3 Tips For increasing engagement on social

Social media is a powerful marketing channel and a great way to connect with your audience. But the best social strategies are those that actually get engagement from their audience: comments, shares, and so on.

Read on for three tips for increasing engagement on social that will make your audience listen.

Social media is an excellent channel for boosting blog traffic too. Discover how to achieve that here.

Embrace the power of visuals to increase engagement

Visual content is a powerful but underestimated form of content. The simple addition of an image, photo, video, or infographic is enough to boost engagement considerably.

Visuals give your audience something to focus on, catching their eye on full social media feeds. Indeed, this is why platforms like Instagram and Pinterest are so successful — visuals encourage people to engage more.

Pick visuals that relate to your message — if the image isn't relevant to what you're saying, then it will jar, and your audience will be put off.

Naturally, you should strive for high-quality too. With the plethora of free photo editing software available and decent cameras as standard on smartphones today, there's no excuse for poor quality imagery. In essence, this Quick Sprout guide offers some useful pointers to get you started.

Use emojis to elicit emotions from your audience

Emojis are fast becoming ubiquitous on social media. The ability to convey meaning through one or more tiny graphics is excellent for boosting engagement with social audiences. In the same way that adding visuals can increase engagement, eschewing the written word in favor of emojis has the same effect.

Of course, while emojis can be useful, it is necessary to be cautious about how you use them. E won't suit every brand or industry, so it's up to you to determine whether or not they fit your branding.

If you do use emojis, consider adding them to a social post to nurture emojis certain emotions or feelings from your audience. For example, if you're having a discount sale, add a heart-eyes face or other positive emojis to elicit a similar positive reaction from your audience.

Appeal to your audience as individuals to make them care

If you want better engagement, you need to create a social strategy that taps into your audience and makes them care. It means appealing to them not as a mass audience, but as individuals.

You know already the value of buyer personas — but what about emotional personas? Build a character profile alongside your buyer personas (Jericho Writers' guide on character development is a useful starting point) and use it to highlight the more personal side of your audience.

It means identifying their pain points, interests, anxieties, and so on. For instance, do they care about social issues, and do they expect your brand to care about them too? Use it to highlight where your target audience is about your brand and plot where they're going.

Armed with this knowledge, you can then craft social messages that tap into their emotions and make them genuinely care about your social strategy.

If you want your social strategy to land, you need to encourage engagement from your audience. Follow the tips above and create social posts that your audience will genuinely engage in within 2020.

 Intro image credits: Pexels

Rodney Laws is an eCommerce platform specialist and online business consultant. He’s worked in the eCommerce industry for nearly two decades, helping brands big and small achieve their business goals. You can get his advice for free by visiting EcommercePlatforms.io and reading his detailed reviews. For more tips and advice, reach out to Rodney on Twitter @EcomPlatformsio.