The number of followers on one’s social media account is not a huge thing. But if many of those followers are engaged, it is a big deal.
But to achieve this, you will have to build a relationship with followers and nurture it to become something you can leverage to achieve business goals.
While it sounds like a straightforward activity it is quite the opposite.
But I won’t leave you to strategise on your own. Instead, I am going to give you some practical advice, ranging from how to use quiz creator software to using social media tools.
I give you 5 proven social media engagement strategies for 2019.
Create a Sense of Immediacy With Live Videos
One of the most important things that you can do to drive engagement is to diversify the content you share on your profile.
Images, graphics, and infographics are all very valuable when it comes to engaging people. Video content is becoming the number one form of media in terms of engagement. And not just any video but live video.
The number of live videos on Facebook is rapidly increasing. According to the Facebook report, 20% of all videos shared on this platform in 2017 were live videos. There is a reason behind this.
The research tells us that viewers spend 3 times more time watching live videos than recorded. At the same time, live videos generate 10 times more comments than their recorded predecessors.
The stories of your live videos can be whatever you like. You can take your audience on an exclusive behind the scenes tour, or share your insight on some important topic.
Either way, you will engage them like never before.
Use Quiz Creator Software to Create Engagement Magnets
To engage people on social media, you really have to come up with something that will cause them to stop scrolling and say: “Hey look, this is interesting. I want to be a part of it!”
There is one trick that works 100% of the time – online quizzes. People love both personality and knowledge quizzes.
And some of the major online brands are regularly using them to drive engagement and build long-lasting relationships.
To be efficient with this, you will have to consider deploying quiz creator software.
This is a specialised tool that will help you create quizzes in an instant, share them with an online audience and provide instant feedback to those who take it.
Furthermore, the software industry has gone one step further to enable brands to create quizzes that reflect their marketing strategies.
With all those customisation options, you will be able to deliver questions however you like.
Beside engagement, you can use quizzes to discover what your followers want and what they think about the content you’ve shared so far.
Use a Chatbot To Engage People Via Messaging
Some social media platforms have this neat feature that tells the people how long it takes page and group owners to reply to their messages.
If you are running a business, you have to do all in your power to address this aspect of engagement. Why?
Because people will either contact you looking for more information about your services or products or because they experience some problems using them.
A chatbot is a perfect solution to allow you both- drive engagement and improve your customer support via social media.
For instance, you can arm your chatbot with trivia information to keep your followers engaged.
Furthermore, you can use it to organize your followers and direct the ones that need immediate attention to your call center or knowledge database.
In any case, a chatbot will help you get that “Typically replies in a few minutes” tag and show your audience that you are ready to respond to their questions.
Create a Customer Advocacy Program
Here’s the thing – if you want to drive engagement, you have to be willing to share some of your resources with your customers/followers.
These are not big things, but even the smallest reward will not go unnoticed. Here is how to catalyse your community – create a customer advocacy program.
How do you do it? By sending gifts or giving discounts to customers who are contributing to your online efforts.
Maybe they also have a small business and tapping into your resources will mean a lot to them.
A free link for them on your website or mention of their business on your social media profile will help you create a community around your brand.
More importantly, it will drive people to talk about the brand, share, like, and comment. Don’t ever forget – people connect with other people.
And if you showcase your partners, employees or even customers, you will be able to amplify your brand voice and give people something to relate to.
Choose Useful Content Over Promotional Posts
Social media users see dozen of promotional “posts” today – social media ads. They are everywhere. And if you create a post that looks just like an ad, you can say goodbye to engagement.
The trick is to give your followers what they need. This is why I mentioned tapping into your followers’ opinion with quiz maker software.
You really need to give them what they expect and want if you want to engage them.
What is it that you can create? Useful step-by-step guides, how-tos, reviews, interesting industry trends, and so on, are all viable options here.
To inspire a conversation, you will have to hit the sweet spot, and generic and promotional content is not going to cut it.
So what do you go with? Will you use quiz creator software to create engagement magnets? Or, will you organise regular live video sessions?
It all depends on your niche and your specific goals. Bear in mind, though, that all of these are proven methods to help you improve engagement on social media.
Kamy Anderson, Market Researcher at ProProfs, Los Angeles, California
