#AwesomeEngagement – Paying Attention to What You Share
There are several different elements that comprise a solid social media marketing strategy. Content creation, scheduling, peak posting times, platforms…. Engagement is just one piece of the puzzle. However, engagement is such an essential aspect that is frequently overlooked or avoided. It doesn’t matter what sort of quality content is posted if no one is engaging with your page. It’s extremely difficult for business page engagement to happen spontaneously or organically without activity from an admin. People want to engage with a person, not a static page full of posts – even if they are phenomenal posts.
As if all of that isn’t complicated enough, your company should really have an engagement strategy developed. Going in and commenting, liking and sharing other posts is important but, as with any marketing strategy, determining ahead of time what to engage with will increase your ROI and results.
Engagement Strategy
WHAT you engage with is one of the keys to drawing your ideal target audience to your page and motivating them to linger, follow and interact with your posts.
- Does what your sharing strike a chord with your followers?
- Does what your sharing inspire new visitors to hit the follow button on your page?
- Your business might share common influencers with your readers – do your posts reflect that?
- Do your posts have questions or interactive elements that your readers will want to respond to (quizzes, contests, etc.)?
- Are you sharing content just to share it and remain consistent OR to stand out and be a different voice in your field?
- Are you simply selling to your potential audience instead of inspiring them and giving them the tools to be better?
Influencers
Don’t fall into the trap of being afraid to share quality content from other companies. Influencer marketing is a buzzword right now because it works. Make sure you are tagging, mentioning and sharing the work from your top clients, power partners and favorite influencers. This will expand your viewing pool to include the networks of those individuals.
Share As Your Page
While there is nothing wrong with promoting engagement using your personal profile, your business page needs the attention more than you do. The algorithms make it tough on business pages to get noticed and really benefit from organic reach. Make the time to engage with other people, companies and posts AS your business page.
Get Local
Most likely you operate your business, and network, locally – not on a national level. That’s too big of a pond and there are too many fish. Social media doesn’t always make it simple to discover and interact with people directly within your community. Spend some time seeking out local groups and finding ways to build a presence in those communities without coming off as only having an interest as a solicitor. Follow the local news outlets and organizations that already have a built-in audience of people nearby that might benefit from your work.
Algorithms
The algorithms are mapped to look for specific things. Engagement is a HUGE piece of this. Links to content not created by you are eagerly sought out by these formulas, as well as authentic links back to your work from other people. This is why guest posting is so popular. The more you engage, prove that you are a real, legitimate business and build a following – the better your organic reach will be. Your posts will have higher probability of being displayed to your audience. It’s a win/win/win – for you, for your readers and for the social platforms. Companies that try to “work the system” for better reach without investing time in making it a genuine and authentic experience for people may see some immediate results but will not generate the longer-term perks that actual engagement creates.
Curation
A positive, and often overlooked, benefit to spending time on engagement is that YOUR feed begins to fill up with exactly the type of content you like to see and share. A well-curated newsfeed will save you from hunting the gigantic World Wide Web for content that resonates with you. It will be right there every time you open up your social network. Learn how to unfollow individuals and companies that share content that is irrelevant to you or that you don’t want to see. Exercise your right to hide sources and block pages and people. Trust me, it will be worth it. There will no longer be a need to “take a break” from your social media because you are tired of seeing negative content AND you’ll have a better pool of posts to share from right at your fingertips.
Does your company have a social engagement strategy in place? How often do you go onto your social networks and participate in this practice? I’d encourage you to set aside a time, either daily or weekly depending on your schedule, dedicated to nothing but engagement.
Want to know more? The Social Media Advisor can show you how to #BeAwesome with your social media engagement and really become a powerhouse when it comes to your company’s social media experience.
Be sure to Follow us and Let’s Engage!
Hollie Clere of The Social Media Advisor is a “#BeAwesome” Developer, Social Media, Brand Builder, Content Manager, Trainer and Author in LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Blog, Google+,YouTube, Pinterest, Instagram and the tools to manage them.
Click here for her Social Media Workshops, Classes and Seminars
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