Social media marketing is an essential skill for any business. There are billions of people with social media accounts who use the sites to find information, shop, and engage with businesses online. One of the hardest parts of great social media interaction is finding ways to get attention with so many posts competing for it.
Social Media and Customer Engagement
You can use social media for more than sharing information about your business. It can help you collect information about your customers, find new customers, and create a positive impression of your business with your audience. But there are a sea of entrepreneurs out there looking to get attention on social media so you have to make sure you’re doing social media marketing right. If you aren’t, you’ll get the likes, shares, and retweets that really help push your business in front of potential new clients and help you increase your customer engagement.
Use Calls-to-Action
You should always use a call-to-action on your social media posts. The endgame of a post on Facebook or Twitter isn’t to get positive feedback there — it’s to draw the person to your website or business. So include links on posts and encourage people to click on them. Tell them they can learn more. Say that the full story is at the linked page. Crafting a call-to-action is an art that requires a little bit of practice but don’t be afraid to drive right in and start trying on your next post.
Promote Your Post
Most sites offer some kind of promotion. If you have room in your marketing budget, you might want to experiment with promoting your posts. Sites don’t always show posts in the order they’re made anymore. Instead, algorithms determine how they’re posted to a user’s feed. Since people don’t always scroll through every available post, it pays to be closer to the top — which is what promotion can do for you.
Offer Something for Free
People love to get a good deal. If you run a contest or offer free samples, you’re more likely to stand out from other posts. Another benefit is that you can give away things to people who might become customers once they’ve tried what you have to offer. Even if every person you connect with doesn’t start to follow or patronize your business, it’s a good way to attract attention, get shares, and find at least some new customers. You can also have sharing your post as a condition of a contest entry, if you want to extend your reach.
Integrate Images or Video
Posts that use images or videos are going to attract more attention than text-only posts. If you’re using media, make sure that it’s original, personal, and appropriate. You don’t want to create a social media faux pas that you have to apologize for later. Stay away from controversial stuff, keep your post on topic, and try to stay positive. Any post you make represents your business.
Tease the Story
Don’t give everything away up front. When you can offer more on a link, you can get people on your website. Taking someone away from the social media site and to your site can help them get a better impression of your business and see what you have to offer.
Try not to be clickbait — offer something interesting in your post. Just be sure to tell readers that there’s more to see if they’re willing to navigate away from the social site.
Showcase User Content
Sometimes the best way to get attention is to use the experience of your customers to sell your product or service to other social media users. Ask people to write in with images of them using your products or services and ask for permission to share them. For example, place web forms on your site that enter a customer in a drawing if they share a story on a social media site and link to it.
You can also encourage people to post on your page. The trick is to try to keep the posts positive. You don’t want people making negative remarks about your company on the social media site. Always look like a good business that’s responsive to customers.
Work the Trends
People often use social media to search for posts on trends and recent news. If you can find a positive way to integrate these into your social media posts, you’ll be more likely to attract attention from users that weren’t aware of you before. When people search through the trending topics, they see posts made on those topics. That means that they might navigate to your profile or website, too.
The way to choose which topics to work with is to think about what’s relevant to the audience you want to reach. A story about a dog that found its way home after a big move would draw pet lovers; a story about breakthrough medical research might draw people interested in science. Try to post on things that would interest the people you want to reach. That way, the views you’re getting have the potential to generate business for you.
If you use a few different tricks to get attention on social media, your views are going to go way up. You’ll have more interaction with potential customers, create a buzz around your business, and generally do more than just have another space with your business information. Engaging with customers is hard in the beginning but as you get used to it, you’ll find it’s easier and easier. The benefits will only grow as people like your page, share your posts, and promote your business to others.