Engaging Your Audience on Social Media

Engag­ing your audi­ence is as as much a pro­fes­sion­al skill as the work you do. That means not just get­ting your ser­vices or prod­uct out to a demo­graph­ic or try­ing to build a client base, but actu­al­ly affect­ing them — and bet­ter, hav­ing them respond!  

Engaging your audience on social media

Great Social Media Mar­ket­ing is a Two-Way Street

Social Media is a pow­er­ful tool, espe­cial­ly for engag­ing your audi­ence. Post­ing graph­ics, tips, pitch­es and pro­mos are vital, but are state­ments that lead to one-way com­mu­ni­ca­tion. Go to the next lev­el and pep­per those posts with ones that mean­ing­ful­ly engage with and grow your audi­ence.  But how, you ask?

Cut through the clut­ter and start engag­ing your audience. 

Since hol­i­days are always a con­tent oppor­tu­ni­ty and Mother’s Day is this month, we’ll use it for an example.

1. Stop Viewers from Scrolling Past 

Grab­bing their atten­tion is the first step to engage­ment. A pow­er­ful visu­al is the key. Take a look at the IGTV tuto­r­i­al we cre­at­ed for our client Adobe Express (for­mer­ly Adobe Spark) on How To Make an Easy Mother’s Day Graphic. 

2. Give Something of Value

Now that you have their atten­tion, share tools, videos, tips, even your own relat­able pro­fes­sion­al expe­ri­ences. This is a way to break through the screen so to speak, and affect your view­er more than oth­er posts. Share your own Moth­ers Day thoughts or the NCD tuto­r­i­al linked above and encour­age peo­ple to come back to post their graph­ic in your comments!

3. Ask a Question at the End of Your Post

But what is going to coax an actu­al reply? Some­thing some­thing that will strike a chord at a deep­er lev­el.. whether it’s too fun or mean­ing­ful not to speak up!  Think about this to find ideas: We all moth­er in some way. Whether male or female, we each nur­ture, cre­ate, sup­port, teach, feed, coach, pro­vide. Whether it’s our own fam­i­ly or friends kids, our fur babies, elders, a char­i­ta­ble cause or com­mu­ni­ty project, we all moth­er. Ask­ing some­thing that touch­es that in your read­er WILL engage com­ments, like:

• What is the thing your moth­er taught you that you want to share?
• What ways do you moth­er in your own life? 
• How do you hon­or your mom?
• What was some­thing real­ly fun­ny your mom did?

Share, Engage, Cultivate!

Like any suc­cess­ful rela­tion­ship, social media mar­ket­ing works best as a two-way street. So go for it! You can begin to devel­op this skill start­ing now while the infor­ma­tion is fresh. Cul­ti­vate those rela­tion­ships as part of your brand with a Mother’s Day post and per­haps shar­ing my tuto­r­i­al with them. Then ask them a con­nec­tive ques­tion, and see what happens! 

You can get even more mileage out of a hol­i­day post by spread out through the week, ask­ing dif­fer­ent ques­tions between now and May 15.

We’d love to hear in the com­ments below how you did. Or any questions.

If you’d like to do a brain­storm­ing ses­sion on how to come up with more engag­ing con­tent, or coach­ing on how to devel­op rela­tion­ships through Social Media Mar­ket­ing, please CONTACT us!