If you are running any type of business, both online and offline, bet you already know the importance of promoting it on social media. Becoming a successful social media user, however, depends heavily on your engagement with your followers. The question now is, how do you interact with your followers? Do you spend all your time telling your followers how great your products/services are or do you actually take some time to interact with them and try to understand what their needs are? This is where social media engagement comes in.
What is social media engagement why is it important?
Now, imagine you go to a social event and you meet this very attractive person. This person approaches you, and you are happy because you feel you are going to have an interesting interaction. In the end, you leave very disappointed because there was no interaction, you were not given the opportunity to participate as that attractive person spent all the time talking about his/her qualities.
Social media engagement can be broadly defined as an interaction between a brand (providing valuable content) and its followers/customers (by commenting, liking, clicking on a link or sharing the post).
In the above example, you represents followers/customers, the social event represents social media platforms (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram), the attractive person is a brand/business, the interesting interaction you (the followers) were hoping to have represents social media engagement and the participation which did not happen represents the likes, comments etc. In this illustration, the brand (though attractive) failed to interact with its followers and missed out on the opportunity to convert them into faithful customers.
How to improve social media engagement
1. Define your goal
Having a defined goal or plan of action is important when starting any project, which also includes social media engagement. Your goal will depend on a number of factors; the most significant of which is what your business has to offer. What do you want your followers to know about your brand? What are your followers going to gain from the interaction?
2. Know your target audience
Followers/customers want their needs to be met. How is your brand going to accomplish that if it does not know what those needs are? Before creating any social copy, it is important to get into your audience’s head to try and understand what their needs are, the challenges they are facing, and how you can use social media to solve those problems. Having quality content that does not meet the needs of your target audience won’t lead to any interaction.
3. Create quality and relevant content
Now that you know your goal and your target audience, it becomes easier to create quality and relevant content that will improve your social media engagement. When creating quality content, it is important to note that this is a social interaction, almost like meeting someone at a social event. Keep it fun, ask questions, and make sure you respond to comments. Adding quality images is also a great way to capture attention.
There is no denying that improving social media engagement will play a significant role in transforming followers into faithful customers. Get in touch with us for more tips or if you have any questions.