10 Tips to Increase Social Media Engagement

With over 4 billion active internet users in the world, social media marketing is more important than ever. Having a strong social media presence and good user engagement is imperative for any brand in today’s world. If you want to learn how to increase social media engagement take a look at some of the best and most effective social media engagement tips!

Why is social media engagement important? The number of active social media users has reached a staggering 3.96 billion users, and it’s only expected to grow. With so many people active in the social media sphere, it’s easy to see why engagement on social media is critical for any brand to stay relevant and popular.

You must be aware that going viral and getting global recognition for your brand is a giant stroke of luck. Organically growing your social media engagement rate takes time and thought. To better understand all the ways on how to increase social media engagement, it’s best to divide the tips into different categories.

1. Visuals and content
2. Customer relations
3. Engagement tips and tricks

Visuals and content

There is no social media marketing without content. Social media user engagement primarily depends on the quality of content.

1. Have a unique profile aesthetic

We all love seeing a beautifully put together social media profile, with a clear theme present in all of the posts.** People are incredibly visually oriented**, and your engagement on social media will go up if you have a defined sense of profile identity.

Cookie-cutter corporate profiles might seem professional, but people rarely remember them. We love social media because it gives us something beautiful and interesting to look at. So, it might be a better idea to show off your brand’s authenticity and unique vibe.

This doesn’t mean that all posts need to look exactly the same, but a common thread like a color palette or recurring visual motifs would make your brand’s profile more memorable. Great design is vital in creating social media content, whether it’s logos, merch, or channel visuals. You could also play with the photo layout, creating grid pictures, especially for important events or promotional campaigns.

2. Use more video content

Studies show that video content generates 1200% more shares than text or photo content. Not only that, but people tend to absorb information 80% better from videos than from text or photos. Video content can massively bump up a brand’s social media engagement rate.

Videos are very versatile, from traditional ads to short announcements intended to create buzz and interest. However, with TikTok dominating the social media game, vertical videos are by far the most popular kind of video content right now.

In addition to increasing your social media engagement, video content also helps your brand’s profile be more dynamic and appealing for users.

3. Post useful content

Generic content, be it in photo, text or video form, gets stale and boring quickly. If you treat your social media channels as virtual billboards, people will get fed up and regard them as visual white noise.

Some of the best engagement post ideas are how to’s, recipes and other kinds of useful content. Care instructions or user instructions can make for great content, especially in video form.

That way, you offer your customer base hands-on information which helps them engage not only with your product, but also with your brand. It can also garner engagement from new audiences as seeing the product in action would entice them to know more.

Apartment Therapy is a great example of striking balance between aspirational and inspirational interior design, and some practical how to’s and interior decorating hacks. Below we can see a short video on how to best organize a junk drawer with the queen of space organizing herself, Marie Kondo.

Customer relations

The social aspect of social media is often overlooked. Direct communication with your customers is the most valuable asset a social media presence can get you. Social engagement goes both ways. If you don’t interact with your customers, they won’t interact and communicate with your brand.

4. Know your audience/niche

This is the first rule of garnering engagement from your audience. Creating an appealing profile means you need to be aware of what the customer wants to see. To understand that you must understand your audience.

Find out who buys your product/services. What’s their age, gender, job or role? What are some of the challenges they face in their day-to-day lives? What are their fears and their goals? Creating an ideal buyer persona will help you find your niche.

Niche marketing might seem myopic and limiting, but in reality, it’s much more powerful than wide-scope marketing campaigns. Niche marketing allows you to get into the details of your brand, and showcase its uniqueness and its singular place on the market. Finding your niche is all about identifying what makes your brand different from the rest.

5. Be more relatable

Generic language and messaging don’t cut it anymore in social media marketing. People want to engage with brands that have character and a unique personality. Commenting on current trends or memes tends to garner interest and engagement.

The best example of this is Wendy’s, which became viral through their sassy tweets. Having a brand persona is massively helpful with this. But sometimes, you must know how to spot an opportunity. In the great Colin vs. Cuthbert feud between Marks&Spencer and Aldi UK, Aldi had gone viral with their hilarious tweets poking fun at the situation and their rivalry with M&S.

However, be careful about trying too hard to be “down with the kids”. If you jump on every trend with engagement posts, people might find it grating and overly pandering. Pick your battles wisely.

Another way of making your brand more relatable is to introduce the people behind it. From the CEOs and upper management to the interns, we all love to meet the people behind the scenes. Giving props and shining the spotlight on your team not only makes the company look more collaborative and caring towards its employees, it also presents a softer, more human side of the company to the public.

6. Ask questions/opinions

We all love making our opinions heard and known. Engagement on social media often boils down to open communication with your audience. Simply asking your followers for their opinion on a new product or offer can work wonders for your engagement.

Hosting live Q&As is another great way of creating a direct rapport with your followers. It also makes the brand more relatable and helps the audience better understand your creative process.

Quizzes can also boost your engagement rate. It’s what made Buzzfeed so popular in the 2010s. We all simply had to know what kind of bread we are. It might seem silly, but it’s precisely this kind of playful attitude that endears a brand to its audience. Quizzes can also be a lifesaver in market research. They can help you suss out what your customers’ needs and wants are.

7. Collaborate with other brands

Whether it’s in TV shows, friend groups, junk food, or anything else, we all love crossovers. So, when our favorite brands announce a collab we tend to be very excited about the result. Partnering with other brands gives you both cross promotion which garners more engagement for all.

The brand you team up with doesn’t have to be in the same or similar industry as yours, but it’s crucial that there’s an overlap in your target demographics. If your ideal customers are younger professionals, find out what are their interests and needs and partner up with another brand with a similar audience.

8. Partner with a micro influencer

Micro influencers are influencers with follower counts within the 10,000-100,000 range. However, there is nothing small about the numbers of micro influencers themselves, as they account for 91% of the influencer market.

Partnering with one is a savvy move, not only from a financial perspective, as they tend to charge smaller fees, but also from the perspective of reaching your target audience. These influencers have a more niche and dedicated, if somewhat smaller audience. In fact, micro influencers have up to 60% higher engagement rates than macro influencers. So, while your sponsored posts may reach fewer people, it could easily mean reaching those more likely to buy from you.

Tips and tricks

No matter how good your content is, you still need to be savvy about what to post and when. Let’s take a look at some of the best posting practices.

9. Set goals and track your metrics

Like in any endeavor, you need to know what you want to achieve with your social media channels. Setting both short and long-term goals will help you develop a social media engagement strategy, as well as broaden your overall reach.

When you’re building your brand’s social media presence from the ground up, you have to start small. Realistic goals will not only be more achievable, but will also allow you to adjust and change your long-term strategy if the need arises.

There are many different platforms for tracking reach and engagement metrics like Later or Buffer, which make both scheduling posts and tracking your metrics a breeze.

Bold

10. Post at the optimal times

Sometimes when you post is just as important as what you post. However, there is no one-size-fits-all solution. Different platforms work in different ways.

A study shows that the best time to post on Instagram is between 12PM and 3PM and 6PM and 9PM. These time frames are also the best for posting on Facebook. This means that people generally access these platforms on their downtime, in their lunch breaks and after the working day has finished for most people.

The best time to post on Twitter, on the other hand, is from 9AM to 12 AM, and 12PM to 3PM. So, we can conclude that Twitter is the busiest in late morning and early afternoon, as this is a platform people also might use in a professional capacity to check for relevant news and updates.

In contrast, TikTok is the busiest in the afternoon and evening. The best time to post on TikTok is between 3PM and 9PM.

Conclusion

We don’t need to explain why is social media engagement important. Whatever your industry is, it’s likely your audience is using at least one social media channel. On the other hand, all of your competitors are probably on there too, competing for your target audience’s attention.

We hope some of our tips will help you boost your brand’s engagement across various social media platforms and reach your social media marketing goals.