Top Ways To Engage Your Social Followers
Social platforms nowadays are not about endless promotional spam and sales posts – they’re about engagement with your social followers. Engagement is a vague but important metric for marketers, which tracks how well their posts are performing online and how much users are connecting with the brand in particular. So how can you boost this engagement among your social followers Here are a few top tips:
Ask your social followers questions
Asking questions in your posts gives users the opportunity to respond – but only if the question is inspiring, interesting or creative. Social media is all about getting to know your audience, so ask questions which will genuinely help you to understand them. If you run a bakery, for instance, you could run a poll asking your fans and followers which type of bread they prefer, or which flavour icing they’d choose for a new cake. These posts will receive better engagement than regular sales or promotional posts, and they’ll show your followers that you care about their opinions.
Encourage UCG – user-generated content
We’ve all seen the posts on Facebook and Twitter where a friend or family member snaps a picture of their Starbucks cup (sometimes complete with misspelt name or amusing message) and shares it with their social followers. This is called user-generated content. It’s a cool way to get your fans and social followers to help with your marketing! Kick off a contest encouraging users to share something related to your product, with a prize for the best one. For example, if you’re running a salon, ask users to share their biggest beauty fails for a chance to win a makeover. You can then, with the user’s permission, share the funniest and best posts with your audience for even greater engagement.
Be relevant
Make sure you’re keeping tabs on the latest current events, so that you can draw inspiration from them when necessary. A public holiday, a special event, a live show or a sporting competition can provide you with ample opportunity to engage your followers. Pizza Express is a brand which does this really well – they recently re-enacted famous goals from European football championships with their famous dough balls standing in for the players, creating amusing videos which generated plenty of engagement and were ripe for sharing.
Share curated content from others
If you see content shared by another business or organisation that might be relevant to your own audience, share it! There’s a chance the business page you’re sharing from might share some of your content with their own audience in the future, creating a valuable cross-promotional opportunity. This will also create value for your social followers, which is essential in keeping them engaged.
Join chats, communities and groups
Every social platform has a way of bringing businesses and groups together. Twitter has scheduled chats, which take place usually for an hour each week – you’ll find hashtags based on location and sector, and there should be plenty for you to take part in. Facebook, LinkedIn and other online platforms have groups where similar chats can occur. Take part in these chats to show users that you’re engaged in your own business community.
