The best way to let people know you’re open for business is to tell them….on social media. By using social media correctly, you will increase your engagement which will bring attention to your brand and grow your business while making meaningful connections.

What is social media engagement?

Social media engagement is the responses your social media posts receive. For example, on many social platforms, comments, likes, and shares are the most common type of social engagement. Other social media platforms such as Pinterest consider a “Save” to be engagement. On Twitter, engagement is a retweet of a post.

Your goal is to get meaningful engagement.

Why getting engagement is important

While social media is free to use, the time you spend creating content, growing your audience, and engaging with them is very valuable. The last thing you want is to create a social media account and have no one hear your messaging.

When you provide value to your audience, people will engage with you.

How to increase social media engagement

Look at your analytics

Each social media platform provides analytics based on the types of engagements available, and you’ll get engagement statistics for each individual post. You’ll also see average performance stats related to:

· Engagement rate

· Link clicks

· Retweets without comments

· Likes

· Replies

Here is the formula of how you can calculate your own engagement rate:

Social Media Engagement Rate =

# of Engagements (sum up all likes, shares, comments, etc.) ÷ # of Followers ✕ 100

Set goals for future engagement

Set some goals. First, set goals for your social media marketing efforts.

· Who is your audience?

· What actions do you want them to take when they see your content?

· How will you measure success?

Not all social media engagements are created equal. For example, the Instagram algorithm values saves, shares and comments more than likes. Figure out which engagements to track based on your business goal (create brand awareness build a community).

Next, figure out which social media platforms to focus your efforts on that can best help you reach your above goals. Remember, sometimes it is easier to build a successful engagement strategy if you limit how many platforms you focus on. Know which social media platforms your audience is on and really work on that platform. You will see results.

Blog

Write blogs with high-quality and thought-provoking content. These blogs should not only go on your website’s blog page, but you can share them on your social media platforms too.

Give value to your audience and they will return for more of your great content.

Try different social media post formats

You can increase your post engagement, by trying out different kinds of social media posts.

Here are some post formats and themes to consider:

· Behind-the-scenes tours

· Customer spotlights

· “Live” video events

· Infographics

· Quotes

· Video Q&A

· This-or-that questions

· Contests and giveaways

· Surveys

· Animated GIFs and Memes

You never know which ones will get the most attention and engagement until you give them a try.

Engage with your audience

Once you start giving people a reason to engage with you on social media, get ready to respond. While you might not want to thank the dozens or hundreds of people who like each of your posts, take time out to respond to those who share and comment. Make sure you respond within 24 hours.