The social media landscape is crowded. To stand out, you’ll need to do more than just post content.
You’ll need to drive engagement with your posts.
If you don’t already have a strong social media marketing plan and aren’t driving engagement on your social media platforms, then you’ll want to check out some of these compelling statistics:
- 3.6 billion people were using social media in 2020 – this number is predicted to reach 4.41 billion in 2025.
- The most popular social media platforms as of January 2021 are Facebook, YouTube, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and Instagram.
- 83% of marketers utilize social media marketing.
- 57% of consumers say they follow a brand on social media to learn about new products/services, while 47% say they follow them to stay updated on company news.
- 86% of B2B brands prefer to use LinkedIn, while 98% of B2C brands prefer Facebook.
The problem is that there are hundreds of ways to drive engagement on social media, but which ones are right for you and your business?
The best way to find out is to try out a few tactics. However, before jumping into these, we first need to understand why social media is essential to your business.
Social Media Marketing is Vital for Business Success
Social media marketing isn’t just a way to connect with your audience. It’s also a powerful marketing tool. Businesses use social media to promote their products and services. But they can also use the platform to build their brand, increase their online visibility, and gain valuable insights into their target audience.
When it comes to ranking the biggest marketing challenges in business, the majority of small, medium, and large businesses state that customer acquisition is their biggest challenge. However, they also list customer acquisition as their biggest marketing goal and state that social media marketing is one of their best opportunities to reach those new customers.
One poll showed that 74% of marketing teams allocated at least a third of their marketing budget in 2020 to social media ads (with the total paid social ads spend hitting $41.4 billion), and they plan to increase their social ad spend in 2021.
Polls are one thing – what about what your consumers have to say? Sure, with more people spending longer on their smartphones and browsing social media, are they really looking to use social media for their shopping needs?
Short answer: Yes.
Studies show that over half of consumers on social media (54%) use their favorite social media platforms to research products and services. They also use social media to see what others have to say about a brand and what they have to offer. Plus, with 71% of consumers willing to recommend a brand that offered them a pleasant social media experience, it’s worth taking the time to work on driving more engagement on social media.
Now that you have a quick baseline for getting started with social media, let’s discuss how you can drive engagement on social media. Here are some tips to help you boost your brand’s social media engagement.
1. Share Content That Your Audience Wants to See
If you’re posting updates that your audience doesn’t find engaging, then you’ll drive them away. However, if you’re sharing content that resonates with your audience, you’ll earn their trust and generate more engagement.
To make sure you are creating and sharing content that your audience wants to see, you need to know who your audience is, what they are searching for, and present content in a way that resonates with them. Once you know what they need, you can start creating content that addresses those needs and helps guide their decision-making process. Doing so will help you build credibility, trust, and help them see you as an expert worth following.
2. Use Images and Video to Drive Engagement on Social Media
Gone are the days when we could simply share a well-worded post and expect users to jump into the conversation. Now, users are more drawn to visual content.
For instance, 62% of people will thoroughly consume video and 54% of people prefer to see more video content from brands they supported. Why? Visual content is much easier for consumers to digest and remember.
Not only is this content easier for your consumers to digest, but it also keeps them on the post longer and often drives more engagement due to its interactive nature. For instance, visual content needs to be clicked on to get the full visual. From there, consumers can take in the information presented and then leave their comments, questions, and concerns right there.
3. Engage with Your Audience
In addition to creating and sharing content that your audience wants to see, you need to engage with them. Engaging with your audience does not mean that you need to jump into every conversation. However, you should make an effort to reply to questions and comments posted on your social media pages.
Besides driving engagement through dialog, this helps to build trust and demonstrates that you are listening and willing to take the time to make what they have to say a priority.
4. Share Curated Content from Within Your Industry
While you want to share original content with your audience to help establish yourself as an authoritative figure within your industry, you also want to take the time to share content from other industry experts/sources as well.
Sharing curated content will help you establish yourself as a go-to source within your industry and thus drive engagement on your social media accounts. For instance, if you share a post from another source relevant to your industry and audience, people will be more likely to click on the post and read it. If the post resonates with them, then they will more likely engage with your future posts.
Wrapping It Up
When it comes to building brand awareness, product/service awareness, or simply building your community – social media is a tool that you cannot ignore. Utilizing the four tips above is a sure way to help increase engagement on social media and help stand apart from the crowd. This can also help you build a community of like-minded individuals that turn to you when they need advice.
