10 ways to boost your social media using the power of engagement.

Hello,?

I hope January is treating you well and 2023 is shaping up to be your year, no matter what you have planned.

Last week I wrote about the importance of keywords and hashtags when it comes to getting your content in front of a larger audience.

This week's article is a lot less technical and much more about the fun side of social media. Growing your connections and building relationships or, quite simply, improving your engagement.?

So, what is social media engagement?

It's a term we use to reflect and measure how much interaction you get with your content. People and businesses often focus on the likes, comments and shares they get on individual posts. And whilst these are great metrics to focus on, they only tell part of the story.?

The engagement metrics you need to focus on will depend on what you try to achieve with your social media and can be divided up as follows:

• Interaction with your posts:?Comments, likes and shares.?
• Interaction with your page or bio:?Call to action button clicks, profile views, follows and connections
• Interaction in direct messages:?Messaging, responding to messages and driving conversation.?

If your goal is to drive more sign-ups to a lead magnet, lead form or newsletter, you will also need to measure how many people signed up as a result of your presence on social media - as this demonstrates that they are engaging with your content.?

What type of engagement should I measure?

I would recommend looking at all the aforementioned metrics, as this will help you to understand what works best over time.

You may be getting a lot of likes, comments, shares and profile views, but if this doesn't convert to leads and enquiries over time, you will need to look at how you can improve this.

In contrast, if you are talking about a sensitive subject - domestic abuse, divorce, illness (to name a few). Your target audience may be reading your content, but they may not engage publicly.??

Moreover, a lot of people are a little bit scared of engaging publicly on social media, so you do need to pay attention to what is going on behind the scenes and whether your content is driving direct messages, enquiries and website traffic.

The good news is that the algorithms consider how interesting and relevant your post is to your audience and how long people spend reading or watching your content.?So if your content is relevant and you are getting a lot of interaction behind the scenes, you still stand a chance of being seen and discovered by your target audience.?

How to increase your engagement

Now we will look at ways to increase your engagement and build relationships on social media. This will vary slightly from platform to platform and between businesses. So do monitor what's working for you:

1) Check your metrics:?You can view these in the analytics section of your account. This will enable you to see likes, comments, shares, profile visits, and much more.??

These metrics will give you an idea of what posts and formats are working well for you and help you to understand what resonates with your audience. If you spot a post that has performed exceptionally well, you will need to note why it stood out.?

Think about - the type of post it was, the content it contained and when you posted it. If you have several posts that outstripped the others, you will likely see some commonality between the content.?

2) Think about your audience:?We all need to create content that helps our audience, tells them a little bit about us and ultimately answers any questions they might have about the services you offer.?

So think about what people want to see and hear from you and ensure you include some personality and a little bit of your story. This doesn't need to be super personal if that's not something you are comfortable with.?

It could be something as simple as a business challenge you have overcome, a post about someone who inspires you, or a cause you care about.?

If you are unsure what people want to know about you and your business, then do your research - surveys, networking on and offline and thinking about the questions clients and prospects often ask you is a great way to uncover this.?

3) Test your post types:?Some posts and format types will perform better for you than others, and you may see a difference between different platforms. So make sure you trial and track which formats work best for you and create and share more of those.

4) Include a call to action:?Your audience may need to learn what action you want them to take or even how to take it. So if you want them to do something, tell them how to take that action or even show them how.?

5)?Make your copy clear:?How often do you scroll through social media without giving it your full attention? Long paragraphs, sentences and giant walls of text are hard to read on a small screen and hard for people to skim read.

Keep your sentences and paragraphs short and well-spaced, and include emojis and questions.?

6) Check your timings: I have been experimenting with this a lot recently! If you want your audience to see and engage with your post, you will need to share it when they are online and have time to do so.?

Experimenting with your posting times can be an excellent way to find this out. Reviewing the times of your most and least successful posts and asking your audience about their online habits will also help.?

7) Don't just post and run:?It's tempting to put that post out there and leave it to do its thing. But if people are taking the time to engage with your posts and start a conversation online or behind the scenes, then you need to make time to reply and drive that conversation.?

Trust me, it's a lot more fun than creating content, and you'll begin to build relationships with people, find out what makes them tick and reach a wider audience.?

8) Make time to engage with other people and businesses:?This could be for support, widening your network, or finding collaborators and clients. It's the more social side of social media, and it will get your name and, eventually, your content in front of a new audience.?

9) Find people to collaborate with:?This works on and offline. You could run a joint campaign, do a live video together or run a clinic. Collaborations will make you more credible, make your social media more interesting and give you access to a new or different audience.?

10) Don't ignore your followers and connections: Direct messaging is powerful, and connecting with people behind the scenes will help build relationships.?

If you feel a bit nervous about reaching out (don't worry - that's perfectly normal). Just say why you are connecting and/ or why their profile or post stood out to you.?

Make time in your day or week to do some of these things, and track and measure how this impacts your social media presence.

If you are still scratching your head or don't have the time or inclination to develop your own social media strategy or review your progress, then I would love to see how I can help.?

So do pop me a DM, email me:?[email protected]?or book a free no-obligation discovery call here.

I hope you find these tips helpful.

Mel x

#socialmediastrategy #socialforgrowth #socialemediatactics