What does it truly take to engage with your audience on social media and build a following? Social Media is a powerful tool and using it effectively will be instrumental in reaching your business goals and increasing awareness for your small business. However, this might sound simple enough… until real life hits you and you realize that it’s hard work.

What is Social Media Engagement?

By definition, social media engagement is the act of getting people to interact with your brand on social media. This interaction can take many forms, such as likes, comments, shares, or poll responses. If you’re looking to increase social media engagement for your business or personal brand, there are a number of things you can do, like hosting a contest or giveaway, going live on social media, or sharing others’ content. However, one of the most important things to remember is to be creative and have fun – if you’re enjoying yourself while using social media, chances are your audience will too! What methods have you found to be successful in increasing social media engagement?

Social media engagement is time-consuming work, especially updating your social media channels consistently and if you’re not careful, your time can be wasted. Check out these top 10 mistakes to avoid in 2023, to avoid wasting your time.

Once you have an audience, you need to keep in touch with them and give them something of value, so they’ll stick by your side.

Social media is something many people claim to be an expert at and a quick Google search will surface tons of info on what you should do. But our audiences have a tendency to be time-poor and be more active on social media if it’s entertaining to them.

Social media is the medium to reach out to the audience wherever they are. It’s the best way to promote your startup, product or services and build relationships with customers.

Users can get attracted by a simple image or a text update and engage with you on social media. Nowadays, people don’t want to be overloaded by ads all the time.

They are rather looking for something informative, entertaining, or interactive which is where social media comes handy for businesses. Use social media channels like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn strategically to grow your business and engage your audience.

Importance of Social Media Engagement 

Interacting with people on social media platforms is known as social engagement. This can involve following, commenting, sharing, and liking. It can also include direct communication with other users through messaging.

Engagement is crucial for both businesses and people. It facilitates interpersonal development and connection-making. You may extend your internet profile and connect with new individuals as a result. More importantly, it helps you differentiate yourself in the social media jungle.

The advantages of social interaction are numerous. You may use it to create leads, increase website traffic, and spread brand awareness. You may connect with influential people in your business and build worthwhile connections as a result.

The moment has come to start including social interaction in your social media plan, if you haven’t already. It’s crucial to creating a successful internet business.

Facebook remembers who interacts with you and adds weight to your next posts. Essentially, the more someone interacts with you the more likely they are to see your future posts. So, the next time you post about your business on your personal profile, those who interact are more likely to see future posts.

Here are some strategies that can SUPER-BOOST your engagement:

Ask questions

If your goal is to increase engagement and reach more people, Engaging questions on social media are a really powerful tool for this.

Different social media platforms have different ways for asking questions. There are a few things to keep in mind which are common in all platforms when asking questions in social media. Posting frequently about something that is useful is a wise decision. Posting business-related questions above irrational ones is advised.

You need to be strategic about how you relate your niche to everything else you post if you want to succeed. Try posing questions that cause individuals to automatically respond with a response, since this will encourage them to do so. It resembles something we can’t control that is virtually subliminal.

Questions like this will push people to pause and read your updates or comments to get the answer, even though they might not always participate. Since open-ended questions demand a lot more thinking and work from the reader, closed questions are always far simpler to interact with.

More individuals will respond to your question the simpler it is. Closed questions have only one possible response, such as “yes,” “no,” “true,” or “false.” It might be difficult to avoid seeming biased in your closed questions but try to maintain as much objectivity as you can.

Start a contest or giveaway

Do you want to boost your company’s social media engagement?

If so, think about hosting a competition or giveaway.

This is a fantastic approach to promote your company and may possibly bring in new clients and increase revenue.

Create a gift that will appeal to your target audience as a starting point. It may be a deal on your goods or services, a gift, or something else different.

Decide how people may participate in the giveaway or contest after you have your gift.

Do people have to share and like your post? Publish a comment? ‘Like’ your company on social media? Promote your contest after the specifics are figured out.

Host an AMA (Ask Me Anything)

Do you Really, Really, Really… want to boost your company’s social media engagement?

Hosting an AMA (Ask Me Anything) on your preferred platform is a fantastic method to do this.

The head of Instagram, Adam Mosseri do this every week.

An AMA is a fantastic method to interact with your audience and provide real-time answers to their queries. It also enables you to flaunt your in-depth understanding of a certain subject.

Simply pick a subject that interests you and respond to questions from your followers to begin going. Additionally, you may advertise your AMA beforehand to give people time to think of questions.

Use trending hashtags or relevant keywords

Use hashtags to increase the visibility of your question.

You may also use a trending hashtag while asking a question!

Make sure your hashtag should be your niche related

Go live on social media

You might want to think about going live if you want to increase your social media engagement. On social media sites like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, live streaming is a format that is growing in popularity as a wonderful way to interact with your audience in real time.

If you’re considering going live on social media, there are a few things to consider. Make sure you have a reliable and powerful internet connection first. Make sure your connection won’t drop in the middle of your broadcast because live streaming can be a little data-intensive.

Use polls to get people talking

Running polls is one of the finest methods to interact with your social media followers.

People want to express their opinions, and polls are an excellent method to do so.

Polls not only encourage discussion, but they also help you understand what your audience is thinking.

When conducting polls on social media, there are a few things to remember.

First, make sure your question is brief and understandable. People should be able to comprehend it fast and reply with ease.

Second, provide a wide range of options for consumers to pick from. People could feel forced to choose one even if they disagree with it if there are only two alternatives available. Resulting, skipping that valuable response.

Share others’ content

Sharing other people’s material on social media is one of the best methods to boost engagement.

You may not only enhance the value of your own feed by posting fascinating and relevant material from other sources, but you can also demonstrate that you are aware of the latest developments in your sector.

Of course, it’s crucial to choose your information carefully and to make sure it comes from a reputable source.

However, posting other people’s material strategically may be a wonderful method to increase your social media engagement.

Create videos to share on social media

As a business owner, you are aware of the power of social media in expanding your consumer base and building your brand. But how can you engage your audience on social media the most effectively?

Making videos for social media interaction is one method to stand out and spread your message.

Thanks to TikTokification (9:16 aspect ratio video or in simple terms portrait videos) of mostly all platforms you are reaching more than ever before organically.

Videos are a fantastic method to showcase your goods or services, as well as to share a narrative or establish a connection with your audience.

Here are some suggestions for making videos that will appeal to your social media audience.

Keep in mind that people have limited attention spans while creating your films. Therefore, creating an awesome hook of 2 seconds is vital.

Keep your video around 45–30 seconds as a general Rule of Thumb. Yes, you can make more than 45 seconds, it has been studied that most people’s attention span lasts less than 30 seconds.

Think in this way, the length of your video is inversely proportional to the audience engagement rate

Your video needs to be both aesthetically pleasing and simple to view. Make sure the audio is crystal clear and use high-quality pictures and video.

Takeaway: New social media engagement strategies are easier than ever

The good news is that it’s simpler than ever to get started, even though social participation is more crucial than ever.

Ensure that you are engaged on the social media sites that your target audience frequents. Utilize these platforms to spread your material, spark discussions, and create connections.

You must provide content that is worthy of sharing if you want people to share it. Produce information that will benefit your audience and encourage them to share it with their networks, such as informative carousels, reels/TikTok, and other content kinds.

Ensure that your website is set up so that users may easily share your material.