If you’re running or working in marketing for any business this day, you’ve surely heard about “social media engagement” or “online engagement” with your customers as something to strive for. But why? Well, if your customers engage by sharing your content, they’ll expand your brand’s reach, which increases your brand’s awareness (i.e., the first phase of your “sales funnel” or “customer journey”). Their engagement with your content also feeds into the various platforms’ algorithms, which means both that customers and others will see your content in their feeds more frequently, as the engagement tells the algorithm that their users enjoy your content. Remember, the platforms want to keep users there longer, so if the algorithm says your content will accomplish that, you’ll get higher priority! So how can you maximize your content to increase engagement? Read on for some specific ideas you may not have tried yet!

Video

Unless you’ve been living under a rock since TikTok’s meteoric rise in the U.S., you’ve probably heard that video is being prioritized across social media platforms now, in an effort to compete. While the various platforms’ algorithms are constantly being revised (see my previous blog “Algorithm Awareness” for good sites to follow in order to keep up!), overall, yes, video will get you more engagement overall, regardless of how much priority the algorithms are giving it at that moment. For this reason, you may have already heard that Short Form Video” is expected to be one of the very top trends in marketing for 2023. Indeed, according to Hootsuite, video generates 1,200% more shares than images or text.

But aside from simply posting video, and maybe using trending audio (which the algorithms also continue to revise the prioritization of) what can you do to make your videos more engaging?

Stitches and Duet

On TikTok in particular, you can create content with the intention of giving your followers videos with which they can create stitches and duets, which basically respond to your content while furthering its reach to their own followers, and potentially driving new followers/customers to you. Many of these TikTok followers also then share their Stitches and Duets they create on TikTok with their followings on other platforms, such as Instagram and Facebook, as well. Want to learn more about Stitches and Duets? Check out this post from online marketing expert Neil Patel!

Questions

When you post Stories on your page, whether on TikTok, Instagram, or Facebook, you have the option to ask your followers questions. This is an excellent way to engage your audience with your content, as it provides them with better motivation to interact with your video rather than simply liking or sharing your post, plus, you get valuable feedback in response to your questions. You can even use this as an opportunity to poll your followers on information you’d love to know about them and their preferences.

Which leads me to…

Polls

Not only can you conduct polls via your Stories, but Facebook also has a polling feature built into its standard feed post. Thus, even when you’re not posting Stories (and despite the popularity of video, you always want to provide a mix of post types), you can still use the polls feature. That is to say, there’s no time like the present to get your team together and generate a list of questions to ask your audience to start collecting that valuable feedback!

In Conclusion

These are just a few of the current ways to engage your audiences in meaningful ways. It’s also always a good idea to continuously explore the new options provided by the various platforms and follow the platforms’ accounts that provide updates and insights for Creators. And, perhaps most importantly, remember the “golden rule” of social media marketing, that only about 20% of your posts should be self-promotional. Overall, followers will appreciate your brand most when your content continually adds value to their lives.