5 Simple Ways To Boost Social Media Engagement

by Davina Ngei, posted in Social Media

One of the first lessons I learned as a blogger is that engagement is more important than numbers. While having 10,000 followers is great, it makes more sense to have 1000 active followers than 10,000 passive followers.

This lesson became very apparent to me after I run my seemingly successful FB campaign, which garnered hundreds of new likes for my FB page. While my numbers were up, my engagement was diluted by followers who had liked my page with no intention of engaging with it.

Engagement is vital to every business; you need an audience and customers who are willing to go the extra mile to interact with you, your brand, and what you have to offer. When this happens, you open up yourself to new ideas and better ways of doing things.

That is why below we will be looking at how to increase engagement in your social media community, so that you can interact more efficiently with your followers.

1. Quality Content

By far, the most straightforward and efficient method of increasing your social media engagement is to provide quality content. When you create and share content that is relevant, unique, and useful to your audience, then they are sure to respond positively.

However, if you are constantly posting articles, videos, advice, and giveaways that do not help them in any way, then they will start ignoring what you have to offer.

Additionally, you should play around with the content that you share with your social media community, and track which types of content are received better. Some niches do well with articles while others do better with videos.

And before I forget, take the extra step to ensure that your content is exciting. You can do this by adding pictures, infographics, graphs, polls, games, quizzes, and other interactive content.

2. Facebook pages vs Facebook groups

I currently have a Facebook page for my blog; however, there has been a lot of talk about whether FB groups perform better. Facebook groups allow your audience and customers to interact with each other, as opposed to just interacting with your brand.

By providing a platform where ideas are shared and topics are discussed, you take engagement to a whole new level. However, you need to make sure that what is being discussed revolves around your brand and/or your niche.

Furthermore, you can use your Facebook group to offer exclusive promotions to a target market that has already shown interest in what you have to offer.

For example, if you are a mechanic you can start a group for car lovers, where they can discuss fixing, maintaining, and updating cars and motorbikes.

Alternatively, if you are a food blogger, you can have a Facebook group where people share recipe ideas, talk about new kitchen equipment, and discuss growing fruits and veggies at home.

I am part of a couple of excellent blogging groups on Facebook, where I get to share posts, ask questions, receive advice, create partnerships, and gain support. And best of all, Facebook groups have more visibility than Facebook pages. If someone posts in the group, then I will definitely see it. Pretty awesome!

3. Stay on top of trends

Gone are the days where we had to tune into the news to get updates on what was going on around the globe. Now all you need to do is log onto Facebook or Twitter to get firsthand knowledge on current news from multiple sources.

As a business, you can take full advantage of this news sharing system. By simply identifying trends and tying them into your brand, you can increase engagement dramatically. However, you need to ensure that you pick the trend carefully. You do not want to tie your brand to a controversial event, and you do not want to take advantage of a tragic event- that’s simply in bad taste!

A few years ago, there was a black out during the Super Bowl, leading to people venting frustrations and making jokes on Twitter. Oreo took this moment to send out this ingenious tweet:

‘Power out? No problem. You can still dunk in the dark.’

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This tweet received 15,000+ retweets and 6000+ favorites, which is engagement that most brands spend thousands/millions of dollars to replicate. And Oreo didn’t even spend a dime; they just paid close attention to the social media trends.

In the same breath, posting viral content will increase your overall engagement. If a piece of content has already proven to attract engagement, then take full advantage of it.

I have found that when I post content that receives a good amount of engagement, then the reach of the next piece of content will increase. So if I share viral content created by someone else, the resulting engagement will ensure that my following posts have a greater organic reach.

4. Don’t be selfish

It is tempting to only share your own content on social media. However, this is a huge mistake. Firstly, your audience can benefit from other people’s content, so sharing different (but valuable) content with your followers is beneficial to them.

Secondly, collaborating with others helps build relationships. I usually share other people’s content more than I do my own, and when this happens, the person who created the content will often re-share it, like it, comment on it, and even follow me back. This is immediate engagement with no effort on my part.

So if you share something on Twitter, be sure to mention the name of the person who created the content, and if you share it on Facebook, LinkedIn or G+, ensure that you tag them.

You can also go further to collaborate with other people in your niche, and cross-promote each other’s content. This provides you with access to a whole new audience.

5. Start a dialog

Sometimes the reason that people fail to engage with you is because you have not given them something to engage about. At the end of each blog post, I have a Call To Action where I ask people to comment on their feelings/experience in relation to the post.

By simply doing this, I give people an opening to engage with the post. When I give a starting point for dialog, I ensure that my audience is not left wondering what exactly to say about the content I have just provided.

If you have been in the position where you read a great blog post and are left wondering ‘what next?’, then you know what I mean.

That is why it is your job to start a dialog. Ask your audience what they feel about a certain law change in your industry. Create a poll and ask them to comment on which branding choice they prefer. Ask them to leave a comment about their best experience with your brand. Encourage questions, and then go ahead and answer them.

Create a Call To Action on the content that you share, and include questions during the content promotion stage. If your social media account has several openings for a dialog, you will see your engagement increase.

Final Verdict

The approach given above can be applied to different facets of business, including user engagement, email engagement, and employee engagement. By increasing engagement in all areas of your business and brand, you ensure that you are getting the most out of what you are offering.

Using the tips provided above, you can ensure that your social media audience starts to contribute to the conversation around your brand.

Before you leave, I urge you to share these tips with your friends, family, and colleagues, and drop a comment sharing your favorite engagement strategy for your own audience. Also remember to sign up to the Business Broken Down newsletter, so that I can start emailing you first-hand post updates like a boss.

I hope you have a great week, and I’ll see you back here next week.

38 thoughts on “5 Simple Ways To Boost Social Media Engagement”

  4. Davina, I learned first hand about Facebook likes. I boosted a post. I thought this would be good for engagement. It was not. I got a lot of likes, but no engagement, or clicks on my content. I have been thinking about setting up a group. After reading your post, it sounds like it might be a good idea.

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    1. I went through the same experience as well, it was not pleasant, but I learnt my lesson. I wish you the best with your FB group, and I hope you get the engagement that you are seeking. Thanks for stopping by Roy 🙂

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  6. Thanks for sharing. I’ve had really mixed experiences with facebook groups but overall I think they have a good purpose and if you find one with a good mission it can be great! Thanks for these tips.

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  7. Totally genius of Oreo! I missed the tweet, but I remember when that happened. That is very good advice to pay attention to trends. I need to do a better job of that.

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  9. Wonderful post and great points. I have found that taking time to share other people’s work that fits my brand and supports the lifestyle of my readers the more value they are getting from following me on social media. Plus I also help another blogger out and possibly make a new friend 🙂

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  10. I thoroughly enjoyed reading, Davina. Your points are spot on. Increasing social media engagement is tricky, but oh so essential. And knowing where you receive the most interaction is important.

    I find it interesting that I’ll post something on LinkedIn and get a lot of interaction. From time to time I may decide to post the same thing on Facebook and get crickets…no interaction at all, so as you noted in your post, it’s important to track.

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    1. I’m glad you enjoyed it Yvonne. I’ve also experienced completely different results on the same post, and so I’m trying to determine ‘popularity patterns’ on different channels. The increased engagement will be worth all the work 🙂

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  12. Awesome tips! I especially love the one about sharing other people’s content. This is so important. Always give to receive.

    I LOVE how you mention collaboration too. Social media can be so time-consuming… that I like to focus on engaging with people that are reciprocal.

    I share some things because they are valuable without expecting a return. That’s fine. However, if you focus on people that will never return the favor, it can get discouraging fast. I learned this the hard way back in my early days of blogging.

    You gave some excellent advice about collaboration. BTW, sharing this on social media.

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    1. Thanks a lot Erica, I’m glad you enjoyed the tips 🙂 Social media is definitely time-consuming, but you mentioned creating social media plans in one of your posts, and so I’ve started following that advice.
      I do agree that trying to start a collaboration will sometimes disappoint you, but I always keep in mind that this is something all bloggers go through. Thanks for the share 🙂

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  15. Love tip 4, Davina! Not sharing others content that resonates with their audience is a mistake many small biz owners make online. It opens up a lot of opportunities – especially if you remember to tag the originator 🙂

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    1. I definitely agree with you Jan 🙂 Businesses definitely go further when they work with those with similar interests. Unfortunately, there seems to be a mentality of scarcity e.g. if I share another blogger’s article, then my audience will become loyal to them instead of me. I do my best to beat down this mentality 🙂

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  17. You got it right girl! Quality content is very important. If you have information that will add value to your readers, they will follow you. Engagement on your social media outlets is so much easier when you have something to say that is worth sharing. Great job on this. Keep it up and live unstoppable!

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  19. These are excellent tips for Social Media, most of which I need to pay more attention too. Right now my Social Media comprises of auto-posting my blog posts and that’s about it. I need to spend some time planning my social media marketing strategy and these tips will help.

    As for the Facebook Pages vs Groups – I’ve been considering starting a Group, to compliment my Business Page but there is the aspect of Administering a Group that can be pretty time consuming. Some people like to post rubbish or slander on Groups. Also people can be downright nasty on Groups, so consider this before starting a group page (i.e. How to Admin or what Rules Apply)

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    1. Thank you Duane, I’m glad to hear that these tips can help you with creating your strategy. I’m constantly tweaking my own social media strategy as there’s more to learn every day.

      And I do agree with you about the downsides of administering a group. I’ve heard a number of admins complaining about uncooperative members, as well as people who make it their mission to post inappropriate messages, photos, and videos. That’s why private groups with a bit of pre-screening is the best way to go. I wish you the best if you decide to go in this direction.

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