Think about the type of content that leads you to engage online and ask yourself whether your posts would make the cut. Consider asking colleagues, friends and family to feedback on your updates. 

Activate your followers to increase engagement

You could even look to encourage your audience to vote or suggest the type of content that they want to see. Look back through your historic posts and their results to see which gained the best engagement previously. Use this insight to influence the style of posts you share going forward. 

2. Utilise hashtags 

Hashtags are a great tool to increase engagement, now utilised by several Social Media platforms. Twitter and Instagram remain the most popular for hashtags, but Facebook and LinkedIn have recently seen an increase. Hashtags can be used to increase your organic reach and link your posts to others posting about the same or similar topics. Social Media users can now ‘follow’ a hashtag which means they will see your posts when you use it in your content.

Take some time to conduct hashtag research and aim to use the ones favourited by your customers, target audiences and even your competitors. You may find that your hashtags need to differ platform to platform. If you are posting about an event, then look to see what the event hashtag is to ensure you’re using the same one as everybody else.

3. Polls 

Actively encourage your audience to engage with you by sharing ‘Polls’. Polls can be published on Twitter with up to four options and Twitter polls can be live for a maximum of seven days. You can also share Polls on your Facebook and Instagram stories, and these will last for the twenty-four hours your story is active for. You don’t need to use the default ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ options in you Instagram or Facebook Poll as you can type in your own answers.

4. Stories 

Speaking of stories, Facebook and Instagram Stories are a great way to post frequently throughout the day. Statistics show that Facebook Stories have over 300 million daily active users and Instagram over 500 million. This suggests that there is an excellent opportunity to reach and engage with your audiences on both platforms. Stories have engagement driving stickers that you can use to encourage your audience to interact with you; these include Q&A boxes, countdowns, quizzes and donations. 

5. Frequency

If you are posting sporadically, then you will already have the platform algorithm to overcome, but this could also lead to your audience becoming disengaged. Getting the right mix between posting often and keeping your marketing mix fresh can be tricky, so the best way to keep a balance is to plan your content in advance. 

Once you have plotted out your content, it’s best to schedule it so that you don’t need to worry about posting day by day. Planning and scheduling will also give you time to proofread your work and therefore maintain high-quality content.

6. Pay To Play 

One sure way of increasing your reach, and therefore engagement, is to set up paid adverts on your Social Media accounts. Of course, paid ads need a dedicated marketing budget, so it’s wise to only set these up on the platform/s you know your target audience is active on. It’s also worth remembering that this may be a quick win, but it won’t mean that you’ve gained an engaged audience. If you’re new to Social Media advertising, then start with a straightforward Facebook Boosted post. You won’t need big budgets or technical know-how, but it could be the start of increasing engagement.

This short guide to Facebook Ads and the customer’s journey may help.

7. Engage Back

To keep the engagement ball rolling or increase engagement, it’s essential than you respond back to your audience when they interact with you. If customers or prospects are taking the time to comment on your posts and participate with your Stories, then you must go back to them – publicly where possible. 

Furthermore, if your customers are creating user-generated content and tagging you in it then, with their permission, share this across your platforms. Seeing users share updates about your products and services will likely encourage others to do the same too, and you can even introduce an incentive or competition to increase their activity. 

The more buzz you create about your brand across Social Media, the more reason your audience has to engage.