Information in this blog was obtained from the HubSpot Blog, Semrush.com, and SproutSocial.com.

What is Social Media Engagement?

Social Media Engagement is an umbrella term for actions that reflect and measure how much your audience interacts with your content. Social media engagement can include likes, comments, and shares, but varies by platform.

When looking at engagement numbers between months or even years, a birds' eye view is great at identifying trends. But you need other metrics to understand how you can improve and uncover the bigger picture. The trick is understanding what engagement is on a broad level and how to examine it at a micro-level.

How important is Social Media Engagement?

Social Media Engagement is important because it means your customers have a strong relationship with your brand which helps it grow. The more engaged your audience is then the more that other people will see the posts and the quicker you'll achieve your social media goals. Customers engaging with your brand is seen by their friends, family and co-workers. Social Media content could help or hinder your business depending on how you optimize your resources. If you are a company who always engages with your audience then you have a stronger chance of succeeding than if you do not engage with your audience. Engagement can also help you make changes and fix certain aspects of your business based on customer feedback that you might not have received without it. Making changes based on your audience's feedback will also help them feel as if they helped and made a difference. Companies who engage with your customers consistently are able to make small adjustments which can also help the company grow and become larger throughout the years. Social Media is one of the most important aspects of a business because it brings customers in.

How to Get Your Audience to Engage

1) Tell a Relevant Story

People thrive on stories, especially stories that impact them. It’s easy to tell your audience how great your brand is but creating a story that is relatable can make an impact on their future.

Storytelling can be incorporated on all social media platforms, although some are different than others.

Customers love to read content that is relevant to them because they draw attention to things in their life.

Customers wants to connect with companies on a personal level and a relevant story can help with that. Customer connections is what keeps customers involved and intrigued in a company. Customer connection can be even more important than customer engagement but they go hand-in-hand. There are multiple ways that customer connection can help with customer engagement but customer engagement can also help with customer connection. You are able to have one without the other but there is a chance of failure if you choose to disregard the other.

2) Utilize User-Generated Content

Creating a social media challenge or contest to cultivate user-generated content helps when you're running out of time or struggling to create your own content.

To create your own UGS, you could start with a contest similar to Apple's, or you can ask customers to get more creative. Ask them to send videos unboxing the product, engage them in a design remix challenge that spotlights the product, or have them take photos of them using the product.

Customers create their own opinions and posts about companies. This is something that you could use if you engage with them to make sure they're happy with the company and what it provides.

Let's say you own a bagel shop and you had a customer come in requesting a very specific bagel sandwich's made in a particular order, while it sounds frustrating to make, it could potentially increase your sales. The sandwich is made exactly the way the customer wants it made and in the particular way asked. The said customer makes a post raving about how wonderful and accommodating the employee was which brings in more customers the next day. This is content is generated by your customer which will help your company.

3) Share Content from Other Brands

Not all social media has to be created by you alone. One effective social media tactic is to share articles or posts from other brands. As long as they relate to your industry and aren't coming from competitors, articles from other brands can be valuable to your audience.

It can also give your audience a bit of a break from your brand so they don't become fatigued with your content.

Companies who share content from other brands are seen as confident in the product they produce and can in turn receive customers from the brand they shared the content from. They are able to help one another grow and obtain more customers while helping their own company.

Companies are also able to make changes and fix the issues they may run into by observing the engagement from similar companies. If you are able to see the issues that other companies have ran into then you are able to avoid those issues.

4) Engage with your Audience

Creating polls is a sneaky version of asking followers what they want to see.

By framing questions this way, followers can see the dedication your brand has to engage with their opinion.

Engagement is a large part of social media but it get forgotten about since it is something that not all companies involve.

Engagement can help your customers or employees feel important which will ensure they are happy with their item or job. There have been a couple times where I go to the grocery store and employees don't say a word to me which makes me feel invisible but the times that employees do say something, I feel as if I'm seen and important. People don't realize how much one small minimal thing can impact another.

Let's use the example from number two, the customer who requested the sandwich that was not on the menu makes a post on social media and tagged your company. The way you can engage would be to make a comment thanking the customer for their business, thank the customer for their sandwich idea and possibly put it on the menu, and share the post using the business account. If you share the post then your other customers and followers are able to see it which makes them realize they are able to ask for the same or similar things.

5) Create Beautiful and Eye-Catching Graphics

We are visual creatures. The brain processes images and videos 60,000 times faster than text.

You don't need to be a designer to make graphics that speak to your audience. PicMonkey is a web-based platform that offers you a variety of templates to help you create posts for Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Pinterest.

Canva is also a visual company that can be used to create graphic images.

Graphics can be engaging across all platforms since they're easier for followers to digest than text-heavy content.

Pictures stay in our minds and its how we are able to connect certain objects or aspects of our lives. I see certain flowers or animals and I'm reminded of family members or memories I hold close to my heart. These images that impact our lives can help companies grow if they use the right technique.

We are going to use the example from number two, the bagel shop. The sandwich was made and the customer was ecstatic about it because it was created exactly how it was ordered. A wonderful way to include graphics and pictures would be to re-create this sandwich once you have down time and take a beautiful picture which includes said sandwich. This picture can be taken and posted stating that you are able to make specific sandwiches that are requested as long as you have all ingredients and that customers do not have to stick with something that is on the menu. They are able to request certain accommodations to create their own meals or items.

For more information about Social Media Success, you can refer to Reed's blog post.

Creating social media should be fun and enthusiastic! If you enjoy creating the content then the posts will show it. Remember to tell a relevant story, utilize your user-generated content, share content from other brands, engage with your audience, and create beautiful and eye-catch graphics. Your audience wants to see what you're doing and how you're doing it. The graphics created and the stories told will keep the audience interested as well as hooked.

Humans need interaction which can benefit companies if it is used to their advantage. The issue that most companies have is that they do not utilize the engagement or the interaction. If you are able to utilize the engagement opportunity given then you are able to grow your customer base and make your customers happy time after time. Happy customers leads to good reviews, good review lead to more customers which could help you expand your company in the future.

Resources

Branyik, K. (2022, May 11). 11 ways to create engaging social media content. Semrush Blog. https://www.semrush.com/blog/11-ways-to-create-engaging-social-media-content/#9--create-beautiful-graphics

Carmicheal, K. (2020, January 22). 10 social media content ideas to delight customers. HubSpot Blog. https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/social-media-content-ideas

Social Media Engagement: What it is and tips to improve it. Sprout Social. (2023a, June 28). https://sproutsocial.com/insights/social-media-engagement/#what-is