Ever felt that you're creating nice little social media posts, only to find that you're not getting the engagement you wanted? Ever feel that it's hard to build engagement around your brand?
If your engagement levels have been flagging a little or you suspect it's all the algorithm's fault, then here are some ideas to help you refresh, upgrade or try something new to create more conversation.
Open up - in order for someone to engage with you and your brand, they need to feel that they know or understand something about you. How can you make that happen? If you use content pillars (search our How To Guide archive for help), then include a 'behind the scenes' element that gives your audience some insight into life in your business. Some of you may be super open about how you feel in a 'warts and all' style or if life is more private than that for you, how about just a little about running your business, how you make things or ways that you relax?
Ask for help - as small business owners, we have lots of decisions to make and folks love nothing better than giving an opinion. Why not simply ask your audience? Maybe you're choosing a new logo or updating your website and want to know their thoughts. Perhaps you're not sure which colourway will work best and you create a quick poll to ask.
Understand your audience better - so often we make all our socials about us, after all we're trying to promote our businesses. But what about asking your audience how they feel about something? Depending on your brand identity, it could be anything from sharing your feelings and asking about theirs in a post to a simple question about their favourite jam flavour in a story. Knowledge is power and you will be able to gather so much valuable intel this way.
Tell stories - humans have loved stories for millennia and modern digital marketing is no different. Think about how you can break down your business information into stories. Why did you start your business, who are the most important people in it, where is your next chapter headed. Your audience will start to look out for the next chapter and want to know more as well as feeling more connected to you and ready to engage when you reach out.
Be generous - this might be the odd competition or shining a light on your audience, but you always want to make people feel special. Maybe you occasionally offer a little contest that asks people to tag a friend or gives you some valuable insight. Maybe you ask them to tag their own business in to share with your audience. Perhaps you have a little Friday round up of tagging in your best 'chats' or engagements of the week. Your audience are likely to tag your business back in so it's a win win for everyone.
As always, head to the Forum now and find the discussion about this topic (we create a new thread in the 'How To Guide category each Monday) so that you can take a deeper dive on this topic with your fellow members. No doubt you all have questions and ideas that have worked (or not!) for you.
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