What is social media engagement? Well, it’s really hard to define but trust us, it’s pretty much everything. It is the air to your social media earth.

Sprout Social‘s Alex York defined it best in his piece entitled “What Is Social Media Engagement & Why Should I Care?” York wrote, “Engagement is not just a single interaction with one of your customers, but an open line of communication over a period of time.” Perfect explanation to a very complicated problem.

Before implementing an engagement plan, you first have to analyze what you already have.

What does your audience like? What content has received the most interaction?

Reflect on your older posts and analyze which ones were more successful. What posts received more likes, comments, clicks? Try to find a pattern. Maybe your audience was more drawn to video posts than text ones, maybe they liked instructional videos? This will help you to better understand your audience and what draws their attention.

So, what are the ways you can use this information and further bolster your social media engagement?

Comment, Like, Repost

The more you interact with your followers and potential audience, the more likely you are to receive the same type of engagement in return. It’s quite simple – filter through your Instagram your feed, discover feed and find the content that speaks to your brand. And then engage.

An amazing way to boost engagement is to repost followers content! (With their permission, of course)

Reposting content is a great way to quickly bump up your engagement – your followers enjoy the publicity, you get to share wonderful content easily and it gets others motivated to potentially get the same type of treatment.

Be Real 

This is crucial. Whenever you interact with your audience – always be real. No one wants to interact with a bot! Especially not from a brand. It’s better when you are able to humanize your brand, give it a real voice or at least a genuine disposition. When your comments become robotic, people tend to back away.

Respond in a timely fashion

Be quick with your responses! The quicker, the better. Most especially if the comment is negative. When people get angry over social media, and then don’t get a response, they are more likely to share that negativity with their friends and followers. Avoid that by being quick and cordial. Simply take time to ensure all comments are attended to; if you receive something negative, you can respond quickly and defuse the situation.

Sharing is caring

Share content! Social media thrives on social sharing. If the content is good, relevant and beneficial – share it! As previously mentioned, you will be an all-star for sharing content. People will likely return the favor. And it saves you time with content creation!

Contests, Giveaways and Trending Events

For quick interactions, consider hosting a contest or giveaway. Track the promotion with a special hashtag. Sometimes simply asking questions and creating polls can create buzz. You could hold an online Q&A session via Facebook Live or Instagram.

Another quick way to gain interactions is to involve yourself in a trending event. Maybe there’s a local festival or conference thats relevant to your field or brand? Find something to immerse yourself in. Take photos, participate in games, network with people, live tweet and share any interesting moments or speakers.

There are lots of unique ways to boost your engagement but the most effective is participating in the engagement. The more you connect with others, the more likely they’ll come back to your profile to connect with you.

Check out our other posts about Social Media.