One of the most important tasks that a good digital marketer should know, is how to engage with their audience. It’s not enough to publish great content, the best infographics or exclusive insights. Social engagement is what in reality brings home the bacon. The more likes, comments, shares and views you get, the more traffic will come, organically, to your site.
But what exactly constitutes social engagement? Is it really that important? And if it is, how do you have to do to get better at it?
These are some of the few basic questions you may have if you’ve never heard of the term. And even if you have, you may not know how important social engagement is for your internet business. If that’s the case, here’s a short way to know everything you need to in a few minutes.
What is Social Engagement and Why is it Important?
As you can guess by its name, social engagement is when social media marketers create content that makes people react to it. I could be just likes or shares. Best case scenario, people get so engaged in your content that they buy whatever you’re selling. Social engagement is what, eventually, makes you a brand.
There lies the importance of it. If you’re conducting business online, you need engaging content in order to make your business grow. It creates a relationship with your clients, a community. It makes your followers become your best salespeople, because they will share your content with their friends.
How do I Achieve or Increase Social Engagement?
We’ve established why SE is important. Now is time to take steps into achieving and increasing it. The easiest way is also the costly one: pay for post boosts or positioning. Is very easy but in the long run, you want to become free of any payment-induced engagement and become organically engaging. Besides, there are great cost-free strategies that you can use.
1. Be Visual
It is a well known fact that people are more attracted to images than just letters. In fact:
The most engaging posts on social media are the ones that include images.
But just using an image for the sake of it won’t take you anywhere. You have to pay attention to your niche and see what they want, what they look for, and offer images that give them a solution to a question or questions they have.
There are of course certain types of images that have proven more successful than others. According to Social Media Examiner, there are 7 kind of visual ideas that get the most social engagement:
- Visual Bullets
- Storyboards
- Illustrated words
- Diagrams
- Memes
- Visual captions
- Comparisons
2. Find Out What They Say About Your Brand
An important part of the research and constant overseeing of your social media, goes to find out what your clients and potential clients think about you, how your brand is perceived. You may wonder how is this going to help you increase social engagement. We previously mentioned that the most important goal of SE is to create a community and a relationship with your clients. Learning what they think about you is an essential part of it. It would help you decide which kind of strategies you should use next, and prevent any disasters.
You need to know how aware they are of your brand, its offerings, whether they perceive your brand positively or negatively, how your competitors fare in the same space, and so on. This allows you to make more informed decisions, as opposed to shots in the dark.
3. Start a Conversation
Or join an existing one. Many brands take advantage of important events or internet memes to take part of it and get a lot of engagement. It’s not unethical if your brand really shares the values of a movement that’s going on at the moment and makes a statement that brings people closer to you.
Always keep in mind that in everything that you do, you should always stick with the good practices and etiquette that every social media has. You should also constantly analyze your metrics in order to see which strategy is working and take better decisions in the future.