✋ Raise your hand if one of your social media goals is boosting engagement! Now, keep your hand raised if you are aiming for genuine and meaningful engagement that will convert people into consumers.
Boosting meaningful engagement is an excellent strategy to build an interested and engaged follower base that trusts and is genuinely interested in your brand. It's a powerful method to raise awareness and ultimately convert individuals into leads, and then into loyal consumers. The key is to lead interested individuals in with your authentic content, build trust, establish a connection, and finally, convert them into consumers of your brand.
We understand this is easier said than done, so we've outlined a few tips to keep in mind when deciding how to leverage social media to elevate your brand and boost and retain engagement.
IDENTIFY YOUR AUDIENCE AND SPEAK TO THEM
Building genuine engagement is like building a meaningful relationship; you need to focus only on you, your partner, and your needs. In terms of brand engagement, this means prioritizing your target audience. Just as in a relationship, if you attempt to capture the attention of anyone and everyone, you’ll likely lose that relationship. It's the same idea if your goal is to just reach thousands of people regardless of their interest in your brand, their spending habits, their location, etc.; you'll lose the audience that is interested in you.
To start, identify your target audience - their interests, habits, problems they may encounter, and what their day-to-day life looks like. Tailor your content to create a better journey for your audience.
Consistency is key; over time, you'll learn what resonates with your audience and what doesn't, leading to consistent genuine engagement. Build a community; create the feeling of being seen, heard, and valued.
BUILD A COMMUNITY
Once you've identified your audience, it's time to foster a community. Consistency is once again crucial. On social media, people form assumptions about your brand based on the content you put out.
Maintaining a consistent brand voice and image that sounds human, authentic, and consistent allows people to identify and connect with you as more than a brand. There are millions of brands in the world. How do you want to be seen? As another brand? Maybe put a face to the brand or a mission to the brand that will attract and connect with your audience.
When people connect with you, they're more likely to engage.
To boost meaningful engagement, you want people to feel a part of your community. Establishing a consistent brand voice and image fosters recognition, comfort, and familiarity, elements that make people feel welcome.
BE SOCIAL
Social media is a two-way street. Engage with comments; show your followers and prospective followers that you care about them and what they want to see. Demonstrating that there's a reason for them to engage - whether it's through questions, polls, or comments - ensures that your community feels valued and heard.
Create the feeling that your business genuinely cares about its followers and in turn, people will genuinely care about your brand.
TRENDS ARE NOT THE BE-ALL AND END-ALL
While trends are often seen as vital to staying on top of since they help build views, engagement, and boost your follower count, all too often, we see brands produce one viral video and then struggle to maintain consistency. You’re probably wondering why. Why are many new followers not engaging? Why, after receiving numerous engagements on my fun trending video, did my views plummet on my next few videos or posts?
Trending videos do not necessarily foster genuine connection and community building. Rather, they serve as entertainment pieces if you don't put in your own flair and make them your own in some capacity.
However, we aren’t saying do not use them. There are ways to use trends to your advantage to continue building a genuine community with engaged followers, so when your regular content comes up, so does your engagement.
You should use trends when and if they align with your brand and if you can add your twist to them! Make it something tailored for your brand and your audience rather than for anyone and everyone. We often get consumed with getting the most followers and the most reach because big numbers look like success but that is too often not the case.
Would you rather have a million followers but about 10 people engage with your brand's content, or would you rather have 5000 followers with over half engaging and showing interest in your brand?
Once you narrow down to those who have an interest or a problem you can solve, that's who you are talking to!
BE AUTHENTIC TO YOURSELF
It will be obvious when you're not creating your original content. Being authentic to yourself will also naturally create content that stands out, as you and your business are unique in some way. In a world where we are constantly consuming content, to stand out is to be yourself, not to follow along.
TRACK THE RIGHT METRICS
To boost meaningful engagement, you need to know what to track to test if your strategies are working or not. However, the metrics to track will be different for everyone. Start by identifying what you want your audience to do. What actions would suggest interest? Where are my followers going? Am I leading them to the website, booking page, or contact page? Are people sharing and sending informative content? Start by identifying these points in your strategies so you know what to look for and what is success for your brand.
TAKE-HOME POINT
Keep an eye on emerging platforms and trends, but don't abandon your core platforms and strategies! Experimenting and thinking outside the box are crucial and great tools to test what content works and doesn’t while remaining fresh and exciting. But remember to evaluate the results of each piece; who is seeing and engaging - is it your target audience?
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