Creating great content is one of the most important objectives of the marketing world, however, just because a piece of content is great, it doesn’t mean that it’s engaging. Seeing as how the goals of your marketing strategy are to boost your traffic, conversion rates, reputation and sales, making your content engaging is of utmost importance. Nonetheless, this is sometimes determined by the format of the content or the timing of its posting. In other words, the content itself is not the sole determiner of the engagement rate. With this in mind, here are seven tips for engaging your audience on social media that are known to work.Â
Video content is a must
The first thing you need to keep in mind is the fact that people spend about 100 million hours watching videos on Facebook every day. Nevertheless, making a video for social media is not the same thing as making one for YouTube. You see, YouTube audience came to the platform with the intention of watching a video, while Facebook users are willing to give a shot to a caption or a thumbnail that caught their eye. Therefore, the best video length for the Facebook audience is estimated at somewhere about 1 minute 30 seconds, while on YouTube, even videos longer than 10 minutes are known to perform admirably.Â
The timing matters
Another thing you need to keep in mind is that the timing of your post has the power to make all the difference. Nonetheless, this is also determined by the nature of the content. For instance, people tend to be in the best mood on Friday afternoon (which is hardly surprising), therefore, the best time for posting humorous content is Friday afternoon. On the other hand, even Thursday, Saturday and Sunday have higher engagement rates. As for the precise time of the day, there is a general consensus that the content posted at about 3 PM gets the most clicks. Keep in mind, though, that not all of your audience is in the same time-zone.
The use of hashtags
On Twitter, it is common knowledge that the use of hashtags can double one’s engagement rate, however, in order to attract the right audience (the one with the greatest chance of engagement) one has to use the proper ones. While some platforms allow you to categorize your content (for instance Pinterest), hashtags will allow you to achieve more or less the same effect, even on networks which don’t have such a feature. Still, implementing proper media monitoring is the best way to determine which hashtags, keywords and mentions have the best effect within your industry.
Tag people you work with
Apart from giving recognition to people who have more than earned it, tagging guest bloggers or people you’ve quoted is a business practice that will benefit your brand as a whole. Apart from all of this, there is also a great possibility that some of these people will feel the urge to return the favor in the future. As for the engagement rate, your audience’s curiosity is most likely to get the better of them.
Efficient headline patterns
While organic content may have a lot of marketing value, it goes beyond saying that certain patterns create more engagement. The safest and the most efficient way of generating engagement is by adhering to efficient headline patterns. By sticking to something emotionally engaging, something that starts with ‘How to’, ‘# Ways to’ or ‘# easy steps’, you can easily get more people to click on your content. The reason behind this is the fact that titles that are straight to the point promise straightforward answers without wasting your time. In fact, for maximum efficiency and in order to save some time, you could even check out templates for blog titles and make your pick.
Holding Q&A sessions
There is probably no easier way to increase the engagement rate by your audience than to give them an opportunity to address you directly. As a brand, you may seem impersonal, while as a brand leader, you might seem like another distant figurehead. However, holding a Q&A session can make you appear more down-to-earth, as well as effortlessly bring your brand closer to your audience. Still, seeing as how some of the questions asked may be quite tricky, it might be a good idea to consult your PR team beforehand.
A social media contest or giveaway
Finally, one of the oldest principles of marketing is that if you want a great return, you need to offer something of value to your audience. When it comes to content, this could mean something entertaining, something informative or something that offers practical advice. On the other hand, starting a contest or a giveaway is something that promises an actual, material reward, which is quite effective on its own.
If there’s one thing that can be concluded from the above-listed examples, it is that the world of digital marketing is more data-driven than ever before. In the past, John Wannamaker stated that he can never know which half of the money he invests in marketing is wasted; today, this is no longer the case. Now we can precisely track the ROI and the engagement rate of every method out there in order to figure out which of them actually give the desired results.
