Source: http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/3-social-media-engagement-techniques-that-work/
Social media engagement comes in the form of likes, shares, follows, comments, tags, retweets, replies, mentions, favorites, repins, clicks, upvotes, +1s, and views. It represents a successful two-way dialogue between your brand and customers.
How to improve social media engagement
Audience engagement on social media is one of the pillars of marketing today. If you’re constantly sharing content on different social media networks but are finding it hard to get customers to engage, the following techniques may just help you out:
1. Customize your approach.
If you want to run a successful social campaign with the right amount of engagement, you need to know your audience first and find out what they’re likely to respond to and enjoy. And you can do this by doing some research. Determine which social media sites your target audience visit more often or spend the most time on. Identify what topics they care about or are very interested in and which hashtags they regularly use.
But aside from listening to your audience, communicate with them as well. Once your fans or followers know that you’re interested in them and care for what they say, they won’t hesitate to let you know about what makes them happy. And once you know what they’re looking for, you can start a social media campaign that your audience will embrace.
2. Set your target goal.
Prior to launching a social media campaign, figure out what your particular goal is. If you don’t have a firm plan in mind, you’re simply setting yourself up for failure. When coming up with a plan, make sure identify what you want to accomplish, determine the audience you’re targeting, and ascertain how you want to connect with them.
3. Place, not shove, your product in your audience’s hands.
Most online viewers today are tired of “in-your-face” marketing strategies on different social media sites. Bear in mind that the primary goal of social media is to be social; as such, prioritize nurturing relationships with your fans and followers.
It may be hard to do but when initiating a social media campaign, take a step back on the selling part and simply share. Avoid forcing your product or your brand on your audience since they may just stop listening to you. Go for subtlety instead. Give your target audience a way to share your product in a fun and unique way so that they will be naturally drawn to it.
