With so many of your audience engaging on social media, there are many things that you should be doing to promote engagement.

This blog post will share with you the small things or the simple tips for improving your business’ social media channels. Along with taking tips and tricks from this blog post, check out our previous blog post where we discuss all things advertising and the best platforms to use for this depending on your specific business.

Social Media Tips

Twitter

• Tweet at other brands. Try tweeting at a company about an article they wrote to get them to engage. Be specific and focus on building a friendly rapport. It could lead to some useful cross-promotion or even a webinar or co-branding opportunity.
• Post a weekly poll. Utilize Twitter’s built-in poll feature regularly for a quick and easy way to garner audience engagement. It’s also a great way to have some fun on the platform and get to know the people who follow you a bit more. You could even use a poll question as inspiration for a blog post or inform some aspects of your email marketing strategy.

• Add images and videos to your tweets. Images are key to consistent branding, and they also help your tweet stand out from the pack. Instead of pulling images from stock sites, design something eye-catching. Take a stat from a report and create an image from it to share on Twitter. Adding videos to your Twitter posts is also a great way to engage your audience. Utilize tools to help, like a free video maker. Images and videos allow you to inform your followers about something quickly, just make sure you tag the source for some added exposure.

Design is a key component when using images and videos on social media but also for your businesses website. Make sure you’re following these key elements.

• Minimize hashtag use. Hashtags are important, but too many are a turn-off. Stick to just one or two to broaden your reach without overdoing it. Look and see what sort of hashtags are popular on Twitter and start following some that relate to your industry. Test a few out to see if any lead to more likes, reshares, or comments.

Instagram

• Host a giveaway. Think of something you can offer — such as a free product or a free 30-minute consultation — and build a campaign around it that requires users to “follow,” “like,” “comment,” and “tag a friend” in exchange for an entry.
• Share user-generated content. Users trust their peers when it comes to reviews. First, encourage your customers to share their experience with your brand in their Instagram stories or a post. Then, share that positive user-generated content on your account and be sure to tag the original poster for further engagement.
• Add a CTA to every caption. Your Instagram captions are just as important as the pictures you post. Drive action beyond general engagement by always making sure to include a CTA. Examples include: “Visit link in bio for more information” or “Tag someone who needs this!”.
• Get personal. Instagram is a great place to show off the human side of your brand, so make a point of sharing images of your team, your workplace, and other behind-the-scenes goodies. Show them the faces of the people who build your brand, offer them customer service, and think of creative ways to reach them.
• Do an influencer “take over.” Influencer marketing isn’t just for big brands and enterprise operations. Hand over the reins to your Instagram account to an influencer for 24 hours to tap into their audience and freshen up your feed. If you’re a small business owner, look to your community and see who has a solid following and makes sense for your brand. You can have them do a walk-through of your store and call out some of their favorite products, or they could use your product or service and provide a real-time account of the experience.

Facebook

• Start a conversation. Back and forth engagement will keep your post in news feeds. Start a dialogue by asking your audience a question and engage with the responses that you get. Be encouraging and share your question with an image so people will be more inclined to spot it and engage.
• Ask a question that involves tagging other brands. When you loop in other brands, you get their attention and encourage them to share or respond. An example of this would be “What are your favorite SEO tools? Tag them in the comments!”
• Create a series. Instead of one and done posts, create a themed series that runs for a set period of time, or that occurs periodically, such as once a week or once a month. Use a hashtag for the series, which will help brand it and encourage others to participate in something similar. Series are a great way to fill your social media calendar with something consistent that followers can engage with long-term.

• Repurpose content. Just sharing a blog article might not lead to much engagement. Get more momentum by creating additional posts around certain article elements, such as key quotes or images. Each piece of content you create can be broken down into ideas for Facebook; you just have to get creative.
• Get to know Facebook Ads. facebook Ads are a key way to generate leads and start new conversations. Facebook ads can be tricky, that is why we have a cheat sheet for the most common mistakes people make when using Facebook Ads and how to avoid them.

General Tips

• Cross-promote. Link up your different social media pages as much as you can, particularly through buttons and targeted cross-promotions.
• Engage with your audience. Audience engagement is a terrible thing to waste. When you get comments, “like” and respond to them instead of just letting them sit there.

• Keep it consistent. Your brand identity — including voice and imagery — should remain consistent from channel to channel, even if the content itself varies. Maintaining consistency will help you establish expectations and make it so people will easily identify your social content.
• Don’t try to do too much. Unless you have a team of pros working on your behalf, you’re going to be limited in what you can do on social media. Be strategic in choosing your channels, basing decisions on where your audience is rather than trying to be everywhere at once.
• Quality over quantity. Keep your social media presence authentic by focusing on quality posts over just posting for the sake of it. You will not get quality engagement from just checking a box.

Being familiar with social media and how you can use it to boost customer engagement can really help you in building your business.

Get in touch with Savvy Business Gals to see how we can help you further. We can provide additional support and information to you in growing your business by driving more traffic, generating more leads and boosting your profits, which at the end of the day, that’s what we all want right?  Book a complementary 30 minute discovery call and find out how we might be able to help. Click here to book your call now!