Since the early 2000’s, social media has grown into one of the most profitable marketing platforms in the world. Companies can now reach larger audiences due to the sheer popularity of social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, making them valuable tools for anyone looking to reach new customers.
Unfortunately, in order for social media marketing to be successful, there must be customer engagement on the platforms. This includes comments on posts, likes, shares, and overall engagement with the post and page itself.
There is a common belief that “if you build it, they will come”. However this is not always true with social media. In fact, in order for a company to make the most out of their social media marketing strategy, they will need to actively seek engagement through their marketing plan.
Luckily. there are several tried-and-true ways that companies can encourage engagement on their social media platforms.
The most important thing any company can do when looking to increase their social media engagement is to understand the needs and wants of the customer as a social media user. It can be tempting to post only company advertisements on a social media account. However, this is an excellent way to drive away user engagement if they are on the platform for entertainment and social purposes, not to see a brand take over their timeline with promotions.
Instead of inundating customers with continual brand promotions, it's important that companies do their best to relate with their audiences on a more personal level. Brands can post popular social media trends in order to better reach their audience, as this will make them more inclined to pay attention to promotional posts when they arise.
In addition, it's important that companies are able to communicate with their customers on social media. When a company is small, there is absolutely no excuse for questions to go unanswered on social media. Once the company grows, it's important that there is a team of people dedicated to answering questions and increase on social media, as this is an important part of increasing engagement. Customers will be less likely to support a brand with poor communication, as this is a sign of poor customer service.
As with any marketing platform, it's important that Brands fully understand what they are trying to represent when posting on social media in order to increase engagement. A brand social media page should convey what the brand is about from a user's very first impression. As soon as they click on the page, they should know what they are looking at, and how the company operates on social media.
Unfortunately, many companies take this to mean that they should do everything they can to sound hip, edgy, or in with the crowd. It's important that brands stay true to themselves when building an audience online, rather than alienating potential customers with out of character posts.
Finally, it's important that brands focus on which channels will be most profitable to them. It may be tempting to make accounts on every social media platform available, but in many cases this strategy backfires. When companies can't focus on building engagement on one platform or two, there is no way they will be able to build an audience on four of five simultaneously. Because of this, it's important to start with one main platform, and then move from there. It will be easier to build an audience on a new platform once an already existing fan base has been created on another, as the existing fan base will be more likely to follow any new brand pages as they are created.
