What do you do if your social media content isn't getting the engagement you want?

You should always offer unique content and think twice before posting anything. Is it something your audience is interested in and worth reading, or is it just another post on the same topic that could be found somewhere else? Don't waste the people's time!

This is a great question. Because social media is in constant flux, it's important to stay informed about the platforms you engage on. Stay up to date on the current information for the platforms and their algorithms. Next, review your content and see which ones got the most engagement. Take that content, boost, recreate, and create more content around those topics or people that your audience relates to.

First and foremost, you should know your business (the overall industry, the latest trends, the major stakeholders (aka your audience) the challenges, opportunities...) in and out. This is help you gather valuable information to start crafting compelling contents. Analyze the performance of your post, not just in terms of likes or shares, but how they perform vis-à-vis your major competitors. Take customers' feedback into account and continually enhance your contents.

More than knowing your audience, you need to interact with them. This means responding to your followers' comments, messages and mentions in a timely and authentic manner. Show that you value your audience's feedback and interaction, and this will encourage more engagement with your posts.

Understanding your audience is pivotal not just in crafting content, but also in deciding the platforms we use and the communication style we adopt. As a communications professional, it's essential to dive deeper than surface-level demographics. Consider looking at psychographics, which includes audience lifestyle, values, and beliefs. This knowledge will inform not only what kind of content to create but how to present it. For instance, if your audience values sustainability, highlight eco-friendly practices in your content. Additionally, engage in social listening to capture the sentiment and discussions your audience is having online; use this to tailor content to current interests, making it more relatable and shareable.

Get back at analysis: 1. what are the goals you want to achieve 2. what involvement do you need to achieve it 3. what target you need to achieve it 4. does point 2 and 3 have a sufficient base for the the goals to be achieved? 5. create a communication strategy expecially targeted at the people you need to involve 6. create contents targeting the various needs and peculiarities of the people you want to interact with 7. choose the social media wisely

Proper contextualization is key here. Contrary to popular opinion, low engagement is acceptable if your business objective is to generate leads or bring in quality conversions. In that case, it is wiser to prioritize lead generation over high engagement, especially if you have a brand that caters to a 'niche' audience.

Make it as personnal as possible (up to a point), social media content is not (entirely) institutionnal communication from a company. In the long term your audience should acknowledge you have a voice of your own.

The world of social media, and those who consume it, can be fickle. It can also be extraordinarily fast-moving, meaning content has to maintain pace with the cultural zeitgeist. If you’re not getting the engagement you want, it may be because by the time people see your content, they’ve moved to a new topic of conversation. Assess how you’re monitoring trends and deciding on what to post about. Also try mixing in some evergreen content, so timeliness is less of a factor. If you’re in a regulated industry, like healthcare or finance, try getting advanced approvals on posts where needed, so there’s less of a delay, and your content can be timely and keep up with current conversation.

Don't be afraid to experiment with different content formats, such as tutorials, surveys, stories, live broadcasts, etc. See what resonates best with your audience and adjust your strategy accordingly.

Creating valuable content doesn't mean posting every trending topics or social media buzz but you can build around "meaningful " everyday events. Example is Redbull, they did similar thing with the last eclipse that just passed. This creative social media engagement has led to an incredible online community bonding. Don't just post about your products & services people will get bored but post what they can do or get by using it. For hospitality things like : serenity, comfort,happiness, quality meal, discount, energy saving, family package etc should be the things to gain traction. One must be present on every social Media platform because different age grade uses different platforms more.

Mix it up! You want to be consistent with your brand voice, but you also want to provide a variety of types of content for your audience and you want to consider what features of the platform you are using. For example, you may create a beautiful multi-photo post on Instagram and get minimal engagement, but if you shared those photos as a story instead you'd get higher engagement. So knowing where to post what can be valuable in optimizing your engagement.

1. Analyze Peak Times: Use social media analytics tools to identify the times when your audience is most active online. Schedule your posts during these peak hours to maximize visibility and engagement. 2. Use Visual Content: Incorporate eye-catching visuals such as images, videos, and infographics into your posts. Visual content tends to attract more attention and encourages higher levels of engagement from your audience.

Try a different timeline and scheduling patterns, and play with things outside your comfort zone. What you may not like personally might be a hit with your audience and vice versa! Also check what platform are you on and is the content you are giving, resonating with the audience! The posts of LinkedIn (for eg) might not work with Instagram..

One thing I found helpful was using the world clock on your cellphone so you know what time your selected audience is awake and active.

This has definitely made a difference in the impact of our social media presence. In addition to responding to comments, messages, posts, etc. we also encourage and share user generated content, particularly on platforms such as Instagram, which has a different voice compared to our other platforms. This works for us as an event venue because our audience can see first-hand guest experiences and are often inclined to follow our channels and engage with us and other guests.

This is a very important function of any social media strategy. While you engage with potential audiance that builds your credibility and most likely they will become your customers.

Try again, try better. Different format, different visuals, different posting time. Play with the copy - could it be shorter? Could it become a listicle? Get feedback - from other colleagues, from family and friends. And above all, don‘t get discouraged!

In addition to using analytics and similar testing platforms, I like to sample my target audience. If you’re targeting a specific age, profession, ethnic group, education level, sex, etc., create a few groups to review your content and presentation. Go straight to your audience, and ask them very specific questions about ease of use, content, relevance, authenticity, and value. Don’t ask yes or no questions. Ask open-ended questions in hopes of getting lots of detail. And be prepared with follow-up questions. Once you make changes based on your research. Ask the group to review your new content. Make sure you got it right.

Social media is ever-changing. With changes in the algorithms and trends, there are low engagement days and weeks for the best of the brands and agencies. What helps during this time is to experiment, try newer formats, and bring back what worked for you earlier. Something that works especially well is creating UGC aka User-generated content. It helps you to understand your audience, generate engagement, and encourage communication because, at the end of the day, a strong and loyal community is what everyone is looking out for.

Many people leave AB testing to just marketers, but that's not all. Test, and retweaked your contents. Personally, I practice all the listed options to ensure my team churn out the best content and the engagement effort matches our efforts as well.

Try things! Use A-B testing to try a funny headline, a serious headline and a headline that uses the word "you" to see how each fares. This will help you understand what audiences on different platforms respond to. You might be shocked to discover how much your Insta audience varies from your X followers.

If you aren’t getting the engagement you want do two things: MAKE BETTER CONTENT and pay to promote it. Great content takes investment in the form of effort and dollars. FOCUS ALL YOUR INVESTMENT ON GREAT CONTENT. Paying to promote crappy content will make your engagement worse not better over the long term because it makes you look bad to your audience.

Most corporate page engagements are down for a couple of reasons but for LinkedIn in particular they are prioritising peer to peer content Try looking at an employee influencer programme to widen your reach

If you are managing multiple channels, be sure to make the content offerings on each platform unique and then cross-promote. Maybe X is where your org shares company news updates and Facebook is where you will find upcoming events and Instagram is where you will find practical ways to use your organization's products. If you use the same content on all of your platforms then your audience will have no reason to follow you in multiple spaces and you will be diluting your reach.

With other activities that measure success based on the results they achieve, you would look for mentorship. It doesn’t matter whether it’s sales or sports it’s imperative to find a top performer & learn everything you can from them. With the wide usage of social media, a lot of people feel that transitioning into content creation should come naturally, but it doesn’t. Algorithms, trends & audience all need to be accounted for. The truth is most of the people that accidentally become viral on social media find it hard to replicate without understanding why it happened in the first place. A mentor will help shorten the learning curve & achieve better results with a social media campaign. When results are critical, so is finding a mentor.

One of the best practices for improving engagement with your audience is to constantly analyze data. Use the analysis tools available on social media platforms to better understand the performance of your content. Analyse metrics such as reach, impressions, clicks, engagement rates and comments to identify patterns and areas for improvement.