3 Types of Social Media Content that Drive Engagement

Brands can develop conversations with their followers and thus create audience-specific strategies that lead to more revenue. Marketers that prioritize blogs are 13 times more likely to see a positive ROI!

With over 4.4 million blog posts posted every day, it’s easy to get lost in a sea of content. Therefore, your social media posts need to stand out. Producing content that compels consumers to engage, share and comment, drives more traffic to your site, and ultimately improves sales. Even if you’re not selling a product or service, by having higher engagement, you become a more lucrative influencer, leading to sponsorship deals and brand partnerships. Many companies prioritize high engagement levels over large followings as it generates the best sales outcomes. A large following doesn’t necessarily mean audiences are reading content and retaining the information.

To further increase traffic to your site or social media page, consider using a link building agency to improve your SEO. They develop high-quality external links for your site, which increases their ranking on search engines. The higher your website appears on SERPs, the more clicks and more engagement you’ll generate.

To boost your social media engagement, consider these 3 types of content:

1. Interactive content

Your content should compel people to read fully and respond, rather than skimming and scrolling past. Static blogs generate far fewer views and engagement- let’s face it, our collective attention spans have shortened, and people no longer take the time to read long word-dense blog posts. One of the most effective ways to catch people’s interests and keep them reading is to make your content interactive and open-ended.

A great way to achieve this is through fun quizzes that encourage followers to share the results with their friends. Quizzes can help you gauge customer interest and learn more about your audience, and collect helpful information for generating future content. Ensure you provide an interesting or funny result or score that can be shared on social media to generate further interest from your audience’s following.

When seeking higher engagement, prioritize action-based content, and don’t be afraid to directly ask followers to engage. For instance, a food blogger sharing a quick and easy dinner recipe can ask, “What are your favorite weeknight dinner meals? Comment below!” Memes are another great way to show your lighter side and relate to followers on a personal level. Create memes and write captions that encourage engagement, asking followers to tag a friend. End all your content with an open-ended question or request for action.

Sharing real-time posts can boost engagement, so keep a calendar of upcoming holidays and post content related to that day. This isn’t limited to the major holidays: celebrate holidays like national taco day or national puppy day with funny, relatable content that your audience can laugh at and share.

Provide fun incentives for engaging with your content like discount codes or offers, such as “if this post gets 10,000 likes, I’ll donate to an environmental charity of your choice”, then allow followers to vote on the charity once you reach your goal. You can also include relevant calculator tools on your blog, post shareable motivational quotes, or create a regular email newsletter. Newsletters can be great tools to interact with your audience, but ensure they truly add value or people will quickly hit the unsubscribe button. For longer videos or blog posts, finish with a joke about the length of the content, and ask followers to comment with a funny key word if they read or watched to the end.

The point of social media is a personal connection, so when you interact with followers, do so genuinely and listen to their feedback. People can see through insincere tactics. Write compelling headlines, but clickbait titles turn people away. Believe that your service, content, or product adds value, and learn what your audience needs and wants so you produce content that’s interesting and insightful to them. Keep your tone warm and true to yourself, and people will naturally be attracted to your content.

2. Live streaming

Live streaming has taken off in 2020, no doubt due in part to the COVID-19 pandemic. There are a lot of great live streaming options, including:

• Instagram
• Facebook Live
• YouTube
• Periscope

With most events going digital this year, there’s never been a better time to jump into live streaming as an effective way to communicate with your audience.

Generate interest in your live stream with countdowns posted on your social media outlets and live notifications. Including exciting guests is a great growth hack that creates buzz around your event, and can increase your audience exponentially as you expose their following to your content. Consider hosting a live stream Q&A session with a guest relevant to your content and audience.

Video streaming is gaining popularity as brands realize that visual marketing is more effective than word-based content. Followers are four times more likely to watch a video relating to a product than reading about it! Streaming allows you to make personal connections with your audience and show your human side. The real-time connection can give followers insights into your brand culture and projects you’re working on. Don’t be afraid to share failures along with your successes. The more relatable you are, the more people will connect with your content.

3. Surveys and polls

Surveys and polls are a versatile way to generate social media engagement and get to know your audience better. Instagram and Twitter have great features for this, and Twitter polls can be embedded on websites, so they’ll even have a clickable follow button. By embedding polls on your site, you can link back to your social media and generate a larger following.

Ask your followers funny, personal, or insightful questions creating dialogue, ultimately leading to the opportunity for further content creation. You can ask questions related to topics on existing content, and then guide consumers back with related links, effectively increasing click traffic. By responding to your audience directly via video or text, you develop trust and familiarity. Include fun personal content such as #askmeanything, and respond in video form with fun anecdotes, so your audience feels connected to you and more likely to engage in future content.

With so many sources fighting for your audience’s attention, prioritizing engagement is the only way to avoid being left behind in this social-media-driven world: the higher your engagement, the higher your ROI and more opportunities you’ll see. Focusing on engagement is what creates viral content that compels people to share with their friends. By forming real connections and creating content that matters, you’ll naturally see higher engagement, but these growth strategies give you the edge that makes your content stand out.

What strategies have you used for increasing engagement? Comment below!