How to increase your engagement on social media
How to increase your engagement on social media
September 11, 2019
PREFER TO WATCH, INSTEAD OF READ? I’VE GOT YOU BOO.
SCROLL DOWN TO WATCH A QUICK VIDEO!
I know how it feels to spend tons of effort and energy to come up with content for social media, write the post, choose a picture and then hear freaking crickets.
I’ve been there too and it’s not a great feeling.
Let’s just remove the stigma around this and make it clear, everyone experiences this! Even established entrepreneurs will have this happen from time to time, but over the years I’ve come to find some core pieces that improve not only my overall engagement, but also conversions.
After all, it’s not just about likes, it’s about sales if you’re running a brand and business, so before we dive into the three tips, let’s talk about engagement.
Please know that we don’t care about vanity metrics here. Engagement isn’t just about likes and hearts, those are great, but it’s more about comments, direct messages and my personal favorite link clicks.
All of which you can monitor and I encourage you to pay attention to. So even though your post might not have as many likes as Suzie, please don’t get discouraged, what we care about is true fans and conversions (plus, you can buy likes online so it’s a shady metric).
Tip #1 - Your Brand Messaging
Often times when we start posting content online we’re just “posting to post” and it’s totally not your fault. You’ve been taught that you need to post daily, sometimes multiple times a day, in order to stand out. As a result, we’re just whipping up content without a clear strategy in place - that’s where brand messaging comes in.
You want to create strong Brand Messaging for your brand and business as a whole, BEFORE you start creating content. This is going to allow you to create high-value content for your audience that connects to your brand as a whole.
For instance, if you take time to create a list of all the things your brand provides your ideal client and how it benefits them (this is huge) then you’ll be able to create content containers and individual content that relates back to that.
For instance, if I know one of my brand messages (a consistent message across all my products and services) is around storytelling and how to use storytelling to standout on social media and create a profitable brand, then I can create storytelling as a container for my brand and create a bunch of ideas under that one thing.
This does so much more than just allows me to create content, it makes sure that everything I create connects to the overall purpose of my brand. Everything goes back to what I do, why I do it and how it benefits my audience.
Having a clear messaging strategy is key when it comes to increasing engagement and views online because it allows you to become known for very specific things, you’ll build a community around it and again it plays on the benefit, so you know that what you’re creating will benefit your audience and as a result they will be more likely to engage.
Tip #2 - Bring Your Story to Life
A fundamental piece of connecting with your audience, which will increase engagement is sharing parts of your story in a relatable way.
Some of my most engaging content has been when I talk about how I live full time in a trailer, how I work with my son, things we’re doing behind the scenes as a family that travels full-time and that’s because your audience doesn’t just want to be bombarded with sales, pitches and tips and tricks. Sometimes they just want to be inspired or feel like they aren’t alone.
When you start sharing parts of your story it’s important to keep a few things in mind.
1. Always ask yourself, “Is this valuable to my audience? Why?”
2. Pay attention to your metrics. See what people are responding too and create more content around that.
Tip #3 - Ask for Engagement
Seems so easy doesn’t it? But we often miss this step. If you want people to engage we must give them the opportunity to do so. I know you’re on social all the time, but your audience might not be and they might not instantly think to comment or click or DM. You can simply say things like, “Give me a heart if you agree” “Drop an emoji if you needed this today” “What would you do in this situation?” “What additional tips do you have?”
Something so simple can make a big difference in inviting your audience to engage with your content.
My biggest tip for engagement online is paying attention to your brand. Making sure you’ve taken the steps to create a strong core for your brand so that things like social media content, emails, sales pages, etc work the way you want them too. I’m sharing my 3-step method in my free masterclass and you can join us now.
Sign up for The Build a Better Brand Method at brandmerry.com/brandmasterclass
Please share your biggest takeaways from this blog post and how you’re going to implement this information in your own business!
P.S Don’t forget to join me for my free masterclass at brandmerry.com/brandmasterclass
P.S.S. Are we connected on Instagram? No? Well lady what’s happening here we’ve got to fix that. Come hang out with me on my favorite social media platform. Follow for inspiration and send me a DM to know we’re connected.
