It is so hard now a days to get your social media posts seen. But, I don’t want you to give up! There are ways to help with that.

Social Media is about starting the conversation, being authentic, and making meaningful connections that can turn into future customers.

What is social media engagement?

It’s simple, it’s the comments, likes, and shares. When social media first started, it was about getting the followers. The bigger the number, the better. But as social media has changed, we have learned that your follower size doesn’t matter. You want an audience that is engaged. It’s about the quality of your content and the connections you form, it’s not about the quantity.

Click here to see why you don’t need thousands of followers to be successful on social media.

Activity and engagement is so important for every social media platform. WHY? Because you want to build a positive brand experience, and develop meaningful relationships with new and potential customers.

Social media engagement can be measured by a range of things including:

• Shares
• Comments
• Likes
• Retweets
• Follower growth
• Click-throughs
• Mentions

Anytime someone interacts with your content, your engagement grows.

How to increase social media engagement

You can’t really wait for people to start engaging with you.

Here are some things you can do now to help increase your social media engagement:

First, look at your engagement now.

Create an excel sheet with the following information – current number of followers, how many comments and shares you’re getting on average per post, and how many likes you are getting on each post.

Make sure you are keeping track of these numbers regularly. This way you can see what is working and what isn’t.

Choose a strategy

You should really start by knowing what your goals are for your social media. Is it to drive traffic to your website, develop new leads, educate your audience?

Click here to learn how to create a social media marketing plan. This article will help you with a lot of the topics below.

Know who your audience is

Who is your target market?

Your content should have a certain tone. Who are you talking to? My tone for my content will be different of that of a financial advisor or real estate agent.

Knowing who your target market is will help you decide which social media platforms to focus on. Not all social media platforms are created equal. You will also know what type of content to share and when.

Create & share valuable content

Now that you know what your goals are and who your target market is, it’s time to figure out what you are going to share.

Let’s start with what your customer’s needs are. What are their pain points? How does your product or service help your ideal customer?

What tips and ideas can you provide? How can you get the audience involved with your posts so they engage with them?

Here are some ideas:

• Ask questions
• Conduct polls
• Run contests
• Have your audience ask you questions
• Highlight your customers
• Do Facebook & Instagram Lives

Show there is a human being behind your brand

People want to know they are dealing with a real person, someone who is authentic, genuine, and real.

Provide people with great customer service, that way they will recommend you to their friends and family.

How do you do this?

• Answer their questions in a timely manner
• Respond to comments with warmth and humor if it calls for it
• Go behind the scenes of your office
• Introduce your audience to your team
• Share some of your favorites

Let people know you are a human being and that you really care.

How do you measure social media engagement?

Now that you have the engagement, how do you measure it? By looking at your analytics. Each platform has their own.

Facebook

• Reach & engagement – How many people saw your posts? Who interacted with them?
• Actions – What actions did people take on your Page? How many people click your call-to-action button? How many people click through to your website?
• People – What are the demographics of the people visiting your Page? When do people visit your Page? How do people find your Page?
• Views – How many people view your Page? Which sections are they looking at?
• Posts – Which posts are doing well and which ones aren’t? When is your audience on Facebook?

Learn more about Facebook Analytics here.

Instagram

• Audience demographics – Where they live? Are they men or women? How old?
• Times – When are your followers online? What days and times are they active?
• Popular content – What gets hearts? What posts get comments?

Learn more about Instagram Analytics here.

Twitter

• Engagement rate – How much engagement and how many impressions did your tweet get?
• Reach percentage – How many followers saw a given tweet?
• Link clicks – How many click-throughs did your linked tweet get?
• Posting time – When is your audience most likely to be online? What time zone do they live in?

Learn more about Twitter Analytics here.

LinkedIn Profile Dashboard

• Who viewed your profile – if you have the free version, you can only see a few of the people who have viewed your profile
• Post views – see your posts and the engagement for each
• Search appearances – the number of times your profile appeared in search results, where your searchers work, what your searchers do, and the keywords your searchers used

LinkedIn Company Page

• Visitors – page views, custom button clicks, dates and times they viewed your page, and your visitor demographics
• Updates – see reactions, comments, shares, impressions for each post on your page
• Followers – how many followers your page has, new followers, when you got those followers, a list of all your followers, and your follower demographics

Learn more about LinkedIn Analytics here.

Pinterest

• Overview – shows your impressions, total audience, engagement, top boards and top pins
• Audience insights – the most popular categories and related interests for your total audience or your engaged audience, demographics including age, gender, location and the device used by your audience
• Video – performance over time and top pins with videos

Learn more about Pinterest Analytics here.

In conclusion….social media is about gaining people’s KNOW, LIKE, & TRUST and putting the “social” back in social media! When you put in the time and care about your audience, you’ll get that right back.