Getting higher engagement levels is essential for the growth of your social media channels. Engagement and growth go hand-in-hand. You need an increasing level of engagement to grow your brand’s online presence.
Many businesses struggle to get the engagement and social channel growth that they’re expecting. As a result, businesses give up on their social media marketing efforts. Either that or simply don’t want to put in the effort to gain the results they expect.
However, there are a lot of things you can do that don’t require a lot of effort to boost social media engagement. It will also grow your social channels and increase brand awareness.
In this article, I’m going to give you 3 social media marketing ideas that can help you improve engagement and growth.
#1 Memes, GIFs & Humour
Meme culture is probably at its most popular right now. If you are unfamiliar with memes, they are funny images or videos. Using them is a sure-fire way to gain likes, followers, and overall higher engagement.
It’s a good idea to first find memes that are related to your industry. For example, if you’re a B2B marketing agency, you should search for memes that you think your clientele will relate to or find funny.
There is an abundance of funny memes and videos that you can find by searching on Google. You can copy/paste the ones you like and schedule them for posting across all platforms.
However, you should also get creative and come up with your own funny post ideas. While you can take inspiration from memes you like, you should try to create memes based on current trends. You can use a mix of social monitoring and social listening to create relevant memes that your audience will be able to relate to.
I find that it’s best to use meme images that people are already familiar with. Edit them with your own joke or phrase.
Humour will never go out of fashion. Even in the case of businesses that want to appear professional, there’s always a place to post a well-timed, tasteful, funny postt. One to engage with your target audience and existing followers.
#2 Interacting with Followers
Interacting with your audience is key to boosting engagement.
There are a couple of reasons for this. First, interacting with your followers makes them feel valued, and when you build a genuine connection with them. In turn, your followers are more likely to reciprocate and engage with you a lot more.
Secondly, regularly interacting with your audience boosts your position on social media platforms — meaning your social account will become more prominent on your followers’ social feeds.
Making the effort to interact with your audience doesn’t have to take much effort. Simply replying to replies to your posts, or proactively visiting some of your top followers’ social pages and leaving a comment is enough to start building a rapport with your audience and boosting engagement in the long term.
#3 Live Streaming
Live streaming has been built into pretty much every major social media platform within the last few years.
However, the live streaming trend seems to be ever-growing. According to TechJury, 82% of people prefer to watch live streams rather than read through social media posts.
There are many reasons why people prefer video content to other forms of content.
But the reason why people prefer to watch live streams is that they are far more engaging than regular text or still image social media posts. Audiences get to watch their favorite brands and interact with them in a more life-like, real-time way, which makes them feel far more connected and engaged with your brand.
During live streams, your audience will be able to engage directly with your brand by leaving comments and questions for you to answer. For example, you could run a weekly live stream where you answer questions from your customers or client base.
Regular live streaming is arguably one of the most powerful social media marketing tools available today.
Interacting with your audience via live stream events will significantly enhance the connection between your brand and your followers, which ultimately results in higher overall engagement on your social media channels.
Focusing on Engagement
The more you focus on how your audience is engaging with you on social media, rather than focusing on gaining more followers or sales, the more successful your social media marketing efforts will be.
Being relatable, funny, engaging, and giving audiences the ability to easily connect with your brand online can pay off massively — not just in terms of sales and business growth, but also in establishing the legitimacy of your brand.
For more information on how to improve your overall marketing strategy, check out the latest posts on the Intentionally Inspirational blog.
Written by Lewis James