How To Garner Organic Engagement

Congratulations!

You have done it. Fully immersed yourself into the world of social media. You have a regular content calendar, you are using hashtags, and creating graphics on Canva that promote your business!

But, wait. Wait just a second.

Aren't you just supposed to start posting and then see leads? Where are they?

Your social media efforts do not seem to be working. You have not seen any leads come from social media and the only 'likes' your posts receive are from your mom and your childhood best friend. Those people are not going to give you their money. So how do you get actual, real people looking at your content, visiting your website and then give you their money?

It's all about engagement. And no, not the kind that requires a diamond ring and a public display of love. No, this kind of engagement is much less sexy. This kind of engagement is purely scientific, driven by analytics, and takes time to create.

Social media engagement measures the public shares, likes, clicks, and comments for a business' social media efforts.

How do you create this thing called engagement?

Check out these tips to see how you can improve engagement and drive sales!

1. Create specifically for each platform

Each social media platform is unique in its own way. So why are you posting like each platform is the same? Your lack of engagement can increase dramatically from you just optimizing each post for the appropriate platform. Optimizing posts can take form in customizing the posts' caption length, image formatting, and vocabulary according to the platform.

For reference, here are the correct image sizes for each platform.

1. Facebook: 1200 x 900 px
2. Instagram: 1080 x 1080 px
3. Twitter: 1024 x 512 px
4. LinkedIn: 6898 x 400 px

You also need to customize your posts based on the audience that will be viewing them. For instance, the crowd on Instagram is all around younger than on Facebook and your content should reflect those changes.

2. Share curated content

Sharing curated content is GREAT on any platform. How many times have you scrolled through Facebook and ended up clicking an article and not even really caring about the information being offered? Exactly. Facebook is a great platform for click-baiting.

Choose some articles that are relevant to those that follow you. But, what benefit do you get from sharing and article from Entrepreneur? All you are doing is driving traffic to their website.

We have a trick! Before sharing the Entrepreneur article, go to Snip.ly, and plug in the link. This is a tool we use for ALL of our clients at Hyperchat Social! Basically, Snip.ly frames any website with a call-to-action message branded to your business! These call-to-action messages are super easy to design. So instead of driving traffic to Entrepreneur, you present them with a compelling call-to-action to give you their business. Snip.ly also has great analytics features where you are able to see which types of articles outperformed others based on the number of clicks the post has received!

2. Boost your top posts on Facebook

We all know that Facebook has become a pay-to-play platform. In fact, less than 2% of your audience organically sees your content. So how do you pay to play?

If you are not ready to jump straight into running a full Facebook ad campaign, we do not blame you. Managing an ad budget, A/B testing different images with different copy, all while worrying about your cost-per-click can be exhausting, especially for someone trying to also run their own business!

That is where Facebook Ad's less daunting side comes in through boosting. Facebook has a boosting feature where you can easily click the 'boost' button and run a mini-ad for an individual post. You can select a target audience and throw in as little as $10 to increase your engagement tenfold! Use there boosting features as you see fit. Got a post with a Snip.ly that is preforming well? Boost it! Made a graphic you are extremely proud of? Boost it! Got an event coming up? Boost the event page!

Check out this blog post to all things Facebook ads to learn more.

4. Create fan-centric content

Did you ever stop to think maybe your social media content should not be for you? You are not creating content for just yourself! Create you Facebook content with who will be seeing it in mind. When you are in a lull, ask yourself these three questions.

1. Have you made your followers laugh lately?

Everyone on social media is looking for some kind of escape. Provide that escape with a funny meme or reposting a viral video. Remember, the more you get your audience to engage with your fun content, the more they will see your promotional material.

2. Have there been any real-world events you can piggy back off of?

2019 has been a whirlwind of viral stories and we are only 4 months in! Anything from the Jussie Smollett case to the college admissions scandal to the Jonas Brothers getting back together, there has not been a shortage of content for you to post about! Find an article that presents the story in a way that your demographic will find interesting. Paste that article into Snip.ly and watch the engagement roll in.

3. Have I seen any fascinating industry-related statistics lately?

There's nothing that gets people's attention quite like a threatening statistic. Did you know that the average retirement lasts for THIRTY YEARS? That's a lot of years! Present your followers with attention grabbing statistics and they are sure to share the content on their own social media!

5. Analyze your most popular posts

Sometimes the key to engagement is to take a good long look inward. What have you been posting lately? What has gotten the most traction? The most love in the comments? The highest number of likes?

Look inward and see what about that post did well. What was it about the article that your audience loved so much? What are people saying in the comments? Instead of treating a good post as an anomaly, t Rather than treat that post as an anomaly, you should instead take steps to recreate the same social magic again. Understanding your followers' taste and preferences is key to social success.

6. Be SOCIAL!

People do not come to social media to be sold on a service. They do not come to social media to be sold on a brand. People come to social media to be just that, social. So if you are not interacting with your follower, then what are you doing?

People crave authenticity and want it to feel like there is a real person behind the posts. So give the people what they want! Companies that have a quicker response rate often see it reflected positively in your SEO efforts.

Go ahead and try some of these tips in your own business and you will see the results flow naturally. If you like what we at Hyperchat have been posting about but need help implementing it, you can click here to schedule a demo to get started Turning Social Into Sales.