For a social media campaign to be effective, you need to incorporate varied strategies to increase audience engagement with your brand. It's not just a "one size fits all" approach on social. Every channel is different, and every audience is unique, and your strategy needs to reflect that. Many brands have failed with their social media campaigns due to incorporating a poor strategy that doesn't take into account personas on their channels or simply no strategy at all.
Brands are looking for the best social media strategies to help increase their social and lead re-engagement goals. In this blog, we will cover five engagement strategies to help make your social media campaigns even more effective.
1. Social Plugins
Several social plugins are available for brands that can increase engagement on social media. One of them is Facebook Share API. A social plugin makes it possible for users to share posts and content from your website directly to their Facebook pages. Once users visit your website, they are prompted to share the content directly on their Facebook page, increasing user engagement. This is especially beneficial when a new user visits your site from the shared link. If you're using HubSpot, this can also be accomplished through HubSpot's social sharing tools directly within the platform.
2. Conversations
Engage your users to get the most insight and information while creating a community. For instance, ask questions, ask for feedback and reviews, and make helpful polls while still retaining the value of your page. Posts that are mainly calls-to-action or promotional are mostly a turn off to many social media users. Your followers need helpful posts. A balance between promotional posts and valuable content should be embraced to maintain high audience engagement for your brand. Another option for your website is SMS (chat or text messaging). Check out this great article from Larry Kim, founder of MobileMonkey, on the top 20 SMS marketing tools to generate results via text messaging.
3. Live Video
It is proven that videos increase engagement compared to still images or plain posts. However, this doesn't mean you should stop using images, as they are still equally important. People spend 20% more time on live videos compared to pre-recorded videos. Live videos bring about the factor of immediacy in the posts compared to pre-recorded videos. This sense of immediacy also helps increase user engagement. Live videos also allow your brand to interact directly with your social media users. The user can openly ask any questions, which can be directly answered through your live videos.
4. Social Media as a Customer Service Tool
When strategizing the social engagement plan for your brand, consider that social media can also be used as a customer service channel. If a user asks questions about your brand, or even complains about something concerning the brand, always take your time to reply.
It is imperative to note that other users are following closely even when you make that reply. In a situation where the exchange between you and the user gets heated up, always go to the more private message boxes or DMs. This will save your brand reputation when need be.
5. Brand Personas
A brand persona is the personality brought about by your brand. For example, certain brands connect with young people while others connect with older age groups. It is crucial for you to create a brand voice and social personality that resonates well with the age group that you are targeting. This brand persona on social media should be the same persona you share throughout all of your digital channels and your organization as a whole.
Social media is a vital part of your marketing strategy. It gives you a way to connect with prospects and customers much more meaningful on the channels they feel most comfortable using. If you're interested in discussing your social strategy and how you can further align that with your brand, we invite you to schedule an inbound marketing consultation with our team.