Guest Post: Rebecca Purrington is a Promotional Products Expert with Crestline Custom Promotional Products. She has more than five years of consultative sales experience in the industry and holds degrees in both Social/Behavioral Sciences and Business Management.
Social media has become a large part of business marketing. It can boost brand awareness, increase conversions, and help businesses grow. Using social media may seem easy, but to reap the rewards, you must effectively engage with your audience.
Read on to learn how to enhance your brand with social media engagement.
What Is Social Media Engagement?
Let’s start from the beginning. Social media engagement encompasses anything that brings people to your pages, including:
- Likes
- Follows
- Shares
- Comments
- Re-tweets
- Click-throughs
In other words, any way in which people interact with you on social media platforms counts as social media engagement. The great part about social media engagement is that you can measure results and compare metrics as your campaigns gain momentum.
You’ll be able to tell how many sales you’re making, new followers you’re attaining, and comments you’re attracting. It’s all set up for success if you do it right, but that leads to the question: How exactly do you boost your brand with social media engagement?
1. Discuss Your Topic
It probably seems obvious that you would want to talk about your brand, but that’s not the only (or best) way to attract consumers. If you really want to generate business to your brand, you need to join groups and engage with others who are conversing about the topics that are relevant to your field. That said, joining any old group isn’t effective. You need to join groups that are filled with like-minded folks who can share in discussions and help spread the word about your brand.
2. Join Q&A Sessions
Q&A sessions are a great way to show you’re the authority in your industry. By offering nuggets of information, you’ll be at the top of customers’ minds when they need something they can’t figure out for themselves. Q&A sessions help you to be seen as a valuable brand, particularly if you can beat competitors to the punch.
3. Share Others’ Content
With all the selfies and food images floating around social media, it may seem like that’s exactly the place to be selfish, but as a business, this simply isn’t true. Social media offers a great way to share others’ insights in your field. When you share their tidbits, they’re more likely to share yours. Remember, it’s all about community-building.
With this said, it’s not just about sharing other businesses’ posts; you also want to bolster customer and follower posts. In doing so, you’ll make customers feel special while simultaneously boosting your reputation among their followers and friends.
4. Personalize Interactions
Make sure visitors feel right at home by interacting with them using their names. When your brand is mentioned in hashtags or directly tagged on social media, it’s a great way to speak directly to the author of the post. Instead of “Hey, thanks for the mention,” you could write, “Hey, Sarah! Thanks for reaching out to us. We loved your feedback.” That simple adjustment can mean a world of difference when it comes to engagement.
5. Create Visual Posts
Emoticons, images, and videos are great additions to social posts. They’re more appealing to today’s audiences and act as an enticing spotlight that helps draw people’s eyes to the content you’re delivering. Images, GIFs, and short videos can be the make-or-break elements of a great social media strategy.
When incorporating these tips into your social media marketing strategy, you’ll be more likely to see positive results that pave the way for new followers, better leads, and an overall boost in revenue.
This infographic was created by Crestline, providing custom PPE.