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3 Tips for Increasing Social Media Engagement

Social media platforms may come and go, but one thing is clear. Social media marketing is here to stay. According to a recent survey, there are currently 3.5 billion social media users worldwide. The number is expected to grow as more people gain access to the Internet.

If the previous survey isn’t enough to convince you to focus on social media marketing, another survey stated that 54% of users use social media to research products. Users check platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter to say what others have said about suppliers before doing business with them.

By making your presence felt on these platforms, you can take part in the narrative instead of merely being a passive observer.

In this blog post, we’re going to discuss three ways to increase social media engagement. You’ll learn how to increase organic interactions with potential customers no matter the platform.

Let’s get started.

Ask questions.

Most social media platforms seem to follow one rule. The more users interact with your content, the more users will see it. If a post gets plenty of likes and comments, the platforms think users find the content valuable and will show it to even more users.

Whether it’s on Facebook or Twitter, businesses try to encourage organic interactions with their followers.

But how exactly do you do this?

You can start by asking questions. Don’t settle for questions that can be answered with a yes or no. Ask thought-provoking questions that will help you learn more about your potential customers.

Let’s say you offer cleaning services in Sydney, and you regularly post cleaning tips on Instagram. At the end of your post, you could ask people to reply with their best home cleaning tips. You can start a discussion and start building a community at the same time.

Monitor brand mentions.

Monitoring brand mentions is also essential for increasing social media engagement. You stay abreast of what everyone–past, current, and potential customers–is saying about you, and you can formulate appropriate responses. This applies to both negative and positive feedback.

For example, an influencer with thousands of followers posted something negative about how you provide customer service. Needless to say, thousands of people will see the post. The situation could snowball into a huge PR disaster without your knowledge.

By monitoring your brand mentions, you could prevent that from happening. Before the situation escalates, you could reach out to the influencer by leaving an appropriate comment or reaching out to them privately. How you react may differ depending on the feedback provided.

If someone posted something positive about your brand, you can also respond right away and thank them for the positive feedback. You get to foster positive interactions, turning casual followers into loyal customers.

How to Monitor Brand Mentions

At this point, you might be wondering how to start monitoring brand mentions. There are plenty of tools available online, each one focusing on a different platform.

Setting up Google Alerts is a free way to get started. Once you’ve set it up, you receive an email every time someone mentions your brand online.

If you already have a Google account, you can log in at https://www.google.com/alerts. You will then be prompted to create an alert about something. Once you enter your business name, Google Alerts will show you your most recent brand mentions.

Sometimes, it will show you unrelated search results, because the content uses a phrase that’s close to your brand name. To filter out these results, you can instruct Google Alerts to only show you an exact match by adding quotation marks before and after your brand name. For example, instead of Cornerstone Digital, you need to enter “Cornerstone Digital”.

Google Alerts lets you customise how you receive brand mention alerts. You can choose to receive them real-time, daily, or once a week. You can also filter the alerts based on sources, language, region, and top results.

If you’d like more information about your brand mentions, you can use a tool like Brand24.

While Google Alerts shows you brand mentions from Google search results, Brand24 is a bit more comprehensive. It can show you mentions from social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and more. You also get more data about the number of people a post reached, shares, and likes.

Post optimised videos.

Posting videos is now a faster way to build trust online. It’s the closest you can get to speaking with someone in person. Right away, people will feel that they know you. They can see you and hear nuances that a photo or a blog post would be unable to convey.

If that weren’t enough, recent statistics show that posting videos can boost social media engagement. On Instagram, video posts get more engagement than other types of content. LinkedIn users are twenty times more likely to share a video post.

But how do you get started? What kind of videos should you post?

An instructional video using your products can be a great first video. If you sell equipment, you can even create a series of videos demonstrating all of its uses. If you sell furniture, you can show how a piece can be integrated into a customer’s home. You can surely come up with something that fits your niche.

You can also post a behind the scenes video. These types of videos show the human side of your brand, introducing the people behind it and emphasising your company values.

Conclusion

No matter which platform is currently the most popular, there’s no denying that social media is an incredible way to reach a new pool of customers. You also collect data about what people are saying about your business, giving you improvement ideas.

Boost your social media engagement by asking questions, monitoring brand mentions, and posting videos. Most of all, don’t forget to connect with people in a professional but genuine manner.

Need help with your digital marketing strategy? Cornerstone Digital is a digital marketing agency in Sydney. We would be glad to create a five-star strategy for you. Call us on (02) 8211 0668 or email us at info@cornerstone-digital.com.au.

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Darlyn Herradura

A self-professed book and digital marketing nerd, Darlyn Herradura focuses on building trust between customers and businesses with the written word. She understands that creating valuable content is the best way to get found online and happily spends her time doing that.