You’ve likely realized the marketing and business development power of using social media by now. While it can be an incredible business tool, many businesses forget that social media is for being social!
We recently explored why active engagement is an essential element of any strong social media strategy. Today, we’ll dig into some best practices for actively engaging on social media and boosting your brand online.
Do Your Research
Before you dive into engaging on social media, do your research first. It’s a good idea to determine the account and post types you want to engage with on various platforms. The ideal individual and post will likely vary based on platform, so be sure to think through each different channel you manage.
To determine your targets for engaging, consider your goals on social media. Do you want to engage buyers or blog readers? Who is interested in what you write about? Who would get value out of your content?
Make a list of accounts and hashtags to interact with regularly. If you’re having trouble getting started, look at the followers of accounts similar to yours.
Set Aside Time Daily
One of the most important elements of effective social media engagement is consistency. Set aside 10-30 minutes each day (depending on how many platforms you manage) to engage with your community online. It’s completely okay to engage at different times of the day, but be sure to take action every single day.
Try to make time to engage on a platform before and after when you have a post scheduled to go live. This will help boost your engagement on the platform and can help you coordinate your schedule.
It’s worth noting that you should be interacting with potential users or customers of your product and similar businesses or organizations, but not direct competitors. For example, if you offer home cleaning services, you may want to consider engaging with cleaning product companies and individuals residing within the areas you serve.
Be Genuine
Sometimes selling online can feel a little distant, especially when compared to traditional in-person interactions. Social media creates an opportunity to get to know your potential customers and followers personally through micro interactions.
While it’s important to embody your brand voice, don’t be too buttoned-up. People go on social media because they want to interact with other human beings, not robots.
Once you’ve established your brand voice and personality, be sure to have some form of documentation on how you approach your communications online. If and when the time comes to offload work to a new-hire, having your brand identity documented will make the transition much smoother for all parties involved.
Acknowledge Disgruntled Customers
It can be awkward to deal with conflict, but it’s so important to do. If potential customers or followers see a bunch of comments from frustrated customers that don’t have responses, they’ll lose faith in your business. Be sure to reply to those comments, work to make things right, and maintain your brand image.
In a similar vein, if you have employees it’s worth occasionally checking Glassdoor for any reviews from current or previous employees. Regardless of the feedback you receive, take the time to craft a thoughtful and personalized response for each review you receive.
Explore Alternative Media Formats
While high-quality images always add value to social media posts, you can engage further with your audience by mixing up media types. Consider experimenting with any of the following:
- Uploading a pre-recorded video
- Going live to answer questions
- Using platform “Story” tools to post behind-the-scenes content
- Surveying your audience with polling features
Use Missinglettr to Streamline Your Social Scheduling
It can be challenging to juggle all aspects of social media management at a time. With Missinglettr, your new articles are automatically turned into social media drip campaigns, which you can easily alter to match your goals. From there, you can approve the posts and they’ll automatically go live on each platform at your preferred time.
By offloading your social media content creation and scheduling, you’ll have even more time to engage meaningfully with your followers. Learn more and get started for free with a 14-day trial.
