If your brand doesn’t have a decent social following in 2024 – then it’s surely missing out on potential lead-generation opportunities. Increasing your social media engagement is important if you want your customers to remember your brand and make positive purchase decisions.
While gaining followers on social media is easy, engaging them and expanding their reach can be challenging.
This article will explore creative and interactive strategies you can implement to boost your social media engagement in 2024.
We’ll also discuss creating interesting content, using visuals, and using the latest trends and technologies to your advantage.
What Is Social Media Engagement?
Social media engagement is the art of connecting with your audience on a personal level. It’s about giving them a reason to interact with your brand, and it involves a whole lot of laughing, sharing, and commenting. Ensure that you’re creating a community that loves and relates to your brand and engages with your content.
Whether you’re using funny GIFs, clever captions, or heartfelt stories, the goal is to evoke an emotional response. It’s about inspiring your audience to take part in the conversation and to connect on a deeper level. The better your relationship with your audience, the better their chances of conversions will be without stretching the sales cycle.
How To Increase Social Media Engagement?
- Aspire For Authenticity
Source: LinkedIn
Social media today has too much content, but there’s a slim scope to find authentic content in this space. Authenticity seems to be the new trend in social media, as we saw after the booming growth of Be Real back in 2022. Especially the audience of the Gen Z generation seems to engage more with genuine and filterless content.
- Research Your Ideal Customer
Source: LinkedIn
Your ideal customers are the ones who bring you real results like better conversions and more engagement. You may have hundreds and thousands of followers on social media, but hardly any leads. On the other hand, you may have only a few thousand followers but qualified leads. So, do your research and find out who your ideal customers are.
- Use Your Community’s Favorite Networks
Begin by investing in the networks where your community is most active. Take the time to research the networks where your community is most active and invest in those networks.
Whether it’s Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube, or LinkedIn, make sure to create a presence and keep it up to date. Once you’ve identified the networks where your community is most active, find the best content to increase your social engagement.
- Keep Your Audience At The Forefront
Understanding your audience and what motivates them is key to creating content that resonates with them and increases social media engagement. Take the time to learn about their interests, pain points, values, and preferences, and use this data to create tailored content.
By putting your audience first, you can create a better customer experience strategy through personalized social media marketing campaigns, targeted emails, and other communication forms tailored to the people you are trying to reach. You can also implement customer feedback into future campaigns and products, building customer trust and loyalty.
However, ensure each piece of content you post caters to something valuable to your audience to derive maximum customer satisfaction. Whether your content is an entertaining video, an informative article, or a helpful tip, make sure it provides something of value to your viewers.
- Post At The Right Time
Begin by identifying your followers’ age group, geographic location, language, interests, and other demographics. We suggest using the insights from your previous posts to determine the most successful times for posting your content.
Look at when your posts received the most likes, comments, and shares. This will help you determine the best time to post on Facebook and other platforms to get the most engagement.
According to HubSpot, the ideal time to post on social media – are 6 PM to 9 PM and 12 PM to 3 PM. And, the best day to post is Friday.
Source: HubSpot
- Post Regularly
Source: LinkedIn
Posting regularly is one of the most important things you can do to increase your social media engagement. Aim to post at least once a day, and make sure your posts are consistent in terms of topics, frequency, and timing.
But the real challenge can be to post at the right time every day due to your packed schedule – and that’s why you need to choose one of the best social media automation tools. With the right automation tool, you can do much more than just posting at the ideal time, such as measuring customer engagement data, replying to social comments, and more.
However, only posting won’t help, so engage with your audience. Responding to comments on your posts is a great way to increase engagement and show your followers that you care about their feedback.
- Reduce Your Response Time
Make sure you respond to comments and messages as soon as possible. This will show your customers that you care about their feedback and are responsive.
You can use chatbots to respond quickly to customer inquiries in DMs, freeing up your team to focus on more complex topics. You can also create automated responses to frequently asked questions, allowing customers to get the information they need without waiting for a response.
For example, Sephora uses a chatbot to help their customers try out products virtually and as well as allows them to book appointments seamlessly just by dropping a line.
Source: Digital Marketing Institute
Integrating a chatbot with your social media channels can ensure there are no delays in the process and your customers are satisfied, ultimately leading to increased sales and better conversions.
- Level-up Your Customer Care
Setting up social media accounts for customer support and responding to customer inquiries promptly is a great way to increase engagement and show that you care. Ask your followers to share their experiences by mentioning your brand in their posts and hashtags. This will show that you value their opinions and give them an opportunity to express themselves creatively.
- Offer Value To Engage Your Audience
The quality of your content matters a lot when it comes to engaging your audience through your content. Make sure your content is interesting, relevant, and engaging. The focus should be on creating content that encourages user interaction. Ask questions, make polls, and post interesting pictures or videos. Even running contests and giveaways are a great way to increase social engagement.
- Take Video Seriously
If you want to maximize your social media engagement, then you should consider creating videos. There are many benefits of using video in your social media marketing strategy instead of text or images, as they are more consumable than reading long paragraphs of text.
However, longer videos don’t perform well to engage your audience – so try to keep your videos short, ranging from 30 seconds to 60 seconds. Also, ensure you include visuals, sound, and a clear message in your videos.
- Highlight Your Product In Action
Visual content such as photos and videos are powerful ways to showcase your product in action. Use high-quality visuals to draw attention to your product and make it stand out from the crowd.
One effective technique is the use of background blurring. This allows your product to remain the focal point, without any distractions. Use high-quality visuals to draw attention to your product and make it stand out from the crowd.
- Create Hashtags for Your Customers
Create a brand hashtag that your customers can use when sharing their experiences with your brand. Encourage customers to post about their experiences on social media along with your brand hashtags. Track and monitor conversations using your brand hashtags.
Doing so will help you understand customer needs and preferences and build trust and loyalty with your audience, ultimately boosting your customer experience management strategy. Encouraging your customers to share their experiences with your brand on social media by using brand hashtags is an effective way to build rapport with your audience.
For example, if your business is a sneaker store, you could create a hashtag such as #SneakerLoversUnite. Encourage your customers to share photos of their new purchases, product reviews, and experiences with your store using this hashtag.
Not only will this help you to track customer feedback and sentiment, but it will also spark organic conversations and engagement. By responding to comments, answering questions, and addressing customer concerns, you will show that your brand values its customers and listens to their feedback.
- Listen to Your Customers Actively
Ensure you actively listen to your customers and promptly respond to their questions or complaints. This shows that you are invested in their experience and willing to go the extra mile to ensure they are satisfied. By actively listening to customers, businesses can demonstrate their commitment to customer satisfaction through social media.
For example, providing customer service 24/7 and responding to customer inquiries quickly and efficiently shows that the business is dedicated to customer satisfaction. Businesses should also offer multiple avenues for customers to give their feedback, such as through surveys, social media, and customer reviews. By taking the time to listen to and address customer feedback, you can make improvements to your services and products, which will lead to better customer retention.
Takeaways
As we move into 2024, staying on top of trends and strategies for increasing social media engagement is essential. Keep your content fresh, focus on creating relationships with your customers, and use data to inform your decisions for the best outcomes. With these tips in mind, you can maximize your social media reach and engagement.
So don’t wait; start engaging with your audience today and watch the power of social media work for you!
