Marketers often throw around the word “engagement” when speaking about social media metrics but what does it actually mean? According to Hootsuite, social media engagement is the measurement of comments, likes and shares. However, additional engagements can also include retweets, link clicks, saves, mentions, tags, video views and follows. All in all, higher social engagements = more opportunities for your brand. As we find ourselves in the thick of the busy holiday season, now is the perfect time to focus on increasing your engagement on social media while the eating’s HOT!

Here Are 5 Tips for Increasing Your Social Media Engagement

1. Ask Questions and Give the Audience Options

Sometimes more power lies within the caption of a post than the visual content represented. Lean into engaging with your audience in one of the simplest ways possible – asking them an easy question or running a poll! Darling Citrus gets creative with this by giving their audience two options to choose from in their caption. As you can see in the example below, both options have the potential to elicit at least one engagement or another from an individual.

2. Host A Social Media Flash Promotion

A flash promotion aims to increase brand awareness among shoppers while also increasing overall engagement and community size on social media. Giving away a prize in exchange for a like, comment and follow is well worth it for your brand’s social media growth. And, the best news about this is that you don’t need to spend a lot of money to see great results. The Healthy 4 You flash promotion on 4Earth Farms’ Instagram page garnered a total of 11,367 engagements and nearly 1,000 new followers and only spent $150 for prizes over three weeks!

3. Boost Your Social Posts

Of course, budgeting advertising dollars to boost your social media posts will help increase engagement significantly. By doing this, your post will be served directly to your target audiences on various platforms. The DMA social media team focuses the majority of our advertising dollars on the following platforms: Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and LinkedIn. If you are new to advertising on social media, we recommend boosting some of your posts for as little as $20 and then measuring your results and analyzing the difference in success between your paid and organic content.

4. Post About People!

As consumers care more and more about the faces behind the brands of food on their plates, we’ve seen an increase in engagement with pictures of people. Field photos are a great way to weave people into your content as well as provide an opportunity to represent diversity and inclusion. Dandy is the perfect example of this! The two posts below were shared on Instagram, both showcasing their fields. The photo with the employee generated 137 likes and 9 comments while the photo without the face of an employee generated 40 likes and 1 comment.

5. Create and Share Valuable, Interactive Content

Research and our own experience have both proven that useful, informational content that is of value to your followers will result in well-performing social media posts. A report from the Content Marketing Institute provides plenty of insight into the benefits of utilizing interactive, useful content within a marketing strategy. When surveying marketers who use this type of content, 81% agreed that interactive content grabbed attention more effectively than static content, and 66% agreed that audience engagement increased since they started using interactive content. Additionally, DemandGen reports that interactive content gains two times more engagement than static content. This could include a free infographic, a downloadable template, an educational video or graphic, a link to resources on your website, a clip of a webinar, and the list goes on. When reviewing your upcoming social media content calendar, we’d recommend asking yourself questions such as, “Have I included content that is valuable to followers?” or “What will my audience get from this?”. This strategy can also serve as an opportunity to educate your audience about your product or service, drive website traffic, and even a sales tool to nurture leads! The same report by Content Marketing Institute stated that 75% agree that nongated interactive content can provide a “sample” of the brand, resulting in a higher degree of lead nurturing”. For example, this LinkedIn post from LGS Specialty Sales effectively engages the reader by educating them about their product and featuring an informational resource where they can learn more, all while directing traffic to their website!

Need an extra hand in taking your social media marketing to the next level in 2024? We’d love to help! Reach out and we can discuss tailored strategies to elevate your brand’s presence on social media.