t’s no secret that engagement is the key to your successful social media marketing strategy.  One of the key components of your online marketing plan is to build relationships with your audience.  The best way to build relationships is to engage with them.  Unfortunately, online business owners are not engaging with their audience like they should. And they’re not being successful with their social media strategy.

Below are some tips that can help any entrepreneur increase their online engagement.

1. Pictures and Videos– Visual communication is huge right now.  People are more likely to comment and share an image or video than text.  If you want to get more likes, RTs, and shares, you should consider using more images in your posts.  Images are fairly inexpensive to use.  www.freedigitalphotos.com gives you free images, as long as you give them contribution, and www.canva.com sale images for only $1.00.
2. Tools- Did you know that there are social media tools available to help with engagement?  Tools like Pagemodo and Post Planner gives you status ideas for getting engagement  will help you get engagement for your social media pages. When I started using pagemodo, I got three times the engagement on my Facebook page.
3. Contests- Have you tried using contests to increase engagement? When done right, a contest can increase comments, shares, retweets, likes, pins and more.  People love participating in contests.  As long as you’re giving away something quality that your target market is interested in, they will engage with your contests.  They may also stay connected to your page, because they’re interested in your business.
4. Be Personal- Are you being authentic in your social media sites?  It’s true, people like connected with people, not businesses.  Being yourself will attract people to you.   The perfect way to stand out from others in your field is being authentic.  There’s only one you, and if you be yourself in your social media, it will draw people to you.
5. Ask questions- Don’t know what to blog about next?  Ask your audience.  For example, when I’m not sure what to blog about, I would ask my audience, “what should I blog about next:
   • Social Media
   • Book Marketing
   • Email List Building”

   Not only will this build engagement, but you can inexpensively get an outlook of what your audience is interested in.

6.   Fill in the blank- People love fill-in-the-blank.  It’s easy and quick to answer.  I found that these posts usually get the most engagement.  For example, try this on your Facebook Page, “If you could live anywhere in the world it would be ______________.”
7. Post current events– Talking about huge events like the television events like the Superbowl and the Emmys can generate engagement.  These are mega-events that get a lot of people’s attention.  For example, the Emmy’s was on television recently.  A simple comment like, “What do you think of the Emmy’s so far?”  This can get a like of engagement.
8. Ask to share or comment– I know this sounds simple, but I found that when asking people to RT, comment or share, they are more likely to do just that. For, example, if you post an inspirational image on Facebook, when the words “Like or Share if you agree.”  People will typically engage in that status.   Also, studies have shown that you when put RT in the beginning of your tweet, it gets more retweets.
9. Keep it short and sweet– Have you noticed that people don’t comment a lot on longer status updates?  It takes time to read longer status updates, and audiences usually don’t engage in a lot of text.  Shorter post around 80-250 characters, around  usually receive more engagement.
10. Focus on quality over quantity– Don’t post status updates, just because you have a goal of the number of times you want to have an update.  Make sure that everything that you post is quality to your audience.  Your audience isn’t going to engage with you, just because you update your status every two hours.  They will engage with you because your posts are valuable and engaging.

 

 

 

 

Having a social media engagement plan is a crucial part of your online success. The most important thing that any business can have is a relationship with their target audience.  Relationships build trust, which leads to brand loyalty.  If you have any questions, consider hiring a Digital Marketing Coach.