Continue with some other tips to increase social media engagement…
3. Create and share valuable content
One company that does this very well is Real Simple. They’re a lifestyle magazine that reaches “8 million smart, busy consumers who welcome creative solutions to their everyday challenges.”
Real Simple knows their audience is busy. They’re looking for ways to add balance in their stressful lives. With this information, Real Simple can now address their needs directly on social media.
Their Instagram account, for example, frequently showcases content such as self-care tips, meditative yoga poses, and healthy recipe idea.
If the content you share on social media helps your audience address their needs and pain points, you could increase social media engagement guaranteed.
4. Stay topical
One simple, but potent, way to engage your audience is by jumping on topical and trending events in the world.
Ann Handley, digital marketing expert, put it best in her book Everybody Writes:
“Content moments are everywhere; you just have to know to look for them. Sometimes that means being part of breaking news. But it also means tapping into broader trends […] That means looking at the news cycle for opportunities to become part of developing trends and events. Timing is key here.”
By jumping on big, current trends, you’re able to instantly connect with your audience since those events are likely top of mind for them already.
This can include things like trending hashtags, sporting events, pop culture news, and holidays.
Maybelline got great engagement from this holiday-related tweet.
Tide masterfully dealt with the Tide Pod Challenge “trend” with this video that resulted in HUGE engagement numbers.
Social media marketers should always be vigilant to what’s trending and popular. There are always moments to stay relevant and engage with your audience.
5. Make a move
Remember: It’s better to be a dinner party—not a soap box. That means interacting and engaging with your audience on social media.
You can split your interactions into two categories:
- Reactive engagement
- Proactive engagement
Reactive engagement is the act of answering direct messages, comments, or incoming @mentions your business receives on social. These guidelines should cover when and how your business interacts with the messages it receives directly on social.
- When it comes to your brand’s reactive engagement tactics, consider the following:
- Whether or not you reply to every single @message or comment directed at your business on social (and if not, what the conditions are)
- If, when, and how you pass along messages for another department to handle (for example, customer support or sales)
- An overview of the tools and workflow used to handle incoming messages
On the other hand, proactive engagement is when you make the first move.
People talking about your brand on social may not be directing their messages to your official accounts. These are potential engagement opportunities you can find by searching for indirect mentions of your brand name (or misspellings) and relevant conversations based on keywords or phrases.
Proactive outreach is especially helpful for increasing the buzz around specific campaigns or product launches.
When it comes to your brand’s proactive engagement tactics, consider the following:
- The tools and techniques you use to find engagement opportunities
- Guidelines for how to engage once an opportunity is found
- Best practices and examples to highlight what a successful proactive engagement looks like
6. Find the time
We’ve all gotten lost in the vortex of social media at least once. You decide to have a quick peek at Twitter before bed and the next thing you know it’s 2 a.m. and you haven’t blinked in 45 minutes.
Getting sucked into social media is hard for anyone to avoid but when it’s quite literally your job, losing focus can have a serious impact on your productivity.
Set aside a block of time in your day to handle reactive engagement, and another for proactive. You may also want to plan your day around specific social networks, depending on the size of your communities.
Here are a few ways the Hootsuite dashboard can also help boost your productivity:
- Streams: Use streams in your dashboard to see all incoming messages from each social network in one place, instead of checking each social network separately.
- Lists: Create Twitter lists based on specific industries, events, or hashtags and set each one up in a stream for easy monitoring and proactive engagement.
- Tags: Use this feature to tag and track positive engagements so you can easily include them in your weekly or monthly reports.