Increasing social media engagement is a top priority for most retail brands—after all, you can never have too many followers. But it is not all about the numbers. By increasing engagement, you will also boost brand exposure and make sure your brand reaches as many potential clients as possible.
But do you even know how to increase engagement on Instagram, Facebook, and other social platforms? Engaging your social media followers requires effort, time, and a thorough knowledge of what true engagement entails.
This article was created to help you take your retail brand’s social media engagement to the next level.
1. Analyze Your Current Engagement Levels
It’s sort of difficult to track your progress if you don’t even know where you started. Therefore, the first step is to check out your current number of followers, the average number of shares and comments on each post, or any other figures that are related to your marketing goals.
Be sure to keep track of your engagement levels on a regular basis so that you can notice any dips or spikes in engagement that can reveal significant information about what is working (or, more crucially, what is not).
2. Know Your Target Audience
Engaging your followers will prove impossible if you have no idea who you are talking to. The social media channels you select, as well as the language and tone you use, need to resonate with your target customers. Knowing who you are talking to will also assist you in figuring out what type of content to create and when it is best to publish your content. Statistics indicate that Instagram is very important for retailer brands today in terms of social selling.
3. Create Valuable Content
It is vital to provide content that is beneficial to your audience and meets their wants and pain areas. Instead of bluntly promoting your brand, think about posting content that will spark up a conversation or offer some kind of value. For instance, if you’re selling T-shirts, consider sharing ideas for how to dress up a t-shirt
When it comes to content formats, it is useful to know what kind of content works best on each social site: longer text posts for Facebook, artistic photographs for Instagram, and so on. You can also get creative with polls, asking questions, encouraging your followers to ask you questions, animated gifs, custom filters or stickers for IG Stories, etc.
4. Be Active
The simplest method to obtain increase your engagement is to engage more on social media networks. Instead of simply using social media to promote your retail brand by running marketing campaigns, be sure to respond to DMs and comments, like relevant images/articles, and follow other brands in your niche.
People get annoyed when a company or a person ignores them and utilizes social media as a one-way communication route. They expect brands on social media to reply to them promptly, whether it is to solve an issue or simply say ‘thank you’.
5. Run Contests and Giveaways
Contests and giveaways are an excellent method to increase your social media engagement. When you host a giveaway, you normally encourage your audience to participate by liking or sharing your post, tagging friends, or following your account by offering a prize in return.
Giveaway posts are the fourth most popular type of social media posts. If you want to get the best results, research has also shown that giveaways with prizes of $1000 or more receive an engagement rate of 5.8% per 100 followers.
Final Thoughts
It’s a long process, but with the proper tools and systems in place, you’ll reap the rewards in no time. Even if you don’t want to establish a large following, engagement is an essential aspect of your brand’s identity and provides a useful way to interact with consumers and grow your retail business. The good news is – it doesn’t have to be challenging.
Create a social media presence that appropriately portrays your brand by posting relevant content on a regular basis and interacting with your customers. Don’t forget to set clear and measurable goals, and make a commitment to achieve them. It’ll take time, but with the right methods and tools in place, you should see results quickly.
Article Submitted By Community Writer
