How to Improve Social Media Engagement and Results

When a company starts its social media page, there is a sudden spurt in activity. Everyone seems so excited, as more and more fans start pouring in, like in the case of a Facebook paid-likes campaign. But eventually, the activity becomes slow or in extreme cases it dies completely.

Your success in social media doesn’t depend on hits or leads, it depends on engagement. So how do we drive more social engagement across our channels? Let’s find out.

What is engagement?

Engagement includes likes, clicks, forwards, shares, comments, re-tweets, favorites, right-clicking and downloading the same. Engagement can be classified into five types:

Degree I: Watching or observing the social media page without liking it.

DEGREE II: Deciding to like or follow your page.

DEGREE III: Watching your video or photographs or reading content

DEGREE IV: Promoting your post by sharing or liking

DEGREE V: Commenting on your page or post; or even messaging you directly.

• Degree V’, can definitely be called quality engagement!

Taking Small Steps

Above mentioned are the 5 degrees of engagement. So it doesn’t make sense if we expect our audience to jump from observing our page (i.e., like jumping from Degree I to Degree-V) to contacting us for doing business.

One needs to begin with small steps. For e.g., allow your followers (Degree -II) start reading through your content and watch your videos and gradually reach the next level (Degree-III). If they like or share the content, they reach the next level (Degree IV). Commenting on our posts makes them reach (Degree-V). As we can see, these are deliberate gradual steps towards quality attaining quality engagement.

Daily Inspiration and Solving Problems

Most of the audience doesn’t care how hard you have worked towards making that new YouTube video, or how many hours you spent designing the Facebook graphic or even how long you took to write the WordPress blog post. They are too busy with their own problems. What they look forward to is nothing but inspiration and a solution to their problems. You give it to them and they will love you!

Ask for Shares

Yes! You may indeed try asking for Shares, Likes and Re-Tweets. Some people may be apprehensive about it, however it surely works. You can again proceed step by step, instead of asking it right away. You may begin first by including questions in your blog posting. This will prompt the audience to respond. In doing so, you may slowly derive the confidence to step up and directly ask for Shares and Re-Tweets. However, make sure that you ask for it in a sweet way!

Check the Statistics

It is best to check your Google Analytics data. You will discover your top ten posts in terms of engagement. Also check out the posts with least engagement and learn your lessons from the analytics report. You may implement your findings in future postings for better engagement.

Post at the Right Time

You need to post at the right time and days to get maximum coverage. Below are generally the timings that are followed by social marketers.

Facebook: 1pm to 4pm

Twitter: 1pm to 3pm

Google PLUS: 9am to 11am.

LinkedIn: 7am to 9am

Pinterest: 2pm to 4pm / 8pm - 12am.

Tumblr: 7pm to 10pm

A little bit of research is needed here, as the timings may differ depending on your location. However, you may certainly time your postings on the below mentioned days.

Facebook: Wednesday

Twitter: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday & Thursday

LinkedIn: Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday

Pinterest: Saturday

Tumblr: Monday, Tuesday, Friday and Sunday

Proper Format

The postings on social media need not be repetitive and follow the same format as each of the platforms is unique. Facebook is different from twitter; Pinterest is different from LinkedIn and so on. It’s better to format the text and images so that it is tailor made to be posted on the chosen platform. Also, it is better to post something fresh on each platform, rather than bulk-posting the same message, video or image all over the social media.

Catchy Headlines

A catchy headline is what makes the user stop and read your post. Make sure it generates interest. It could also contain numbers; you may also use the word ‘You’. For e.g. "9 Ways to Foil a Car-Jacking", "Employee Appraisal: Do you have what it takes?"

Good Images

Images produce more engagements than text postings. Let them be unique; if you don’t have your own images, you may use stock images with a good text headline or overlay. Images of real people attract more attention! You may also use animated GIFs.

Ask Questions

It is a good idea to ask questions; in fact it is even better to conduct a Quiz Contest for your fans. The results can be announced over the weekend. You get enough chances of massive engagement by adding relevant questions, every day of the week. A quiz contest generally, goes viral – especially if the prize if attractive enough.

Checkout the Trends

Keep a watch on the latest trends and see how you can mould your content accordingly. For e.g., if the football world cup is going on, and you are a restaurant; then you may name your dishes according to football terminology or player names. Paint the restaurant accordingly; let the staff wear football team uniforms. Take those unique restaurant and food pictures and post them on social media. If it is not football season, you may try cricket or any other popular sport.

This is how a company or product can generate social media engagement. This can even result in business leads and conversions. For more information on web design and social media marketing, contact WebCanny.