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Engagement comes in the form of metrics such as:

Everyone wants more likes, pins, comments and shares on their social media posts. Every brand understands how important it is to be on social media. Social media is not designed to be a one-way street so you can’t just broadcast your messages and expect people to engage with you. Learn more about engagement and how to make followers fall in love with you!

1. Master your target audience

First, you must understand your target audience. You need to build a marketing persona and understand what matters most of them. Besides that, you need to create content that people are likely to share on their social media profiles. Don’t forget that content is only effective if it is compelling enough to incite users into sharing it.

2. Customise your posts for each social media platform

Keep in mind that every social media platform is different. The content you create should vary depending on the channel you choose. Tailor your content according to your marketing personas to ensure maximum reach and engagement. (Click here to read about the differences between Instagram VS Youtube VS Facebook) 

3. Enrich your content with social media influencer

95% of marketers believe that influencer marketing strategy is effective.

Social media influencers boast a greater ability to provide brands with an increased reach and can give your social media marketing campaign a boost as they are excellent content creators, and they know what their audiences want. Make the most of their influence by getting them to enrich your social media content. This could provide existing followers with refreshing content that differs from your usual posts.

There are a number of ways to have influencers enrich your social media content. For instance, as shown from the above picture, you could host an influencer takeover in which select influencers take over your social media account for a day. This is most popular with Instagram, and can increase social media engagement significantly. You could also feature influencer content on your own social media profiles. Or you could even post a video in which you interview influencers.

4. Host contests and giveaways

Another excellent way to increase social media engagement is by hosting a giveaway contest. This tactic drives engagement mainly because people have a chance of receiving something. This could compel them to engage with brand or influencer content on social media.

And based on how you execute the contest, you could also boost the amount of user-generated content for your brand. For instance, requiring participants to share their photos using a unique branded hashtag will create more UGC.

By hosting a giveaway contest, you’ll increase social media engagement among your existing followers. For instance, maybe they’ll need to like the post, and tag their friends in the comments in order to participate.

5. Schedule your posts for the right timing

Social media users aren’t online all the time. So if you happen to post something while most of your followers are inactive, you could potentially lose out on engagement opportunities. To increase social media engagement, find out when your followers of your country are most likely to be online and then schedule your posts accordingly. The goal is to have them see your posts and possibly like, comments, and/or share the posts.

The best times to post can differ according to many factors, such as time zone and target demographic. But it can also differ according to the social media channels you’re using. 

The graph from the above indicates that Malaysian are most active on social media after the working hours. (Download our whitepaper for further reading!)

6. Feature fans and customers

One of the most effective ways to increase social media engagement is to feature your customers and turn them into brand advocates. When you share user-generated content on social media, you achieve a few benefits.

First of all, you’re providing followers with proof that your existing customers love your products. And you’re also winning the loyalty of the fans whose posts you share by making them feel appreciated.

If you want to increase social media engagement even more, you can combine this with a unique branded hashtag. Encourage customers to share photos where they’re using the product and include the hashtag in their description. You can offer a chance to be featured in your social media in exchange for their reciprocity.

7. Go live

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(Oppo is leveraging influencers like Lizz Chloe & Neelofa to showcase their newly launched phone through Facebook Live)

For your information, Facebook users watch 8 billion videos on average per day. In fact, 4x as many consumers would prefer to watch a video about a product than to read about it.

With the introduction of Instagram Live and Facebook Live, brands have new options to increase social media engagement. You can make the most of these options to engage fans on a real-time basis. Try live streaming your launch event, product showcase, or an industry event. You can also leverage influencers to go live for a social media campaign for a better response. 

8. Promote attractive offers

One such way to engage your audience is to provide them with attractive offers. You can offer:

• Instant discount coupons/promotional codes
• Free shipping/delivery
• Freebies
• Membership at a reasonable cost
• Cashback

Such offers can help you increase social media engagement as well as sales.

9. Use hashtags to double your engagement rate

Using hashtags on social media platform can double your engagement rate. Especially on Instagram, you can use a lot of them to help your followers find your content.

10. Don’t ignore analytics

It is important to dig deep to analytics. When you access the data and comb through reports, you can gather critical information, such as what is your competitor doing, what is the content strategy from your competitor, the overall performance of an influencer profile and what types of posts perform better. Use that insight to tailor your content strategy and optimize your efforts. Track your efforts and analyze your successes!

Need a social media specialist to helps your social media distribution and engagement efforts? Contact us now!