Did you know that almost 85% of U.S. consumers use social media? There is no wonder why so many brands out there are striving to get a share of that proverbial pie.

Even though many brands are latching on to social media and social media marketing campaigns, many brands are finding it difficult to get followers to engage with their content. Having thousands or even millions of followers just doesn’t cut it.

Here is the thing: it’s not about how many fans or followers you have. You may have millions of social media followers, but if they don’t interact with your brand, then the number of followers you have is just a hollow metric.

This reason is why online engagement trumps everything else as the most important marketing metric, even more than online traffic.

A few brands seem to do a really good job at it and others not so much. So, what distinguishes the successful engaging brands from the non-successful ones?

In this article, we are going to present to you five amazing ways on how you can drive and get your followers to engage with your content.

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Five ways to leverage social media engagement to boost your brand

1. Make new friends

Finding engaging influencers on social media is one of the quickest ways to boost your following and get your brand known in the social media world. Depending on your industry or what your brand Presents, try looking for micro-influencers that share content that would be relevant to yours. Using influencer marketing platforms to do that is a fast and easy way to do that because there are tons of social media users out there.

Find a few influencers who seem to be good candidates. It’s important to simply try to build a trustworthy relationship instead of immediately shooting them with a proposal. Comment on their posts and share insights that help forward the discussion. Posting valuable comments helps you get on the radar of influencers.

Time will tell how long the influencers will take note of your efforts. However, once they start replying to your comments, you already forged a connection with them. You can then help progress your budding relationship further by helping them out with their problems related to your expertise.

For example, if you have a clothing line brand and want to reach out to fashion influencers, you can suggest sending them swag from your latest line without any catch. By giving them swag for free, you immediately get into their good graces. If done correctly, the influencer may even share your swag on their social accounts without you asking them! That’s free publicity that will benefit your brand further.

The goal is to make a good impression on highly targeted influencers. The bulk of your social efforts will revolve around appeasing and befriending influencers so you can leverage your partnership later down the line. You can ask them to model for your clothes or help you promote your stuff even more.

2. Get your audience engaging

As a brand, we all know that your objective is to try to sell a product or service. Unfortunately, most people don’t like to be sold during their leisure time on social media.

The best way to go about engaging with them is to simply focus on trying to entertain your followers instead of trying to sell to them. That way, they can remember your brand to be one that is funny and enjoyable. You are basically building up potential conversions that way. Here are four ideas you can use to carry this out:

Memes

Regardless of what your brand sells, there are always memes that exist out there that you can use to make your followers laugh. If you can’t seem to find some online then just make some. Include a funny picture and add an enchanting caption and you’ll be all set to go.

Inspirational Quotes

Uploading inspirational quotes is one of the best ways to connect with your followers. If things aren’t going as awesome as they usually are, then sharing a quote or two from one of your favourite role models or entrepreneurs can spark the emotions of others which makes it very tempting to share.

Fun Facts

Who doesn’t like learning new things? Whenever you mix fun with learning you get a load of entertained followers. Regardless of whether it has to do with your business or something else, it’s still an awesome way to get comments and likes rolling.

GIFs

A GIF is like a short video on the reply that can get people laughing over, and over again. You can share it in a comment with another follower or in one of your posts as an image.  If you can’t express your thoughts in words, then GIFs would have to do! They’re interactive and engage your audience more than words can at times.

Latest posts

Share your latest published blog posts with your followers. The fact that they followed your brand on social media means they are interested in what you are offering. Therefore, make sure to publish compelling and thoughtful posts that provide value to your audience. A post with more than 2,000 words and covers a topic in depth should help your cause. Use your post to get a reaction from your followers and open a dialogue with them.

3. Be on time and upload regularly

If you want to keep your followers constantly engaged, you must maintain a consistent and frequent content feed. If someone posted awesome content once, you’ll be more than likely to check them out again whenever you get the chance to see if they have more. Setting up a time schedule such as uploading 3 or 4 times a week is a good target to set out in the beginning. Afterwards though, if you want to be competitive you’d have to step it up a notch. Tons of pictures and videos are uploaded on social media every day and in order to keep your brand alive, you have to always be there.

Using social media management platforms can be very helpful in assisting with being consistent. You can plan your content ahead of time and schedule posts to be uploaded during peak follower times.

4. Be the first to reply back

Once you do all the steps above, you are very likely to receive comments and direct messages. Now is your opportunity to make those efforts count by engaging with your followers. Don’t be one of those brands who give out one-word comments or just share a single emoji.

Try to develop a dialogue and be polite. Ask your followers what they like most and what they would want on upcoming uploads. Everyone enjoys being heard so be open and take their feedback.

5. Stay ahead of the game

As a brand, I’m sure you have a specific industry that is tied to a certain niche. Do everything you can to stay updated on the latest trends in your field. Follow other top brands and subscribe to trendy blogs to always be alert on what is coming. More importantly, monitor what people say about your brand. Do they love your brand or hate it? Finding out why they feel the way they do about your business helps you identify how to engage with your audience.

Keep doing your research and use new technologies and new apps to gain new experiences. Try utilizing Google Alerts to keep an eye out for web content in your industry. For better results, use a tool like Mention or Awario to help you collect mentions of your brand so you can interact with users in a meaningful.

Are you ready to take your social media engagement to the next level?

We’ve come up with five key points to implement to drive engaging followers towards your brand. As a brand, you can get engagement by interacting with other social media influencers. Posting content that makes followers laugh and entertained is vital to letting followers interact, otherwise, consistent informative posts will only make your followers bored. Upload regularly and frequently to have followers visit your page more often. Once they are there, ignite a conversation and get things going. Being fun and active with your audience is how you build a connection. On top of that, be sure to stay updated with the latest news towards your industry. Don’t allow your brand to stay behind and give yourself that extra push to be on top of your game.