Smart Strategies to Boost Social Media Engagement

Have you ever wondered why some posts on Instagram and Facebook do not get enough likes and shares despite having good content? Engagement is a crucial part of successful social media strategies. However, it takes more than a giveaway or a contest to increase participation from the target audience.

As a leading digital marketing agency in Dubai with extensive experience in devising smart social media strategies, 7G Media suggests the following tips to boost engagement on social media platforms.

1. Add a touch of humour

Humour has a universal appeal and connects faster with the audience. It often grabs attention and stays memorable. Your content need not always be promotional. Post a funny video involving your employees, create a funny quiz, post some one-liners, come up with witty puns, use memes, or produce a video with comic animated characters that tell your brand story.

A great example of smart use of humour is Wendy’s social distancing campaign during the pandemic. The concept of “If we can’t hug, we might as well nug” made us chuckle and drew people to successfully to the drive-through.

2. Get the right timing

Your target audience is not using social media all the time. Analyse and identify the time of the day when they are active to increase the chances of better engagement. Posting at a time when they are inactive could place your posts much down on their social media feed, which could mean that they do not even see them.

So how do you determine the best time to post? Several factors including demographics and time zone need to be taken into consideration. For example, in the UAE, 1pm on Fridays would not be an apt time to share your posts since your users could be offering their prayers and not active on social media.

3. Maintain an active presence

Sharing interesting and engaging content consistently is vital to stay connected with your target audience. For example, if you are a brand which posts content on a specific day of a week, users will expect and await your posts regularly, which in turn boosts engagement, and helps keep your brand memorable. And did you know that the algorithms too have an inclination for regular posts? This means increased visibility on your audience’s social media feed.

The Instagram page of Mac Cosmetics is a good example for an active presence on social media. The brand posts regular and relevant content which includes, images of products, online demonstrations, essential beauty tips etc., which keeps the audience in the loop regarding its new product-line as well as increase engagement.

4. Create user-generated content

Creating user-generated content is one of the best ways to involve your target audience directly in your marketing campaign. It creates valuable customer relationships, which helps not only boost online engagement but build an online community of brand loyal customers. They act as an indirect mouthpiece of your product spreading the word with others, providing them an authentic recommendation.

Adobe’s #adobe_perspective campaign proved highly effective in this regard. It called designers and artists to share their creative works using any of the brand’s design software. The campaign generated huge number of user-generated content which Adobe used for user recommendations, product/feature promotions, and other expert endorsements.

5. Give your brand a tone of voice

Developing a consistent and authentic tone of voice for your brand on social media channels gives it a persona, helps forge strong emotional customer relationships, makes your brand stand out from the crowd, and boosts social media engagement. To build a tone of voice that connects with your target audience, remember to use original content and keep the vocabulary simple.

You can decide the tone of voice based on the characteristics of your brand, its unique features, the target audience, or even the industry it is related to. It can be strong and aggressive like Nike and Harley-Davidson portray their brand or can be simple yet confident like Apple depicts itself through its social media handles.

There are no hard-and-fast rules on how you can increase your brand’s social media engagement. It often takes bespoke strategies or tweaks to tried-and-tested strategies. The social media experts at 7G Media can help you devise the best tactics. Get in touch with us.