June 1, 2023
10 Ways To Increase Community Engagement On Social Media
Dominic
My goodness, it’s hard out there, isn’t it?
You’ve done the Hubspot course and you’ve ticked off everything that the influencer said would work. But your community engagement on social media is still…less than optimal.
We get it. Boy, do we get it.
In this post, we cover 10 things you can start right now to increase community engagement on social media.
Before we dive into the how, let’s first understand the why. Lots of people obsess over gaining more Twitter followers but with no purpose or goal.
You’ve got 10,000 followers! Great, what’s next? Well, looks like 11,000, you guess.
You can do better than that 👇.
Why increase community engagement on social media?
By focussing on increasing engagement, your goals align better with the reason your community exists. To bring together like-minded folks and provide quality resources and people.
So rather than working on growth, work on output. Work on togetherness. Work on quality.
Using social media for community engagement also increases your chances of gaining new sign-ups. When onlookers see the value you’re providing, they’ll come flocking for more.
It’s not follower count they’re impressed with. It’s community.
How do you build an engaged community on social media?
1 - Write a social media strategy
How to write a social media strategy is a blog post in itself. Scratch that. It’s a full-time job.
If you don’t have the people or resources for this, start by doing something. The age-old idiom “something is better than nothing” is indeed true when it comes to social media planning.
Document the following:
The purpose of your social media
Which platforms your audience uses
When they’re online
The types of content they interact with
When this is down in writing, you’ve immediately got a better direction.
Next, start analysing what already does and doesn’t work.
How to view Twitter analytics
Dig into Twitter analytics by clicking the “More” button…
Then choose “Analytics”.
In this section, you can see which of your tweets is performing the best.
Here, you have details like your top tweet, top mentions, and data metrics like total impressions, number of mentions, and how many new followers you’ve gained.
Play around with date ranges to find what’s working (and what’s a total flop) so you can focus more on the value-adds.
You can then do the same on LinkedIn.
How to view LinkedIn metrics
On your feed, see the metrics under your name and profile photo.
Clicking the number of “Impressions of your posts” opens up analytics for content performance and audience demographics.
You can toggle between impressions and engagements. Play around with the date ranges to see what points in history your LinkedIn performed best.
You can also see a post-by-post view by clicking “Show all activity” when on your own profile.
Here you can see private information like number of views. This is hidden from the public.
When you’ve spent time working out what works for you, pick three accounts you’d like to be like and see what works well for them.
You don’t need to copy them like for like but do extract what you think your audience will like.
There you have it. A rough social media strategy.
Next up…posting something!
2 - When something happens internally, share it externally
The easiest to source content is user-generated content. That’s when people do or create something and you get to share it.
People love success stories.
If the news is the place to find all that’s bad in the world, make your social media the place where happiness and success are spread.
Happiness is contagious and drives community engagement on social media.
If someone in your community writes a book, sharing that success almost guarantees that success.
Looking forward to digging into @tomcopy’s book this weekend 🤓 pic.twitter.com/cV4rc75Xiw— Dominic Kent (@DomKent) May 13, 2022
It says you’re happy for that person and that everyone else should be too. And it’s a refreshing change from “Hey, buy my book” tweets that the author might be working through.
It might be a piece of work you, your community, or their clients are proud of.
We wanted to rank for "business debit card" but it wasn't specific enough and we were competing with big banks.
Changed the title to "freelancer debit card": more specific, a lot easier to rank.
We're now in #2 and it's bringing in clicks. pic.twitter.com/dj6KajLdvv— Araminta 💸📲 (@mintcstudios) May 26, 2022
TLDR: share happy things. People dig that.
3 - Use video to repurpose what happened in written form
Use Tella to create a video based on something you’ve already got down in writing.
Why?
Because video posts on social media get 48% more views. And that’s a hard stat to ignore.
Not using video is quite literally saying “no thanks, I’ll stick with 48% less views”. It really is the best community engagement method. On social media or within your community.
In the old days, creating videos was hard work and nobody supported specific video lengths, formats, or quality.
Today, creating a video is as simple as going to tella.tv, signing up, and recording your first asynchronous video.
See Connor Finlayson’s example below:
Connor created a welcome video using Tella so he could welcome freelancers to his online community. This video serves as a welcome video but can also be shared on any social media platform.
Do you think the engagement would be the same if Connor wrote a welcome email?
You can record videos online for free in a matter of clicks. And you can record whatever you need to get across to your audience.
Alongside standard video recording, Tella enables you to share your screen, merge existing video clips, crop screen recordings, and add tons of video features to help you stand out on the crowded news feed.
Learn more about Tella, or create your first video free, here.
4 - Take your weekly highlights and share them on social media
Show your social media audience what they’re missing. Round up the most engaged post, the best video you’ve watched, and even a job someone posted.
If you run a closed community, this is a great tactic to build FOMO and intrigue about what is happening behind closed doors.
If your community is social media only, this tactic helps extend the reach of the original post and ensures people who missed it the first time don’t lose out on the good stuff.
You can also apply this cross-platform. If someone in your community posts a 🔥 tweet, save the image, post it on LinkedIn, and tag the person to credit them.
5 - Take part in other communities
If you’re a content marketing community, join the #ContentClubUK Twitter chat every Tuesday at 11am (UK time).
If you’re a freelance community, join #FreelanceChat every Thursday at 5pm BST.
A2 To succeed over time, you have to invest in yourself as well as advertising. Almost all my earnings go back into my business or to education. This creates a buffer for me to allow for drops in clientele so I don’t give up because I have a bad month 1/2 #freelancechat— Dominic Kent (@DomKent) May 26, 2022
Whatever your community, there’s probably a Twitter chat for it. Just search “twitter chats” on Twitter and you’ll find list upon list you can choose from.
By adding value in other online communities, you’re becoming an authority in that niche. You’re helping people who go to those communities for help. You’re participating.
And that’s the aim of every community, isn’t it?
By being not just present (RTing, liking posts, boosting for engagement) but sharing your experiences and resources, members of other communities will come check out your community.
Cross-collaboration is a win-win regardless of the platform. And you can literally start contributing from your phone. We don’t promote easy hacks on this blog but this is the closest you’ll get.
6 - Have real conversations with accounts in your niche
Flavio Juarez, Content Manager at Algotive, suggests becoming truly interested in other people’s accounts and adding value to the conversation.
Rather than replying for the sake of it, add your own research or a nice stat you’ve found.
If there’s a complex topic being discussed and it’s exactly what your community is all about, break it down so people can understand it better.
That’s what community is all about. People.
Have real conversations with accounts on your niche and be truly interested in adding value through original research, statistics or breaking down popular or complex topics.— Flavio (@_FlavioJuarez) May 30, 2022
Unless you’ve got 100,000s of followers, “thought leadership” serves little purpose.
Real conversations are where it’s at.
7 - Create content to solve the problems of your intended audience
This might be a video (see section 3), a blog post, or a Twitter thread. It could also be a LinkedIn newsletter or a Reddit post.
When you’ve found out where your audience hangs out, create content they need rather than content you want to create.
It’s a hurdle most of us marketers have. But when you get over it, community engagement on social media skyrockets.
Give the people what they want.
Anurag Chauhan, a social media marketer, says to offer a solution to the problems your audience has. Then when your content is out in the wild, don't forget to follow up to learn if your content hit the mark.
Firstly, create relevant content based on the problems your target audience is facing. 🎯
Offer a solution to those problems.
And don't forget to follow up with your audience to know if your solutions are of any help to them.💡— Anurag Chauhan (@digirealmmaster) May 30, 2022
8 - Run social media competitions or quizzes
Remember when those BuzzFeed quizzes ran your life? No, err, me neither 🙄
There’s something about quizzes and competitions that drive insane engagement.
The quest into the unknown, the dopamine hit, the resentment when you don’t know the answer.
These are all emotions even the most basic quiz can trigger.
There doesn’t even need to be a prize. People love community quizzes for interaction.
And why not combine what we know about video engagement on social media with your next quiz?
You could use Tella to create a video where you’re the quiz master. We haven’t seen anyone use Tella in this way but we’ll send you a t-shirt when you do!
When you have a community full of nice people, they love helping others in their area of expertise. And some love showing off so…use that.
9 - Speak TO your audience rather than AT them
Ms. Kibor, who runs community for Fuzu Kenya, emphasises the importance of speaking to your audience.
When trying to reach a wide audience, it’s easy to fall into the trap of addressing everyone. It’s far better to speak as if you’re talking to one person. Each person reading your tweet is an individual, after all.
If they feel engaged, they are more likely to send a reply or like your post.
“Sharing milestones, lessons, behind-the-scenes activity, and asking for insights is a great way to give the audience a front-row seat.”
When audiences feel like you are speaking to them and not at them, they find it easier to relate and therefore engage you. Sharing milestones, lessons, BTS, and asking for insights from the audience on products is a great way to give the audience a front-row seat.— Ms. Kibor ♏ (@Jelaah_) May 30, 2022
10 - Hang in there
Not everything will work straight away. It’s easy to give up when one tactic doesn’t increase community engagement on social media.
Bhawna Sharma, a freelance content marketer, reminds us to stay consistent.
Engaging with your network as a founder-
1. Share your experiences
2. Real life examples
3. Provide tips and what worked for you
4. Engage on similar accounts
5. Provide value
6. Stay consistent— Bhawna Sharma | B2B content writer (@bhawanaasharma) May 30, 2022
If it were easy, we’d all be social media engagement royalty and everyone would spend their time on social media.
Okay, that’s a bad notion to even suggest. We do that enough.
But when you’re starting out, there will be a period of trial and error to see what does and doesn’t work.
What resonates on LinkedIn might be completely different on Facebook.
The conversations in your Discord server might not be suitable for Twitter.
But those who remain consistent are those who thrive and see their community engagement on social media increase over time.
What are good ways of increasing social media engagement?
So you’ve cracked the community aspect. Let’s work on increasing social media engagement.
Here are some social media engagement ideas you can apply for both improving engagement and increasing your follower count.
Social media engagement ideas
Create a Tella video to download and share
Use images to simplify a complex idea
Ask questions that trigger emotional answers
Be the first to break news
Share a contrarian opinion
Repurpose long-form content into short snippets
Start two-way conversations
DM people to share your most popular posts
Feature community members
Feature people outside your community
Post a question to social, but include 2-3 people's names so that, hopefully, you get them to respond while also making your question visible to their networks.— Christian Buckley (@buckleyplanet) May 30, 2022
Using these social media engagement ideas won’t work standalone.
But, when included in your wider plan, you’ll soon start seeing stats that reinforce you’re about to increase community engagement on social media.
This blog post opened with “My goodness, it’s hard out there, isn’t it?”
It’s still hard. But now you’re armed with a rock-solid plan!
