The more engagement you can create on social media, the better, because it looks like you are really active on social media, whichever social media channel it is. This can apply to LinkedIn, TikTok, Facebook, all of them.

Engagement is key; it’s really important.

Last week in my tip I talked about creating a community and a tribe, those people that follow you and love what you do.  We really want these followers to comment on our posts, share the posts and to tag other people in them as well.

Why is important to create engagement?

When people comment on your posts, more people see it. Facebook and all the other social media channels have an algorithm that looks at how you’re communicating with people, how you’re interacting, and the more that people like and share your posts, the more people will see them. That means it boosts your brand awareness.

One of the most important things I do as a marketing consultant is raising brand awareness, shouting about your business, telling people what you do. So, it’s really important for boosting your brand awareness.

It’s important because it helps you reach more people. If you just post and nobody comments, then fewer people are going to see it. If more people are commenting then it’s going to show up in other people’s feeds, it’s going to show up in other businesses feeds, it’s going to show up in their friends feeds, and more and more people will see it, and then more people will hopefully engage with it as well.

It also makes it easier to attract new customers as well. If people are looking on your page and there’s loads of engagement, there are loads of comments, there’s loads of interaction, people are more likely to look at you and think “Ah right, this is a really active page, it’s really interesting, it’s really informative, loads of people are commenting.” That is why engagement is really important.

Here are my top tips on how to create engagement…

When you are thinking about planning your content or if you’re just spontaneously putting posts out there, these three things are going to help you think about how you can get more engagement.

Ask A Question

By asking a question, you’re creating a discussion. I might ask a question about something specific in marketing, like if other marketing people have used a social media platform or if people can give me any advice on something or use a current discussion topic, like at the moment it is Coronavirus and how it’s affecting business, people and life in general. I found particularly that posing questions and creating the discussion topic has really improved my social media over the last six months or so.

So, try that. Think about every now and then asking some discussion questions.

Educate

Top tip two is to educate.

Whatever you do, whatever your business is, whatever your specialism is, you are an expert in that field. People that follow you want to know about what you know so, educate people.

This can be anything. If you are an accountant, you can educate people about their taxes.  Marketing, well I’m educating you now about marketing tips that might help you in your business. If you are a butcher, you might educate people about how to sharpen their knives or make some recipes or prepare a cut of meat.

If you own a shop, you might be telling people about new products that have come in and why they’re special or what’s unique about them.

Put yourself at the forefront and show them that you’re an expert and that you can educate them in your specialism and your field.

Inspire

My third tip is to inspire.

We know about inspirational quotes used in business. If you can find some quotes, or even make your own up, that play on people’s emotions and resonate with people, that’s a great way of creating engagement. Some of my most popular posts are inspirational quotes, but I don’t just put general wishy-washy things. I never just put a quote, I always put a quote, and then some of my feedback or what I think about that quote or why it resonates with me. Then I ask a question and get people talking about it.

Quotes can be really powerful things.

Sharing testimonials is also inspiring to potential new clients and customers. Tell people about what your clients or your customers have said about you.

Story telling is also inspiring. I was made redundant, so that’s quite a poignant thing to tell people or talking about sharing a story, inspiring people about where you’ve got in business.

So, asking a question, educating people and inspiring people are three really good ways to create engagement. Get people talking on your social media profiles and to interact with you.

The more comments, the more likes, the more shares, the better.

Another little tip here for you, and I’ve actually just learnt it this week. There has been some research done and actually sharing a post or saving a post is what you want people to do because they are two of the things that Facebook looks at.

So, it’s brilliant to get comments and likes, get people to tag posts, share posts and save posts as well.

To recap, ask a question, educate people and inspire people. These are my three top tips on how to create engagement. If you have a little look at any of my social media profiles, you can probably tell which of my posts fall into those categories, and it’s a really good structure of how to write your social media content as well.

If you have any questions about marketing, strategy, social media and your business, please get in contact and we can discuss how I can help you.