What is Social Media Engagement and How Can It Be Improved?

While conducting a campaign analysis, did you realize that your overall social media engagement is insubstantial? Are your posts not being liked, commented on, or shared as much as you would like them to be? Read this article to discover how to improve engagement on your social platforms. 

What is Social Media Engagement?

Social media engagement is a measure of how people interact with your content and accounts on social networks. This term can cover several different types of actions on all social platforms. 

For example, on an Instagram account, an engagement metric can be the number of followers and how it changes over time. Was my brand followed after a marketing campaign? Or did I lose followers after a controversial post? 

Or on a TikTok video, did viewers save the video to their favorites? How long and how many times did they watch it?

In short, on different networks, most engagement metrics you can analyze are likes, comments, clicks on links, or shares. Beware, particularly for tracking shares, users may find shared content in areas of dark social, which means that you will not always know if your content has been shared through private and untraceable channels. To learn more about dark social, visit our Digimind blog post.

Primary social media engagement metrics and their associated meanings

So why pay attention to social media engagement and care? 🤔

Measuring social media engagement is vital because it gives insight into how well your content resonates with your customers. You can use this information to optimize your posts in the future or improve your products and services. It also gives you a tangible measure to track your performance over time.

So how do you get better engagement rates on your social media content and profiles? 

How Can Social Media Engagement be Improved?

If you want more and better engagement, follow those ten steps. 

To understand how to improve social media engagement, you need first to know who’s following you. To create content that will get interactions, you need to know who will see your posts and why they would like to interact with them.

The logic here is if someone followed your account, it is likely because they like what you post, who you are, or what you do. By harnessing what you know about your followers' interests, you can sequentially build content suited to their tastes.

Suppose you are a marketer of a large brand. In that case, you may have the resources to conduct a survey to gather firsthand data on why people are following you on each social media platform and why not if they are customers. It would also be the perfect opportunity to ask what type of content they like. Giveaways are usually popular and get a lot of engagement, where social media users are typically required to like, comment, tag their friends or follow, as per the participation instructions.

If a customer follows you on several social networks and sees the same content on each platform, what's the point of following you everywhere? 

Each social network has its unique environment; you don't connect on TikTok at the same time of day or for the same reason as you do on LinkedIn. So, you must ask yourself what people want to see on each social channel. 

Each social channel has its own objective, and you need to adapt the voice and tone of your messages to that objective. Each channel's audience will expect a different, unique tone or style that aligns with that particular social platform. 

In addition, it's all about the type of format that appeals to your followers. Maximizing your visibility by using the appropriate format for the social network would be best. Just think, because we scroll through our Instagram feeds on our smartphones, the best visual for publishing is in portrait format, so we occupy the most space and time on the screen. Otherwise, on Facebook, if we look at a post on our computer, it will take more space if it is in a landscape format.

Format recommendations for social media image feed posts in 2022

As the years go by, we notice that influencer marketing has gained popularity and effectiveness for brands to generate traction for social media engagement.

One thing to take note of is that most influencers dabble in specific categories or targets: lifestyle, fashion, entertainment, and cooking, to name a few. As a brand, if you can partner with an influencer that fits your brand and its audience correspond to your target, you can collaborate in many ways and benefit from it.

For instance, ask them to post an Instagram story reviewing your products, or do an interview that will feature how your brand resonates with them in your next blog post.  In any case, partnering with a key opinion leader will be valuable in bridging your brand with a new audience, expanding your content's reach, and increasing your exposure online.

On social media, users can talk about your brands and products by mentioning you (or not). There is a tremendous likelihood of missing data from users who don't include your brand handles in their social media posts.

One way to be in the know is to acquire specific tools to expedite social media engagement when it matters. Quickly responding to bad reviews and negative experiences can make or break your social media efforts. It is this business need that digital marketers and social media teams leverage social media listening software to push alerts and respond proactively to ongoing marketing campaigns and content performance.

These social listening tools alert you when someone mentions your company, product, or service, allowing you to engage your audience at the very moment they are engaging with you. 

So, it dramatically increases engagement on social media and positions your company as a customer-centric brand that pays attention to the voices of its followers. 

You can get a free demo of Digimind monitoring and listening social media software by clicking on this link.

One advantage of using these social media monitoring tools is that you will be alerted as soon as possible when a trend or potential crisis occurs. 

Thus, by being alerted early, you have the key to being the first to respond. If you don't react quickly enough, it will be the Internet users who will make up their own minds. 

So, in order for the people who inquire about this news to come across your publication responding to a rumor or trend, be the first to react! Thus, your publication will reach a better engagement rate following your profile visits. 

By sharing useful and informative content, people who look at your content feel like they are learning new things from you. This is a real value addition to your brand. 

If they see that your posts help them solve everyday problems, they will follow you, share your posts and come back regularly for more tips. That's when you'll get better engagement. 

It's not promotional content that will make your followers want to see your subsequent posts. Go for an 80/20 ratio with 80 for non-promotional content. 

Just like educational content, fun content helps generate interaction and spark buzz. If a piece of content gives us an emotion of joy and laughter, we are more likely to comment on it, like it, or even share it. 

So, do maximize your chances by trying funny content when the context is right.

When developing a strategy for your social media engagement campaigns, consider asking questions. This will prompt a dialogue, whether it's a comment (Facebook post) or a vote on a clickable poll (Twitter post). Thus, you create a link with your viewers, while positioning your message as a question.

For example, you can ask users what they do in certain situations. Encourage them to give their opinion on the subjects you are dealing with. More dialogue means more engagement on social media, so be sure to incorporate this tactic!

On top of that, with the example of a poll on an Instagram story, the user will take longer to view the story if they have to think about their vote. This increases engagement with a longer viewing time. 

What could be easier than a contest on social networks to dramatically increase your audience's engagement on a post in a short period? 

Depending on the type of engagement you're looking for, you can ask in:

• like the post
• comment on the post (you can ask questions related to your industry for example)
• tag a friend (adding a comment but also gaining visibility)
• share the post
• follow the account

Most people like competitions and contests. The more attractive your giveaway is, the more participants you will have!

With a CRM solution, statistics from each of your social network platforms, or with all-in-one solutions that share key social analytics from all of your social networks in combination, you can track your results. 

By using URL parameters that allow you to track the number of clicks each link receives or by keeping an eye on engagement levels by monitoring each post, you'll identify which channels are receiving the most traffic in your wide audience pool.

This way, you'll know what's working and what's not working in your communication strategy. Then you can refine your approach and constantly optimize the levels of engagement on your social media.

Try to follow our tips and see how your social media engagement will increase. If you want to learn even more about engaging your audience, read this blog: “7 Tips to Engage Your Audience and Optimize Your Social Media Marketing Efforts”.