Creating a social media presence takes a lot more effort than many think but it doesn’t have to be hard. It just takes an awareness of what your audience is looking for and then giving that to them consistently.
Your audience will be initially attracted to your messaging, your products and services, and your brand but keeping them engaged and active means making their experience of you and your business a pleasant, fun, and fruitful one. Below are eight ways to engage and grow your social media audience to create a positive experience.
Be Visual
People are very visual creatures. We respond to lively colors as well as pictures, videos, and graphics. Always make your content attractive by including different visual elements that align closely with your content’s message and purpose. Doing this brings your audiences’ eyeballs to your social media posts and encourages them to look deeper by reading your post, watching your videos, or studying your graphics. This is how you get your audience to ingest the quality information you’re offering them bringing them deeper into your brand’s community of raving fans.
It is also important to consistently update your social media images such as the profile picture and headers. Studies indicate that your profile and cover pictures are some of the most liked, shared, and commented on parts of your social media profile.
Keeping the images fresh by highlighting your company’s mission and ability to help its customers will catch your audiences’ eyes and inform them that you and your company are always looking to bring them new and exciting content, products, and services that will enhance their lives.
Ask Questions
One of the best ways to engage your social media audience is to ask them questions. People love to talk about themselves. Ask your audience how they’re doing, how you can help them improve their lives, what they want the content of your next blog or video to be, or even get them involved in how you run your business by asking them to help you with a challenge your company is having.
People love to help and be involved, so asking them to help you choose the cover for your next product or book or how you should decorate the background you use in your videos is one huge way to start a conversation with your audience and help them feel like they have an intimate connection to your company.
Fun surveys are a great way to ask your audience questions and get clarity on what they want and need from you and your company. You can create free surveys online for free with platforms like Survey Monkey and others like it.
Know Your Audience
In order to create any service or product, you first need to know who you are making it for. You cannot engage an audience if you don’t know who they are or what is important to them. In addition to creating surveys and asking questions as suggested above, you need to sit down and really think about who your target audience is and what you can really do for them.
Have a brainstorming session with yourself and/or your team and really describe who you are trying to attract to your business. Your description should be detailed down to what they look like, what they do for a living, their preferences, whether they are married or single, and what their name is as well as what some of their pain points and challenges are. It may sound silly now but once you’re done with this process there will be no stopping you. You will have the power to talk directly to your ideal audience of potential customers in an informed and caring way.
Encourage Your Audience To Like, Share, and Comment
In addition to creating consistent engaging content, encourage your social media followers to like, share, and comment. It can be as easy as asking them to do it. You may find at first, a limited amount of people respond but as you built your community, more and more people will gladly tell everyone they know about the great things you and your company do.
One of the great ways to get your social media audience to do this are contests. Giving away some small reward such as a gift card, a copy of your book/course/product, a discount on a product or service, or even a private one-on-one consult with you will excite your audience to want to spread the word about you and your business to everyone they know.
Show Your Sense Of Humor
It’s always wise to keep your business page professional. However, it’s totally okay to show your audience your sense of humor from time to time. It gives them a sense of being part of your life and shows them that you’re human too.
Create Consistent Content
This not only means creating regularly scheduled content but also content that is consistent to your brand. Don’t skip all over the place trying to grab everyone’s attention. Narrow in on your specialty and stick with it. Your audience needs to know who you are, what you’re about, and what you can do for them. If you are constantly exploring subject matter that is unrelated or too broad your audience will get confused and look for someone else who has more clarity.
Go Live
Creating regular live streaming video events is a great way to engage your audience and it’s becoming very mainstream especially at this point in history with all of us staying home and in lock down mode due to the coronavirus.
Going live on social media gives your audience a type of connection that you can’t get from regular blogs, posts, and graphics. It creates a real time interaction with your audience where they can ask questions and comment on the content directly to you.
Make sure you announce the date and times you are going to go live a few days in advance, if possible, and give your audience a heads up on what you’ll be talking about. Encourage them to have questions for you and perhaps to send those questions to you in advance so you can prepare and have a professional, well-informed answer for them during the event. Also, having a nice, off the cuff, Q&A session at the end of the event creates even more personal contact and allows those who have other questions about the content you just went over to get the clarity they need.
Be Creative
These are not the only ways to engage and interact with your social media audience. The world is full of ideas and they are only limited by your imagination and dedication. When you know your audience well, you know what they like, want, and need. You know what they will find interesting and fun. So, make sure that whatever you do to communicate and engage with your audience, you create an atmosphere of inspiration, education, warmth, and fun that they will want to come back to again and again.
