10 social media tips to supercharge your engagement levels

We Have Put Together Some Social Media Tips To Consider

You’re a business owner who has invested in social media and is hungry to see the results. You want to strengthen brand personality, maintain brand loyalty, direct users to your website and even increase sales.

The key is to get people to engage with your content. Remember you can interact with people globally whatever is going on in the world almost instantly.  If you’d like more people to invest their time, and eventually their money into your brand, these social media tips are for you.

 1. Make customer service paramount

We’re intentionally kicking off our social media tips with this one due to its importance.

If people are complaining or asking questions, don’t avoid them or delete their messages. Instead, respond in a professional manner, apologise where necessary and guide them to a solution. Why? Because it shows the consumer that you’re a helpful brand that cares and can help convert other consumers who have stumbled upon you.

Remember to:

• Keep a consistent eye on things as it’s not ideal to respond to someone a month after they’ve expressed a concern.

• Thank people who are mentioning your brand positively (not just on your profile but in the social media space) as people are likely to interact with brands that make them feel valued.

 2. Give it some love

First impressions matter. You may think that a fuzzy pixelated picture of your logo won’t do much harm but it can drive people away.

A bad looking profile, or constant spelling mistakes can give out the message that you’re lazy or under experienced. Make your social media page a place where people want to be with a good-quality cover image or background, a branded logo and fill in relevant details about your company.

3. Create interesting content

Determine what your social media account is for – is it a place for industry news or more of a light-hearted outreach?

Look to other social media accounts from brands in your sector to get an idea of what works and to gain inspiration for some interesting content. It can also help to look at conversations happening online in your industry particularly within forums or blog comments.
Don’t be afraid to:

• Ask questions in your posts or tweets – this gives users the comfort of knowing that they can engage with you and that you value their opinions.

• Use hashtags even on Facebook – it helps users to easily find and participate in topics that they are interested in and increases the likelihood of engagement. Just don’t go overboard!

4. Less sales, more incentives

There’s no denying that business owners create social media accounts for their brand in order to get more people interested in their products and services. Monitoring this as a goal is fine but don’t use your social media to be a direct sales pitch.

Instead, reward your fans with discounts or giveaways so that you’re creating a positive experience for your audience as opposed to chasing fans away with a constant push to buy.

 5. Don’t auto-sync your social media accounts

When compiling our social media tips, we knew this would be one you’d hate to hear as syncing social media accounts to publish the same content can save a lot of time.

However, there are a few problems with this. For example, if you’ve set your Facebook posts to immediately publish on Twitter, the 140 character limit means your tweets will appear truncated.

This can be annoying for users who are on twitter for its condensed style of news and information. Also, the two platforms are very different from one another with different etiquettes. Posting several times on twitter will just seem cluttered on your Facebook wall and you’re likely to see a drop off in fans who feel disengaged.
You can:

• Publish content on the same subject but tweak and modify your posts or tweets so that it’s appropriate to the platform you are using.

• Use tools such as HootSuite or Sproutsocial to schedule content in advance so you don’t have to spend time making tweaks on the spot.

6. Use images

As far as social media tips go, this may seem like basic advice but it’s surprising how often it’s overlooked. Most people think that great content is enough to get a click through but images help grab attention and draw people in. In fact, a recent A/B testing by Hubspot found a 55% increase in leads when images were added to tweets.

These don’t always have to be bespoke images created by a professional designer – we recommend subscribing to image providers such as ThinkStock or iStockphoto where you’ll have access to high-quality images without copyright restrictions.

 7. Use social tools

If you want to succeed in your social media marketing efforts, you need tools to help monitor your progress and outreach. Social tools are advanced software and offer more than just an update on how many new followers you’ve gained (something that you could track manually).

There are numerous tools out there such as Facebook Insights, Klout and Raven that can give you all sorts of information from the best time to post (based on your past audience interactions) to the demographic and interests of those engaging with you (invaluable for creating share-worthy content).

You can even compare yourself against major competitors.

8. Keep an eye on changing guidelines

Social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook regularly change their guidelines often adding more useful features or restricting previous actions.

To keep up to date, follow some social media blogs or keep an eye on Facebook’s newsroom and Twitter’s own updates. This can ensure you’re not breaching any conditions which can result in your page being removed. You wouldn’t want to lose all those fans that you worked hard to build up!

 9. Build awareness

To boost your engagement levels, you need to make people aware of your social media presence as there’s not much use in shouting about how you’re on Facebook, on Facebook – you need to use other methods of getting the word out.

Begin by putting social media icons on your website, on business cards, email signatures and on other branded material. You could even invest into creating a social campaign to create a buzz online. You never know who will visit your social media page – potential consumers or organisations that could present new opportunities for partnerships.

10. Consider an agency

Social media is a 24/7 platform and there’s lots to keep up with. Many business owners are limited to how much time they can spend on social media with other areas of the business taking priority. If you’re struggling or simply don’t have the time, it might be worth considering an agency.

There are many social media agencies in the UK that are experts in handling social media for their clients, many will be willing to work on a trial contract.

Choosing a marketing company is always going to be a challenge, as the UK has tens of thousands of marketing companies to choose from.

If price is a concern, begin by getting a few quotes from credible social media agencies as social media costs vary. We provide 5 price quotes from top marketing agencies near you – there’s no obligation to go with one but it does mean you’re more informed about the price you could be paying.