Social media engagement measures the public shares, likes and comments for an online business’ social media efforts. Engagement has been a common metric for evaluating social media performance but doesn’t necessarily translate to sales.
In layman terms, social media is as much about engagement with other people as it is about sharing content. That’s why it is called Social Media.
When we think about social media engagement, it’s about how well you use networks like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and Twitter to build a great customer experience. As soon as customers decide to engage with your business on social media, they essentially trust your brand to solve their problems.
The three most popular social media sites today are Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Each platform has its own mechanisms for users to express appreciation for individual posts and posters, which are measured differently across each platform:
Twitter: Re-tweets and followers
Facebook: Shares, likes and followers
Instagram: Likes and followers
Best practices for engaging users
- Post daily: Keep your brand at the top of people’s newsfeeds with witty, engaging and entertaining content. Frequent posting keeps your brand visible for customers, reminding them that you exist and have something interesting to say.
- Don’t go overboard: Too many posts per day begins to look like spam to users. At best, posts get ignored; at worst, your brand gains a reputation as a disreputable ad spammer. One to three posts per day is a consistently safe range to aim for.
- Use images: Images greatly increase interaction rates for all social media platforms.
- Be personal: Avoid sounding like a press release; show the audience that there are real people behind the brand.
- Listen: Engagement is a two-way street. Hear what people are saying about your brand and respond to critiques in a constructive and positive way. If users have valid complaints, don’t just acknowledge them, address them. Then make sure everyone sees how responsive and generous your brand can be via follow-up posts.
- Monitor: There are several free social media marketing apps which track shares, re-tweets, likes and keywords associated with your brand.
- Contests: Contests and giveaways are a great way to increase interest in your brand. After all, everyone likes free stuff.
- Cover all the social media bases: Produce content for the top social media sites and cross-pollinate your content among them. For instance, link the more dynamic, image-oriented Instagram posts to Facebook and Twitter.
Ultimately, if you want to stay ahead of the curve in your market, it’s time to think of online advertising as part of the customer’s experience. Social media isn’t changing the way that marketing works—it’s already changed it.
Have a good day! Cheers!
ReTweaks | Blog 