10 Ways to Engage Your Audience on Social Media Today

Article except from Jessica Rogers

What your company or brand is doing to encourage engagement on social platforms?

Top ten ways to engage (in no particular order):

1. Find content that will resonate with your followers/fans. This is a basic skill but worth repeating. The more the viewer can identify with what you post, the more likely they will be to share or reply (thus engagement).
2. Be sure content is easy to consume and respond to via mobile devices. Mobile is quickly becoming a mainstream way for consumers to view and engage. However, many businesses are not ensuring content is adjusted for mobile.
3. Post photos and videos. Photos are shown to increase engagement tremendously. Consider posting behind the scenes photos of your business, recent functions, or even share photos of your customers using your product (with their permission of course).  However, not all photos (or content for that matter) should be of your products, services, or offers.  You may also want to ask your audience to share photos.
4. Offer contests or sweepstakes. I like the idea of contests, but be careful not to over use this tactic. Nothing says spam (in my opinion) like posting and re-posting about a contest on my Facebook or Twitter Feed. This will be a quick way for folks to un-follow you, remove you from their feeds, or opt out of email.
5. Post some clever questions. These types of posts will inevitably spark a discussion that could provide valuable insight on your target audience. You could also incorporate a poll on Facebook or your blog.
6. Show that you are listening by responding to each and every comment on your Social Profile (Facebook, Twitter, etc.).
7. Post infographics that your target audience will appreciate. Again, this goes back to providing content that is relevant and resonates with your target. If it meets these criteria, it will likely be shared or commented on.
8. Be sure you have created multiple ways to share easily. This could be as simple as making sure your tweet is not too long so that when re-tweeted there is enough room for the link and a message, or by adding various sharing buttons to blog pages.  We want to make sharing as easy as possible for the reader, follower, fan etc.
9. Include a little humor. Incorporate some fun into your Facebook posts, Tweets, Google+ etc.  Pinterest can be a great source for fun quotes and photos to share.
10. Pay attention to the calendar. Content related to holidays and seasons will be very timely and most folks love holidays and everything that goes along with it. Consider posts in the coming weeks about Spring Break, St. Patrick’s Day, Easter, topics related to vacation destinations, how to manage work and family when the kids are off from school.

This list is by no means exhaustive. It is merely a short list in hopes of inspiring you to engage with your internal and external consumers. While doing so, do not forget to include a call to action! A call-to-action invites your audience to immediately engage.  It can be something simple like suggesting the viewer/reader to share their opinion or it can provide them with the power to change something about the brand. Encouraging your audience to share their thoughts and opinions makes them more invested in your brand.

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