If you find yourself at a crossroads where you aren’t sure if the time spent on social media is really worth it, here are a few questions to ask yourself.
“Do you sell a product or a service?”
“Do you want more customers for that product or service?”
“Do you want to make more money from those customers buying your product or service?”
(You may see where I’m going with this.)
If you heard your inner monologue respond with a “yes” to those three questions, then your answer is a resounding “Yes! Your time on social media is with it.” If you still aren’t too sure, then that may be a red flag that the time you are already investing isn’t as beneficial as it could be. You want every moment you spend working in and on your business to yield results. The moments you spend on social media shouldn’t be an exception. Instead, you want to say with certainty that your social media strategy and the time you spent implementing it are an important part of your marketing plan.
What Type of Engagement Metrics Matter?
Nobody wants to show up and share on social media only to hear crickets chirping. Instead, it should feel like a conversation is going on between you and your audience members. Look for engagement through interactions with your page and profile, your individual posts, direct messaging, and any tagging you see through other followers and profiles. You want to increase interaction with your account with the overall mission to increase interaction with every other segment of your business, such as sign-ups for things like email newsletters and calls-to-action, direct sales and bookings, and participation in events, for instance. Relationships with potential customers can be built while the existing ones are made stronger through these types of engagement
From Facebook to Instagram and everything in between, here are three ways to increase brand engagement on your social media.
#1 Curate Value Drive Posts
While you probably first got your brand on social media for the purpose of promoting it, it’s important to remember that self-promotion isn’t the way you’re going to grow an audience or incite engagement from them. You want to create a relationship with your ideal customer base on each social platform by curating posts for their benefit filled with things that offer value and go beyond a digital billboard about your brand. Keep these three types of value-driven content in mind when you are looking to put things out there that increase engagement: content centered around inspiration, discovery, and community.
Inspiration – From fashion to fitness and everything in between, users are looking to feel inspired.
Discovery – Users are searching for and finding new products, services, and experiences.
Community – Users’ time is spent cultivating real connections and building relationships.
#2 Create a Variety of Content
Remember that we live in a world with a short attention span and the appreciation of instant gratification. This is no different when you think in terms of the content you are putting out into the world as a brand. People are scrolling through life quite literally and wanting to be both entertained and informed by something new, so diversify the type of content and the way that you are sharing it. You want to create an assortment of images, videos, text-based posts, live video, Facebook and Instagram stories, GIFs, shared and linked content to other brands. Overall, you just want to keep it fresh when possible.
#3 Keep the Conversation Going
We talked about the importance of community and building real relationships as a brand with your audience – so how do you keep that relationship growing behind a screen? You may be surprised what a sentence or two coupled with an emoji can do for you. When followers engage with you, you want to engage back! Did a post you shared receive a lot of comments? Take a few moments to reply to each one, even if it’s short and sweet. Keep things open-ended to allow for additional responses back, which will help create a relationship and help your engagement metrics. Are you receiving Direct Messages from followers or reaction comments on your stories? Make sure you show some love back and answer any messages to show you are a real person behind the business and they matter to you.
Create a social strategy that helps increase engagement by being intentional about what you share and how you interact with your audience. Engage where it counts the most: making people feel cared for, and more than just a “customer” or “follower” and you will reap the rewards.
