Social media is firmly entrenched in every business’ online presence – or it should be. Sadly, however, it is not always used to its full potential. It is not enough to simply have an account, or post the occasional update. You need to be active and vibrant, encouraging your followers to engage with you and broadening your reach as much as possible.
Follow these seven handy tips to help you maximise your social media engagement:
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Monitor
Not the obvious place to start but before you can really grasp social media to its fullest, you need to know where and how people are finding you. This is the benchmark by which you will review and monitor future growth. Get into the habit of watching and learning from your audience.
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Be visual
Photos, graphics, videos and so on are all essential pieces of visual kit when it comes to social media. A tweet with a photo is 35% more likely to be re-tweeted, and a Facebook post is 85% more likely to be shared with a photo, video and so on.
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Create interest with games, competitions or give-aways
Call them what you will, they are a great vehicles for reaching and engaging with a new audience. Stuck for inspiration? Take a look at some major brands online and how they are using their social media presence to hook people.
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Ask questions
Anything from “what are you up to this weekend?” to “what is your favourite colour?” are all ways of eliciting information and engagement from people. People love it when they feel a brand or business is interested in them. But remember, when you ask a question, you are starting a conversation – so be ready to respond!
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Be a sharing economy
All too often, social media goes awry for businesses when they do not engage or respond, even more so when comments may be negative. Social media is all about participation.If you don’t want to play the game, this is not the format for you.
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Don’t treat all platforms the same
A common mistake is that businesses post the same thing to Facebook, as they do to Twitter and so on. Each social media platform has a different audience and thus, your content needs to reflect this. Take time to research which of your customers will be using which platform.
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Show your personality
Social media is a great way to give your brand or business personality, but choose wisely and think carefully about how you want to be seen. Should you struggle with this and you require some form of inspiration, then seeking out the advice from a credible branding agency can help you establish a brand voice and personality.
All in all, if you care about who’s listening to you, and create and share content that is driven to interest them, then you’ll soon find more engagement through your social media accounts.