One of the most common challenges for small businesses is figuring out how to increase social media engagement. Regardless of the social media network you use, utilize these methods to increase the activity of your followers.

The number of time users spends on social media is increasing as new social platforms emerge and established ones gain new capabilities.

In 2017, the typical social media user spent 135 minutes per day on the platform. This is an increase from the previous year’s average of 90 minutes. While many people use social media to keep in touch with friends and share personal information, opinions, and news, about 30% of users actively follow brands in order to research and find things to purchase.

Having an engaging and fascinating social presence aids in the discovery of you and your products, as well as the possibility of them wanting to do business with you. But that isn’t the only advantage. A solid social media engagement strategy should also include the following:

1 Provides useful information about customers (and competitors).

2 Increases brand awareness and brand loyalty

3 Improve conversion rates by nurturing and growing client relationships.

4 Adds credibility to your brand image by providing social proof.

5 Provides a more comprehensive consumer experience

Just a few examples.

However, these advantages can only be realized if there is two-way conversation and interaction on social media. You’ll get minimal engagement from your audience and a low return on your time investment if you put out random content without a strategy or, even worse, post infrequently and inconsistently.

To increase engagement on your social media channels, use these strategies.

1. Lift Social Media Engagement by Asking Questions

One of the most successful methods to start a dialogue with your audience is to ask open-ended questions. People feel obligated to respond, especially when the subject pertains to their passions. It’s easier to come up with great questions if you know more about your audience.

Different levels of involvement can be achieved depending on the sort of question you ask. Depending on your consumer base, some queries may be more effective than others:

1 Inquire about a specific subject.

2 Inquire as to how they go about doing things.

3 Inquire about their personal experiences.

4 Pose contentious questions

5 Inquire as to why they do what they do.

6 Find out who is attending a specific event.

Question stimulates conversation among followers, which enhances engagement and thus the reach of your social media messages. Just be ready to keep an eye on any talks that devolve into disputes. Make an effort to respond to each and every comment you get. This will demonstrate to your clients that you care about them.

2. Pay Attention to Your Engagement Times

Both Facebook and Instagram offer social data that might help you figure out when the greatest times are to post. If you don’t have any data, CoSchedule published a list of 20 studies that show the best times to post on Facebook and Twitter. This is an excellent place to start if you don’t have any. If you’ve been active for a while, you should be able to get past statistics on Facebook and Instagram.

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To design your content, figure out which days of the week have the highest activity, as well as the peak engagement periods for each day.

For example, if your fans seem to respond best between 1 and 4 p.m., you should post shortly before or within that time. Posting at different times, such as early in the morning or late at night, may result in lower interaction.

3. Add Visuals to Boost Social Media Engagement

While Instagram and Snapchat are visual-focused social media platforms, others, such as Twitter and Facebook, do not require an image to post.

Even if you don’t need a picture to make a point, express an opinion, or ask a question, you should consider using one. Facebook postings containing photographs receive more than double the interaction, according to Buzzsumo. According to Buffer’s data, the boost also occurs on Twitter. On average, tweets with relevant images improve engagement by 150 percent.

However, don’t make the mistake of including a random image. It should be related to the topic and context of your writing. Use photos from your product catalog, photos from your company, or high-quality stock photos to fill in the gaps.

Using free image tools to help place stock photos, images, and posts into context with your social media can give a little more flare to your stock photos, images, and posts.

4. Promote Your Posts

Both Facebook and Instagram allow you to put a little money behind your posts in order to increase reach and social media interaction. This is an excellent approach to ensure that your postings reach the clients that matter most to your business.

Just keep the following points in mind:

Don’t over-inflate everything – Limit your boosts to posts that are already gaining traction on social media through organic engagement. Essential postings with important updates for your followers, such as a new product launch or event, should also be promoted.

Targeting is important – boosting posts is similar to paid social advertising in that you must select your audience. It’s a little less complicated, but you still want to make sure you’re sending your message to the proper people.

There’s no need to spend a lot of money – The larger the reach of your boost, the more you spend. But you don’t have to go all out. A $5-$25 boost will help you reach a large number of people, especially if you’re targeting a certain geographic area.

5. Reward the Contributions of Your Followers

Launch some freebies centered on user-generated content if you truly want to get your audience involved. To manage official entries, you can use systems like Rafflecopter, or just write a post and ask for submissions in the comments or on your page.

Compete with your followers for photo or video submissions about success stories, how they utilize your products, brand experiences with your store or workers, and so on.

This constant supply of new content boosts social media engagement and provides testimonials and social proof that may be used in future marketing campaigns.

Important note: the incentive you provide must be relevant to the audience and valuable enough to entice participation.

6. Inject Value in Every Post

When it comes to marketing, regardless of the channel, the phrase “value” is crucial. There must be a value exchange if you want something from your clients. In other words, people get something in exchange for doing an action.

You’re asking them to respond, remark, like, share, retweet, reblog, and so on in the case of social media interaction. You must provide material that is useful enough for them to be willing (and obligated) to do those things.

When you’re ready to write a piece, consider what type of value you’re offering your readers. Value can have many different forms:

1 Instruct them on something.

2 Motivate them

3 Make them experience a specific emotion

4 Provide amusement or laughter

5 Present them with something

The more value you add to your social media postings, the higher your social media engagement will be.

7. It’s Not Just About You

Your audience has interests beyond the items and services you provide, and if you solely talk about yourself, they will lose interest. Your contributions should cover a larger range of topics in addition to delivering value.

Find trending industry issues to debate instead of focusing on your brand or products. Share memes, stories, and articles that are relevant to your audience. Showcase your fans and consumers. Post city, county, and local event news and information.

Stick to the 80/20 rule when creating your social media content strategy: strive for a ratio of 80 percent value-driven material to roughly 20% promotional content.

Your followers won’t mind seeing the occasional promotional post about your products if you provide a wide variety of value-focused content.

8. Utilize Video Whenever Possible

Remember how I mentioned that images increase engagement? Especially when you publish native video to Facebook rather than referring to external sites, video kills those metrics (outside links on Facebook tend to get buried over native uploads).

Video is becoming increasingly popular. A video about a product is preferred by 4x as many consumers as reading about it, and social users (particularly on Facebook) spend 3x more time watching live videos than regular videos.

So, what does this imply for you?

Because you don’t have to go through marketing teams or get executive clearance for campaign ideas, small businesses can outmaneuver larger firms. You may take out your phone, go live on social media, and interact directly with your fans about whatever you choose.

You also don’t have to make long videos. Keep it short because your audience is on the move. More than half of video consumption is made up of videos under five minutes long, with mobile devices accounting for 51% of video playback.

Directly engaging your customers and getting them to discuss has never been easier.

9. Pick Their Brains

Customers notice when you listen to them and make improvements based on their suggestions. Rather than relying on outdated suggestion boxes, post a survey or poll to your social media platforms to stimulate participation and opinions.

If you ask them about any part of your product, service, or brand, you’ll get responses from people on all sides of the argument.

As your followers bring up and discuss requests, issues, ideas, and suggestions, this form of conversation can build significant engagement. This is advantageous on several levels:

1 Your consumers are treated with respect and listened to.

2 You get vital input from your customers, revealing what they really want/need from you.

3 Active feedback posts increase social media engagement and reach.

Make sure to disclose any modifications you make as a result of feedback. Bringing emphasis to those modifications is another way to increase interaction while also giving your customers the impression that you’re paying attention. Customers who feel valued are more likely to spend more, participate more, and suggest people to your company.

Conclusion

These are only a few ideas for increasing your social media interaction, but one thing to keep in mind is to keep your emphasis on your customers. When you take a customer-centric approach to create and sharing social material, you’ll naturally want to optimize the value and make the content attractive.

Give your customers something to remember, whether it’s a survey, a giveaway, a video, an update, or an interesting article. They’ll be significantly more likely to interact in the future if they perceive value in your social posts.