Social Media Engagement

Working a business on social media can be a challenging feat. Ultimately, the success of your page relates directly back to the quality of social media strategy and the engagement you are able to redeem through your posts. 

You know the basics – you want:

• comments and reactions
• visibility on people’s newsfeeds and you want to be noticed
• your followers to engage effectively
• to create an emotional impact with people

But how do you get there? It seems like all of your posts lately are resulting in crickets and nothing is working. How do you get out of the downward spiral and get your social media feedback into the spotlight?

There’s no need to worry. We have some tricks up our sleeve to share with you to help you boost your follower engagement with just a few simple actions. 

We have 5 must-know tips to maximize your social media engagement and get your platform right where it needs to be. Whether you use Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or some other platform, these tips will still work for you. 

Let’s Talk Algorithm

You can’t boost your business until you understand the basis and background of how social media platforms work. Each social media platform, particularly Facebook, operates on an algorithm and there are certain ways to work the algorithm to your advantage. 

The algorithm is not a dark and scary place or a puzzle that no one can ever solve. The algorithm is really quite simple, but it is constantly changing and maneuvering to different contexts that rearrange posts in your newsfeed and even prioritize how posts appear. 

Posting things according to the code of the algorithm is what helps your posts get seen the most. Additionally, the interaction on the post can also boost its place in the algorithm – but we will talk about that more a bit later. 

How the Algorithm Works

The social media algorithm is simply a sorting mechanism that various social media platforms implant to sort posts that the platform thinks or has determined you want to see the most. They determine the algorithm based on tracking what it seems people want to see or will most positively react to. 

In the original days of social media platforms, posts typically showed up in time order. You would see the most recent posts first. If you only logged in on occasion, that means you could easily miss out on important posts. 

Ultimately, algorithms now determine what you see or don’t see in your social media newsfeed. And you have little control over the algorithm, but you can post based on your understanding of the algorithm. 

These algorithms are specifically designed to provide a positive user experience. Keyword in this description – positive. The intention is to weed out all the junk you most likely aren’t interested in and try to keep the things you are most likely to want to see at the forefront of your platform. 

How the Boost Your Algorithm

Here are some of the primary ways to boost your algorithm:

• Make it meaningful
• Don’t make it about a transaction
• Keep it positive (you don’t want to get a sad or angry react)
• Be original
• Don’t paste things to “click-bait” viewers
• Get positive reactions
• Ask questions
• Seek meaningful comments
• Get comments in emoji form or GIFs. 

These are a few factors that the algorithm notices and uses to prioritize posts. If you post with these tips in mind, the algorithm will ultimately be on your side. 

Why do we talk about the algorithm? This is an entry into your top tips. Understanding the algorithm will go a long way with the tips that we provide you and maximizing your follower engagement on your social media platforms. 

Without further ado, let’s get into our 5 tips. 

1. Get Questions and Answers Going

One of the best ways to boost social media engagement is to get your followers involved in meaningful conversations. The social media algorithms love it when you ask questions and when your followers post questions as well. 

You want to make engaging posts that will strike up conversations. Ask your followers a question and when they respond, engage with them. Be sure you keep your questions or posts positive. Remember that you don’t want to bring out the sad or angry emoji when people read your post. 

The key to boosting social engagement is to keep it meaningful. Whether you’re trying to simply get your posts seen or you’re simply trying to plump up your followers, it’s important that you show your followers you care about the things they care about. 

Make your followers feel important. Draw them in with quirky photos and comments, capture their positive thoughts and memories, ask them what they like and what they are after and build your posts and your page to encourage them to feel like close friends and family. 

If your followers feel important, they will keep coming back and interacting. Their interactions will keep you moving up the news feed. 

2. Share and Be Shared

Another key to engagement is to provide relevant information that your followers can dig into. Sharing valuable information to your followers. People follow and interact with valuable information. For information to be valuable, it does not have to come directly from you. 

The content simply needs to be genuine and real and something that your followers will value. Whether you’re filling the blanks on a question that needed valuable information or you found a resource that you are certain your followers will enjoy and share further, sharing is caring. 

On the other hand, you also want to provide content that can be shared by others. That doesn’t mean that everything you post needs to be shareable but again, valuable content increases engagement. Sharing increases views overall and can boost your number of followers. 

3. Catch the Eye of the Follower

Anybody can post a few words, but let’s be honest, words won’t catch the eye of the follower. There are some social media platforms, like Twitter, that thrive on a few words to catch attention but in most of the platforms, words don’t cut it anymore. 

Catch your viewer’s eye with a picture, a background, a fun GIF or a short video. These things always catch the eye when someone is simply scrolling through a feed and it is this type of content that will cause them to maybe stop and read or hit a react button – they might even leave a comment or share. 

How often do you sit and scroll through a social media site on your phone or tablet and then have no idea what you saw? We all do this, so make your status unforgettable or at least make it noticeable to your audience. 

4. #LetsUseHasthags

Do you see what we did there? Social media platforms have become all about the hashtag and many people and companies search by hashtags. Think about it, people have their own personal hashtags that they use for parties, children, upcoming weddings, corporate events, and so much more. 

Use hashtags to increase your visibility and get yourself heard. You never know when someone will search a hashtag and stumble across YOUR posts and then become intrigued by your content. 

Hashtags lead to new interaction and new followers, which means you’ve accomplished social media engagement through a fun #hashtag that someone was able to relate to. Don’t you see? #meaningfulrelationships

5. Timing is Everything

For our final must-know tip, let’s discuss timing. First of all, you want to post often but you don’t want to be repetitive. In addition to making frequent posts, you want to post at prime posting times as much as you can. 

Being active by posting regularly lets your viewers see that you are there consistently to provide them with relatable material. Once you draw in followers, you need to be consistent and continue to post regularly. Followers give up on people who disappear for periods of time and you lose ground in your engagement. 

Optimal posting times are almost always evening times. Times can vary though depending on what the season is. Consider that many adults work during the day and they are more likely to spend time on social media on their breaks or in the evenings after they get the kids in bed. 

Conclusion

Ultimately, each of these tips points back to one singular thing. The key to follower engagement is to provide meaningful content that will catch their eye, provoke their thoughts, and intrigue them to respond to whatever you are posting. 

Providing valuable content is the key to getting your posts seen and when your followers see that you are posting things they care about, they will share you and they will come back for more.