You may be wondering- how can I post so often with content that I think is amazing, but people just aren’t engaging with it? A lot of brands want more engagement around their social media posts, but may not know what else exactly they should be doing, or are stuck repeating the same old strategy hoping to get different results. Feed algorithms are difficult to maneuver due to the fact that they’re being tweaked by engineers all the time, sometimes without anybody noticing. Your social media engagement is one area where you can always improve on, as there isn’t really a “maximum engagement level” or ceiling that you can hit. The more engaged your audience is, the more that other people will be able to see your posts and the better you will be able to hit those social media goals that you and your marketing team have set. Read on to learn more about the world of social media engagement so that you are able to better understand social media engagement in general and know some tips to improve your social media engagement and online marketing strategy. We will discuss what social media engagement is, what makes up an engaging post, how to know when engagement is dropping off, and what you can do short term and long term in order to increase engagement. MyCity Social is a top digital marketing and SEO firm in Orlando. Call MyCity Social for digital marketing Orlando business owners trust today!

 

What Social Media Engagement Is 

 

Social media engagement is an extremely broad umbrella term that covers a lot of metrics. All of the major social media networks already have some component of engagement listed for free in their native analytics. The trick here is to understand what engagement is on a broad level, and then learn how to analyze engagement on a micro scale. On facebook alone, engagement typically means all the possible ways there are of interacting with a Page’s posts and profile, message and mentions all put together. When examining numbers of engagement between months or even years, this type of birds’ eye view does a good job at identifying a trend. However, you want to take into account other metrics if you want to understand more of where you can improve. To again use Facebook as an example, engagement is able to be divided up into different areas:

• The interaction with your Page- Call to action button clicks, profile clicks, any clicks on tabs
• The interaction with your posts- comments, likes, and shares
• The interaction in direct messaging- Messaging a Page or responding to a message
• Interaction with other Pages- mentions of your Page, comments on other Pages’ posts

These are only some examples of the engagement that can happen on Facebook and not an exhaustive list. However, it gives you an idea of where you may begin to narrow in on your goals. 

 

Online Marketing: Analyzing Your Engagement And Taking Action

 

Here are some steps that you can take to analyze your engagement, figure out your next steps, and put your plan into action:

• In order to pinpoint the steps that you need to take to improve your engagement, you need to first analyze. As mentioned earlier, engagement analytics are available natively for all major social media platforms, and you can also utilize a third party management platform in order to see data summarized for you. First, look at the number of engagements that are added up for you for Instagram and the post engagement rate averaged out per Facebook post. This will be our example. So how do you analyze these numbers? If you see post engagement going down week after week, then your posts have to be adjusted in order to better suit your audience (assuming that nothing else has changed in the world or in your paid promotions). It’s important to make note of what makes a post stand out if a post has a significant engagement rate over all others. This will assist you in identifying what realm of content to focus on if you want to improve your engagement. 
• Set goals and  define metrics- Set clear engagement goals so that you know what to focus your content efforts on. For example, if you want more engagement on your posts, then you know you will have to focus on creating interesting content. The metrics that tie with it will be specific to post engagement- how many people interacted with your posts, and what kinds of engagement did they execute? 
• Understand the components of an engaging post- Every network is a little bit different depending on what they favor over another in terms of engaging posts, but similarities still stand out. Sprout identified in a social media analysis what types of content that brands want from social. Some statistics they got were that: 68% wanted images, 50% wanted video, and 30% wanted text-based posts. You should check your own analytics to see if these types of posts are the ones that are the most engaged with. In the study, Sprout also examined the reasons why consumers message brands on social media, and discovered that in general, people engage on both ends of the spectrum, whether it’s from having a great experience or having customer service issues. 
• Execute ideas for your strategy- The last step in laying out a comprehensive engagement plan is to put your strategy ideas into action. What ideas, you may ask? That’s the question that we will discuss in the next section below.

 

Brand-Inspired Ideas To Create Engaging Social Media Posts

 

There are many ways in which you are able to create intrigue and interaction for the posts that you put up on social media platforms. Some are more short-term, while others are more long-term strategies. MyCity Social, who provides digital marketing Orlando business owners rely on, recommends a combination of both to keep your accounts in tip-top shape. Here are some top social media posting ideas that other brands have used to take note of:

• Giveaway with other companies- One of the quickest ways to get engagement with your account is to host a giveaway. People love to get free things, and if you make it a giveaway focused on engagement, it’ll help you hit your engagement goals. These giveaways can take place on anywhere from Twitter to Instagram to Facebook, or even cross-platform. Take Klean Kanteen, for instance. To make their giveaway even more special, Klean Kanteen partnered up with other bicycle companies to create the ideal bike kit. By bringing other companies into the giveaway, they are creating a wider audience for everybody, especially if they have similar target audiences. Certain Instagram giveaways also ask for comments or follows to create increased engagement. 
• Get funny and creative!- Humor can go a long way on social media, especially if it’s the type that your target audience tends to enjoy and engage with. The study that Sprout put out found that three in four consumers crave humor from brands, but only a third of those consumers want that humor to be in a snarky manner. Take the Getty Museum, for example. When the coronavirus pandemic hit and museums were forced to close to all visitors they then turned to social media to share their collections and engage their audiences, and in creative ways. The Getty Museum created a Twitter challenge to recreate a work of art using only the household objects that you have. The Tweet they put out received more than four thousand replies, eleven thousand retweets, and twenty six thousand favorites. It’s a fantastic example of being flexible and being able to meet people where they are (which for the moment is mostly at home). 
• Create FOMO- The pop culture phenomenon “Fear Of Missing Out,” or FOMO, is a very strong tactic to put into play when you want people to pay attention to your brand. It’s a clever tactic to make people feel part of an exclusive club when they’re able to see something others can’t or haven’t. Flash sales and intriguing content both are in this category. Fenty Beauty posted a short video and explicitly wrote that if the post received 200k likes, then they would release a previously unreleased video of Rihanna on Friday. This strategy has a two-pronged attack; the post would eventually reach 200k likes, but the caption makes it even more necessary to reach it faster. The second part is that people will come back on Friday to view the video, making that post a potentially high engagement one. 
• Think beyond feed posts- When thinking about engagement, feed posts aren’t the only type of posts available to you. Direct messages, replies, and story interactions all count towards engagement numbers. Dubsado is a CRM platform boasting a highly engaging user base. Their feed posts aren’t particularly high in terms of engagement, but they more than make up for it in their branded Facebook Group. Potential and current users are able to interact with each other and bounce ideas. The company also create product announcements in the group, and you often see their own customer service representatives hosting Live videos.
• Use stickers to encourage engagement- A rapidly growing component of Instagram Stories are stickers. From polls to questions to the new challenge sticker, there are many options that you have to boost the engagement of your Stories. REI featured an influencer, and had them answer questions followers sent in on subsequent story posts. The topic was outdoor cooking, which is something highly relevant to their audience. During the answers, they were also able to link out to products and articles. The influencer, in return, received a broader audience and more interaction, which makes for an engaging win for everybody involved. 
• Brand partnerships- One tried-and-true strategy for boosting engagement and sales is partnering up with other like-minded brands in order to produce something fun and interesting. Everybody loves a good collaboration! The brand Toms collaborated with Marvel to put out comic-inspired shoes of all kinds. Both of these brands are already very well-known and popular, so the partnership was more about creating something unique for people to crave. FOMO also plays a role here too, as discussed above. If you’re a fan of Marvel and you were already thinking of buying some new shoes, then these would be the perfect pair for you or present for a loved one. That’s what these two brands are banking on. 

 

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In order to increase your social media engagement, you have to break the process down into a couple parts. First, you should understand what engagement is, and which parts you want to focus on. Second, analyze the current engagement you have. Third, figure out which long-term and short-term strategies you want to utilize in order to raise the engagement. MyCity Social is a top online marketing and SEO firm in Orlando. Call MyCity Social today for digital marketing Orlando business owners rely on!