33 Ways to Boost YourSocial Media Engagement

Prepared by Kevin HuangOct 23, 2015

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Social Network Penetration Worldwide Is Ever-Increasing

Social networking is one of the most popular online activities with high user engagement rates and expanding mobile possibilities.

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The increased worldwide usage of smartphones and mobile devices has opened up the possibilities of mobile social networks

with increased features such as location-based services like Foursquare. 

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The 5 Levels of Social Media Engagement

Contributing

Endorsing

Observing

Following

Engaging

Level 1: Observing – watching the conversation from a far & simply “lurking” to decide if it’s interesting/valuable enough to join.

Level 2: Following – following the brand in some way, i.e. following on Twitter or Liking on Facebook.

Level 3: Engaging – interacting in a limited fashion, such as clicking through to read your content, viewing a video, or Liking a wall post.

Level 4: Endorsing – actively sharing your content with others, i.e. retweeting, sharing via Facebook, etc.

Level 5: Contributing – actively participating in the conversation and interacting with your brand, i.e. tweeting to your brand, posting on your Facebook wall, or commenting on a blog post.

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What social media engagement represents is a

two-way dialogue between brands and customers.The primary rule of engagement is: If you want

to increase engagement, be engaged. Like most people, social media users don’t care how much you know, until they know how much you care. Start by giving before you expect to receive.

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Social media engagement may come in the form of likes, shares, comments, tags, retweets, replies, mentions, follows,

favorites, repins, clicks, upvotes, +1s, views, listens…..

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Needless to say, being active on social media is an essential part of your

marketing plan.

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Do your fans interact with you on social media?

Want to spark more engagement?

But, how can you reach your audience more effectively than your competitors?

While it’s relatively easy to get people to like and share posts, it takes creativity to drive comments and dialog.

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Here are 33 ways to boost your social media engagement

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1. Make Use of Free Social Media Listening Tools 

• Google Alerts• Hootsuite/TweetDeck• Icerocket• Social Mention• Talkwalker• Topsy• Brand24

Social media engagement is a two-way street. The conversation starts with you listening to what your audience is saying. With all the free social media monitoring tools out there, there’s no excuse for not monitoring what the audience is saying about your brand.You can use the below tools to monitor where your brand or products are being mentioned, where your website links are being shared, and what kind of sentiment surrounds the conversations about your company and products.

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2. Be Visual 

It’s the age of the visual web. Today visual content is the most engaging form of content online. Research says that using images can result in an 85% interaction rate on Facebook and increased retweets by 35% on Twitter.

While creating an item like an infographic can be cost you a pretty penny, you can always share a relevant infographic or chart that your audience will enjoy and share. There are also plenty of other creative options for adding images to your social media account that include:• A behind the scenes shot of a new product

• Highlighting team members• Asking followers to add a caption to an image• Asking followers to share your image in action• Holding a photo contest• Sharing images from an industry event• Create a collage through tools like Fotor, Photovisi, Picasa, BeFunky, Ribbet or Canva.• Create cool and easy infographics with Piktochart.

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3. Create Engaging Videos

What is it about a video that captures viewers? For one thing, if done well it has a way of grabbing our attention, educating and entertaining at the same time. We’re taking in a lot of written content all day long. A video offers a few minutes of respite.

Marketers should take note of the growth of video within social and mobile channels and look for ways to invest further in video content, and create an engaging experience for users on mobile devices. The ROI of social marketing is on the rise and Adobe data shows that video content will certainly lead to better results than non-video content.

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4. Include Games, Contests and Giveaways

There’s no doubt that you’ve heard about the power of contests and giveaways. What’s great about these tactics is that it boosts engagement on the social media platform of your choice because people usually like receiving a prize of recognition.

Besides contests and giveaways, you can also use games to get your audience more active. Hootsuite suggests games like “What’s Your Best Guess?,” “Ask The Next Friend,” or asking “If your life/business was a (movie/book/song), which one would it be?” are all easy-to-implement games that will generate buzz around your social media account.

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TurboTax is well-known tax-filing software, which may not seem interesting and appealing to people. To add some fun during tax time, this year they initiated a lighthearted Instagram contest to promote their product. People had to follow the brand on Instagram and post a picture with three zeros and a designated hashtag, #absolute0, for a chance to win $500. The contest received more than 730 official entries.

Don’t just create any contest. Think outside the box and come up with something fans will want to participate in, share and discuss on your and their social sites.

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5. Start a Podcast

According to the Kissmetrics blog:

The reasons that podcasts boost engagement is that:

Starting a podcast can help you stand out in the crowded social media sphere and build a base of targeted subscribers who enjoy listening to your content.

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6. Ask Questions Creatively

Asking your fans questions may get some response. But if you really want to inspire engagement, take things up a notch.

Let’s say you’re in the food industry. A question like, “What’s your favorite dish?” could be so basic that fans might not bother to answer. Ask a similar question with multiple-choice answers, illustrated by an interesting graphic, and you’re likely to get plenty of responses.Post questions your audience wants to answer. Remember, pictures and a little humor do wonders for engagement.

Zomato, a restaurant finder app, writes excellent and witty social media posts. They ask questions designed to genuinely get to know their fans, and include intriguing, above-average graphics. As a result, their posts always get huge engagement.

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7. Arrange a Q&A Session

Your customers more than likely have questions for you, whether they’re on the company itself or your products and services. Establish a forum where they can be heard.

Host Google hangouts and Twitter chats or even create a simple Facebook post that asks your audience what they want to know about your company or product. You can interview experts related to your industry in that type of scenario as well.No matter what your business, there are things your audience wants to know. Give them an opportunity to ask, and as a result, there will be plenty of social media engagement.

For example, NASA occasionally arranges Google hangouts with astronauts and scientists, which are open to anyone interested in space exploration or work done by NASA.

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8. Respond in a Personal and Conversational Manner

Social media is… social. Show your brand is run by humans. Look at brands such as Oreo or Taco Bell as examples.Use first names when you are responding. Addressing your followers in this way makes them feel more appreciated—not to mention that people love to be acknowledged. Small gestures like these help to build loyalty.

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9. Keep the Conversation Going

This is another reason to respond to comments in an in-depth manner: A simple “yes” or “no” response pretty much ends the conversation.

• Try to end your comments with open-ended questions.• Even if there’s no way to keep the conversation going, end with something like, “Let us know if there’s anything else we can help you with,” or “If you have any more questions, please feel free to ask.”• Share related content, and ask for their feedback.

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10. Conduct Polls & Surveys

People are often willing to provide you their opinion—and this is especially true on social media networks. This means that conducting polls and surveys about your services, products, and brand in general are great ways to engage your followers and obtain valuable information about your customer base.

It also shows them that you care about their opinions, which in turn helps to build trust and loyalty, further strengthening your brand identity and reputation.• Use survey creation sites like Surveymonkey to easily create polls to post on your social media sites.• Be quick. Keep your surveys short and sweet. Your audience is more likely to respond when you keep your poll simple.• A poll is generally easier to do since you can just ask one question and have a list of answers to choose from. Because they take little to no effort to complete, followers are more likely to do them.• Surveys can take a little longer, which means you may want to offer an incentive for doing them, such as a coupon that provides a discount off a product or service.

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11. Encourage User-Generated Content

User-generated content (UGC) is an excellent way to get your fans talking on your page. It’s the most convenient, yet trickiest, way to get engagement. If you don’t draft the blueprint carefully, it might go unnoticed.

Starbucks’ #WhiteCupContest is an excellent example of a successful UGC contest. The coffee giant took the cue from their customers, who doodled vibrant designs on the brand’s iconic white cup. In 2014, they launched the first #WhiteCupContest, where customers were asked to design the cup, take a photo and share on social media using the hashtag.

The campaign received more than 4,000 entries in just three weeks. Overwhelmed by such amazing results, Starbucks launched the campaign again this year, but this time just for the store partners.When your fans contribute to the content on your page, they’re likely to engage and get their friends to join in.

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12. Credit/Tag Commenters or Sharers

87% of the recognition programs at companies today focus on tenure, where people get rewarded simply for sticking around. The same can be applied to loyal customers on your content.

Followers will be more inclined to post comments or share more of your content if you give them credit for doing so. People love to receive recognition.

• Curated content is a great way to provide high quality content from other sources to your followers. It shows them that you don’t mind sharing content you haven’t created yourself as long as it’s helpful to them, which is another excellent way to bolster brand trust.• When you use curated content, make sure that you tag the original writers.• This helps get them exposure—something they will definitely appreciate. Not only will they probably follow you if they haven’t already, they will most likely return the favor by sharing your content with their followers. In the end, it’s an excellent way to gain more exposure.

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13. Repurpose Your Content

Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Pinterest serve different demographics and have different features. Because of this, you should repurpose your content to fit the preferences of the specific social media audience you want to reach. For example, you could create a how-to-list for LinkedIn and convert that into an image to share on Facebook or Pinterest. You could even just update or republish one of your most popular articles. The idea is that you can use the same idea and amazing content to reach different audience across various mediums.

HubSpot has a helpful article that can get you started on rehashing your content.

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14. Connect With a Social Cause

Even if a social cause doesn’t directly relate to your brand, you can still embrace and promote it on your page. It’s always nice to do things for others. Plus, it enhances your branding.

Estée Lauder is a world-renowned beauty product manufacturer. When they conducted a Breast Cancer Awareness (BCA) campaign, it made them a socially aware and sensible brand. The call to action of the campaign was “Hear our stories. Share yours.” And that’s what their fans did.

They asked their audience to visit BCAcampaign.com to hear from breast cancer survivors and share their own stories. When they initiated the program, hundreds of people shared their stories on the platform.

If there’s a cause your company supports, create a campaign or just spread the word on your social pages. Fans are likely to engage with socially responsible content.

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15. Engage Through Social Issues

69% share information because it allows them to feel more involved in the world, and 84% share because it is a way to support causes or issues they care aboutMajor social issues shouldn’t be shied away from. Consumers relate more with companies that take a stance on important social issues. It can really help to strengthen your reputation, and posting about social issues will certainly foster engagement.• The value you provide and the entertainment you offer can instantly make your content more shareable and engaging.• Take some inspiration from Oreo, who is releasing whimsical images of its cookies redesigned to commemorate something that happened on a specific date.

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16. Post about Current Events

When you create content that relates to current events that people are already talking about, it really helps to engage your fans.

One of the quintessential Thanksgiving events is the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade. The giant balloons parade throughout New York City featuring some of the most beloved characters.

Macy’s took advantage of this “real-world” event and brought it to their digital fans across the globe. By bringing the floats to Facebook, they (and Macy’s Facebook community) could participate and discuss their favorite  balloons in real-time.

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17. Post Your Fans and Employees

People love attention and when you make them the focus of attention on your social media profiles, they’re more likely to engage with your brand. You can do this for both, your fans and employees.

Share the photos that fans post when they tag or check-in to your page. Share your employees’ achievements and post fun images of them on the job. They’re more likely to repost or share them to their own friends and followers.

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18. Be Like Tylor Swift

Taylor Swift is the Queen of fan engagement. See how her fans reacted when she sent them personalized Christmas gifts and handwritten cards.

Can social media marketers come up with a campaign to personalize promotions to their fans and followers? It doesn’t even have to cost the earth. The benefit: Creating ecstatic fans and brand advocates.

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19. Organize an Event

A great way to increase engagement on social media is to organize and promote an event. It could be an online event, like a Tweetchat or a Google Hangout or a webinar, or an offline event like a conference or retreat.

Once the event is over, share the results of the Tweetchat or Hangout. Mention how many people attended and what conversation took place. If you attended a conference or a retreat, post photos of the event afterwards.

People love to share the fact that they attended an event. If you feature other attendees, they’ll likely tag themselves and share your photos with their own network.

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20. Start a Facebook Group

Facebook groups actually have better visibility in the newsfeed than Facebook pages. When any group member posts to the group, that post will go into all the other members’ news feeds (Source).Groups work very well for causes and communities that allow every group member to be an active participant in the discussion. If you can come up with an interesting community or cause that would attract your target audience, a group might give you better engagement than a Facebook page.

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21. Join Twitter Chat

Instead of posting Tweets or sending direct messages, you can have conversations using Twitter chats. This is beneficial because Twitter chats allows you to have real-time conversations with hundreds of different users at the same time.

This makes Twitter chats a great way to hold a question and answer session. Or you can join other Twitter chats relevant to your brand and provide valuable input in order to garner interest in your brand from Twitter users who aren’t part of your follower base yet.

• 67% of Twitter users are far more likely to buy from the brands they follow on Twitter.• Pick a topic that is relevant and many people can participate in.• Look to leading niches in your industry and reach out to them to co-host with you to expand your network.

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22. Use #hashtags

Hashtags identify the subject of your content, making it easier to find for Twitter users who aren’t followers but are searching for similar subjects. Because of this, using hashtags is an incredible way to boost social media engagement among both followers and nonfollowers since you’re making your content more visible.

• A good hashtag is memorable, unique, and relevant to your campaign.• Try not to use more than 2 hashtags per post (otherwise it looks like spam).• Research the hashtag before you use it.

Hashtags help users to easily search social networks like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Google+, and even others for areas of interest. They are a great way to join in a conversation already happening or organize a conversation, like a Twitter chat.

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23. Use Google+ Features

This post from Social Media Examiner recommends using Google+ Circles, Communities and Hangouts to create valuable conversations. Join a community that fits your company’s industry or create your own.

Use Google+ Hangouts or Hangouts on Air to start a video chat and connect with your audience. As with any social media network, the effort you put into your Google+ community building will determine the results you get from it.

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24. Share Visual Quotes

Visual quotes are one of the easiest content formats to create. They’re also likely to get more likes and shares than other forms of content. All you have to do is pick an appropriate quote from BrainyQuote or GoodReads, and use any image editor to paste it into an image. Upload it and you’re done.

If you know where to find free images that don’t require attribution, (Pixabay is one of my favorites), and use a free online image editor, you can do it all at no cost. No need to hire a graphic designer.

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With the death of organic reach on Facebook, pay to play is the new mantra. Facebook has many options to help you boost engagement, and their Promoted Posts option is one of the best.

Boost your posts to increase likes and engagement on content that is important to you. You will be able to reach a much larger audience than just your page fans, with a greater degree of certainty.

25. Pay to Play

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26. Include a CTA

A CTA is a call-to-action – a clear instruction that tells your audience how you want them to respond to your post. If you’re running an ad, a CTA is crucial to increasing your ROI. But even if you’re just posting regular content, you can increase your engagement by asking your readers to respond using any one of the following CTAs below:

• Read more• Click here• Subscribe now• Please RT• Please share• Leave a comment• Post a caption• Buy now

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27. Use Emotions

Using emoticons increases comments by 33%.• Smiling faces boost conversions because people feel like the really are talking to a real person. In fact, statistics show that the use of emoticons will boost the engagement of your posts.

• Emoticons add human emotions, and it comes across positively with your audience. Using emoticons will boost the share and comment rate of your posts, and can help increase likes by as much as 57%.

• Emoticons show a certain element of playfulness that provides your brand with a bit of personality.  When responding to a negative comment or critique, emoticons soften the blow.

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28. Keep Your Posts to the Optimal Length

Posts that are a certain length are likely to get more likes, shares and retweets. Here’s the optimal length for content on social media networks.

• Tweets: 71 – 100 characters• Facebook Posts: 40 characters• LinkedIn Posts: 25 words• Google+ posts: 60 characters• Hashtag: 6 characters• Title Tags: 55 characters• Blogs: 1,600 words

This data is courtesy of a useful infographic from BufferSocial. Check it out if you want to know the optimal post length for every social network, including YouTube.

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29. Solve Customer Problems

The best kind of content for any company in the business of providing solutions is the kind that helps customers solve their problems.

A well-thought-out and executed content marketing campaign should focus on how your customers can use your products and services to make their lives easier. “How to” content that helps them fix some aspect of their lives will usually get higher levels of engagement.

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30. Provide Exceptional Social Customer Service

There’s no excuse today for not answering your customer’s queries, complaints or comments on your social media channels. Social media has changed the rules of customer engagement and they expect to be responded to in a few hours or less.

Keep your engagement rates high with a customer service executive dedicated to your social media channels. Or else hire a social media manager to answer customer queries.

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31. Post at Optimal Times

There are certain times of day when your social media posts will get the most engagement. Use a scheduler like Hootsuite, BufferApp etc to schedule content for optimal times.

Quicksprout has a neat infographic with the optimal times to post on different networks. But it’s best if you test and track what times work best for your own demographic before blindly following the timings in these reports.

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32. Use Social Media Tools

Almost every social media platform provides its users with a number of different tools that you can use in order to improve your social media strategy.

Tools such as Twitter Analytics, Google Analytics, TweetDeck, and Sprout Social can provide you with valuable information such as social activity numbers and follower demographics in addition to making it easier to track and monitor social conversations.

By using these analytics tools, you’ll make it easy to see how effective your social media engagement tactics are, thereby letting you adjust your techniques accordingly.• Use the headline analyzer to ensure that your content is appealing and emotional.• Customize your posts to each tool, don’t use the same tagline for Facebook and Twitter—they all have different lengths, use cases, and purposes that draw attention.• Try getting in contact with content creation communities.

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The brands that have built a highly engaged and large social media following are the ones that adopted use of a social media channel before their competitors. For example, Starbucks’ Instagram channel has over 6 million followers. Get a leg up on the competition by becoming an early adopter and jumping on the latest way of sharing content.

33. Be an Early Adopter

Although it’s early days for both these apps, brands like Red Bull, Starbucks, the Miami Dolphins, Mastercard and BuzzFeed are already testing Meerkat and Periscope. Becoming an early adopter for these apps can help you get ahead of the competition in the social media engagement stakes.

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What Social Media Engagement Tactics Work For

You?Social media is a valuable marketing tool set because it helps you directly engage with your customers. The more effective you are at engaging with consumers, the more successful you will be at growing your subscriber rate, which in turn will help provide you with more leads to conversions.

I hope you found this information helpful!