All marketing experts praise the power of social media these days and advise business owners to have an intense activity on social networks. If you are reading this article, you have probably already tried to use social media marketing to your advantage, but failed to uncover its full potential. Truth is social media is not slowing down anytime soon, and knowing how to use it to promote your brand is vital. Here are 10 tips to help you obtain those social media engagement levels you have been dreaming of:
Competitions
One of the best social media engagement tips is to provide followers with the opportunity of getting something in exchange for a small effort. For instance, you can ask them to take a photo of them with one of your products and offer the prize to the contestant submitting the best photo.
Interacting with followers
The next social media engagement tip is probably the most common, but at the same time the most important. Interact with your followers! Communicate like a human being and not like an abstract organization and people will love it!
Attract influencers
Influencers are individuals with above-the-average impact on audiences; they are related to media outlets, industry associations, community tribes, or consumer groups. The idea is link to these people on social networks so their visibility is also transferred to your page. For instance post a high-quality comment to an influencer’s recent status.
Mix it up
If you’re social media account shouts “Buy! Buy now! Discounts!” audiences will avoid you like the plague. This is because nobody likes pushy sales speech these days. The solution is to have more knowledgeable posts on products and services rather than sales pitches. You need to make people know, like and trust you before trying to sell.
Consistent posting
If you start being active on social networks, you need to make sure you will stay like this for an undetermined period of time. A social media profile where you post once in a blue moon makes you look unprofessional and disinterested about your potential customers. It’s simply not effective. You should either post regularly (not necessarily every day!) or forget about social media marketing altogether.
Be provocative
What makes online marketing different from traditional marketing is the fact that audiences can reply to marketing messages. It’s two-way communication and this is what makes online marketing so effective. Ask your followers provocative questions and encourage them to submit user-generated content.
Use visuals
Visuals can’t replace quality written content, but the two go together hand in hand and enhance each other. Photos attract the audience’s attention and make you look authentic. They can be photos of your products or employees at work taken with your phone. These ones are the most effective because photos taken in a spontaneous manner instil more trust than photos taken with a professional camera.
Include calls-to-action
Entertaining and educative posts should represent the majority of your social media communication, but at some point you do have to send promotional messages to your audiences. After gradually building engagement and sparking followers’ interest, some of them are literally dying to take action and this is the moment to use messages like “Check our new arrivals here” or “Click here to view products on sale”.
Measure the success of your social messages
Some messages will be more effective than others, and the only way to find out is to check your social media stats. This will enable you to focus on messages that engage audiences and at the same time to improve those with a poor performance.
Focus on your most effective channels
Social media marketing is oftentimes a process of learning by mistake. If running your business already keeps you busy, it is recommended to focus on one social network first and learn from experience. It’s tempting to be everywhere, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Google+ and so on, but do you have the resources to create a powerful presence on all accounts? What you will obtain instead will be a dissolute brand message and lots of headaches with maintaining so many accounts while you are still learning how to do it. So, the keyword for beginners is “one”, one thing at a time, one social media account.
Social Media Consultant Brisbane
Which of these social media engagement tips do you find most useful right now? Let us know how it’s going!
With over 39 years’ experience in Print Media, Sales and Marketing, Online Services & Marketing plus Financial Service industries. John brings a wealth of knowledge to Visual Marketing Australia. As a Certified Google Partner, his Digital Marketing knowledge includes: Web Design & Development, SEO, Mobile App. Development, Online Marketing, Online Video Marketing and Email Marketing Solutions. With 12 years experience in using Zoho CRM it is a natural progression to become and Authorised Consulting Partner so we can now add Sales and Marketing Automation to the list.
