Building an engaged social media audience is one of the most rewarding marketing tasks that your business can achieve. It’s through these channels that you build a rapport with your customers and establish trust so that when you are ready to ask for a sale, they’re ready to provide.
Here are some helpful tips to guide the process of creating engaging social media content.
Tell a Story
Social media is about storytelling, using both visual components and words. To do so effectively, you need to consider what story you’re trying to tell people about your business.
When you create a video or graphic, consider how it ties into your brand. What thoughts and emotions do you hope to invoke when you hit post? How do you want your customers to feel and respond when they see a photo?
Every good story has a beginning, middle, and end. When you write captions, start with a hook. You have one sentence to get your follower to stop scrolling and keep reading. Consider your goals for this story: are you trying to make an emotional connection or share valuable information?
Every post you create should be intentional. Focus on quality over quantity to boost your engagement.
Create a Consistent Aesthetic
Creating a consistent aesthetic goes hand-in-hand with good social media content strategy creation. Your aesthetic is what creates consistency across the various social media channels while increasing brand recognition.
Your colours and tone will play a significant role when developing a brand aesthetic. For example, if your business strives to be perceived as fun, bright, and lively, your colours, photo editing, and graphics should emulate that goal. Conversely, if you’re more serious and moody, having darker images and richer colours makes sense.
Planning is key when creating a consistent aesthetic across social media channels.
Highlight Other Users
User-generated content (UGC) is when brands encourage customers to share content featuring their purchases using account tagging and hashtags. In return, the user gets featured on the brand’s page. This is a fantastic opportunity for brands to curate content without having to create it from scratch.
Sharing UGC also creates social proof, showing the audience that other people are happy with your business, thus boosting engagement.
In addition to sharing UGC, you can also highlight other brands and businesses you admire. This cross-promotional approach will attract more followers from other accounts.
Ask Questions
Asking questions shifts the focus from your business to an individual on the other side of the screen. This focus encourages them to interact and share the spotlight. It generates a feeling of recognition and value. As a result, your engagement increases.
Get creative when asking questions to see what works and what doesn’t. Mix it up with topical questions, inquiries that are relevant to your core offering, and conversation starters.
Break Up Text
One of the easiest things you can do to start improving social media engagement today is to break up blocks of text. If necessary, use a line-breaking app to prevent everything from posting in one overwhelming word jumble.
You can also use emojis to intersperse visual stimulation within long-form social media content.
Cater to Your Audience
Remember that creating social media content isn’t about what you want to share; it’s about what your audience wants to see and hear. Catering to your audience will ensure that you’re providing value rather than being scrolled past every time you post an update.
Take time to analyse your insights and determine which posts perform best and why. Then, shift your efforts to incorporate similar content. If you want to continuously engage your audience, you must always be open to adapting.
Use this guide to start creating engaging social media content that gets your audience talking and your customers buying.