For 80 percent of social media marketers, increasing engagement is a key strategy across social channels. 

While social media can be pretty straightforward to use, the complexities and struggles that come with increasing follower engagement can be detrimental to a business’s social media success.

It’s important to note that there are proper social media strategies for each platform as they cater to different demographics and needs of users. Still, as we will address in this blog, many engagement strategies can work across various social platforms.

And remember, to get more engagement, you also need to engage with your followers. Once they leave a comment or answer a question, make sure to acknowledge them! It can be as simple as liking their comment or responding back to them. Whatever you do, don't ignore them.

Now, let's dive into our tips! 

Social Polls

Followers and customers want their voices heard. Just how leaving a review is an outlet for this desire, polls on social media can serve a similar purpose.

This can also give a user more insight and influence into the decision-making of an account they follow. Many businesses will take advantage of polls by asking, for instance, whether blog readers want to hear one blog topic or another, and they can vote on which they would rather read.

This ability for a consumer, reader or anyone else to give input on something they may interact with in the future is more than enough motivation for many followers to contribute to polls on social media.

With the option to put out polls on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram Stories, you can choose to poll people on platforms where you see more engagement and interaction. This increased engagement will give way to increased input!

In the end, social media polls encourage user participation and engagement because they give them an outlet to express their opinions on topics, and it makes them feel a part of a community or as if they can help impact a business’s decisions.

Light-Hearted and Socially-Relevant Posts

Whether you are posting a viral meme or a creative joke, this is an excellent opportunity to not only get users to engage but also to display the character and personality behind your business!

With a digital space that is consumed by wanting to be the first person to post a new trend or talk about a new trend, it is likely the users will feel encouraged to engage with one of your posts if it addresses something topical and fun.

We recommend using relevant posts on your account, but also make sure you actively encourage users to interact with it. Ask for their thoughts on a current social media trend or a new meme that is circulating the internet to help lead them to interact with the post or simply ask them to post an emoji in response.

Or, if you really want to be a trendsetter, you can create your own meme and share it! 

You could also remind followers to repost your post if they enjoyed it. This way, you are encouraging follower interaction, improving your page engagement and you will be exposed to a new audience of followers on social media via the user who reposted your content.

Incorporate Visuals

The engagement possibilities with photos and videos are endless, and the proof is in the numbers!

Images have been found to have an 85 percent interaction rate, and they can generate a 35 percent increase in shares. These statistics prove why platforms like Instagram are so popular!

Visual content that includes people tends to perform well, so if you have a nice photo of a customer using one of your products or an employee performing one of your services, post it on your social channels!

Essential to the successful engagement of a visual on social media is making sure the photo or video is good quality and in focus for the viewer. Your business can come across as neglectful of important details if you don’t take the quality of a photo you are posting into consideration.

Since photos bolster such high engagement and share numbers, remember to incorporate visuals into social posts where you see fit. Maintain a balance with your posts, but if a photo or video would fit the content of your post well, find a nice visual to use in place of a simple text post.

For information on marketing your photography or videography business for social media users, check out this blog.

Final Thoughts

Struggle with follower engagement on social media no longer!

Consider our tips and try incorporating them into a social media strategy to track the success of these approaches on your social media.

If you need more guidance in constructing or tracking your social media strategy, click here to read all about the services that RevLocal can bring to your business!