According to the report by Hootsuite, the organic reach on social media has been plummeting. This has been impacting the engagement on the organic posts. Businesses are now looking for ways to get their engagement back to where it used to be and also increase the organic reach as well.
There are 7 simple hacks that can be especially helpful when it comes to boosting the social media engagement. Here are the tips, as shared by 7 experts:
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- Use emojis
“When people stop, read… They’re more likely to engage with the content. And emoji is one of the key tactics I use to maintain my Facebook community’s activity level at around 70%,” Arne Giske, the founder of FB groups for Business, shares, “think of your content as a toast, but using emojis is like adding butter. Because most social media posts don’t use emojis, emojis can really help to stop people from scrolling away from your content”.
He also shares a psychological hack that’s worked particularly well for mobile readers, “the color of green check mark emoji is the EXACT same shade as the green on the iPhone messages. This subconsciously prompts people to read the post until the end just like they do with texts, and making them more likely to engage with the content”.
- Stay on your brand’s personality using the contrast method
“It’s not just about building your engagement, it’s about staying on your brand’s personality so that you can boost the engagement as you develop trust with your audience”, Desislava Dobreva, the founder of Royalty branding, shares, “You need to understand how you want your content to be perceived, and the best way to do that is through the Contrast Method”.
Dobreva further explains, “one example? Bold, but not arrogant. This means you want your brand to be perceived as bold, but pushing it too far will turn your audience away from your content and decrease the engagement. Just this one tactic helped my clients increase their social media engagement levels by over 80% only within days”.
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- Run outreach efforts
“Running outreach efforts on your following is the most overlooked step when it comes to truly increasing engagement on your social media platforms,” Devon Martinez, YouTube influencer, shares, “think of it as hosting a party.. At some point, you’ll have to socialize, interact with the guests etc. It’s the same with social networking websites and social media”.
Martinez also mentioned, “you’re being social, reaching out to people directly etc and people start interacting on your account because of that.. That means regardless of algorithm changes, your account will stay highly engaged. Whether your monthly reach is 10k, or 5mil, this is something that I found works for all kinds of accounts that I’ve worked with”.
- Use GIF’s in comments
“Using GIF (Graphic Interchange Format)’s in comments helped my clients to 10x the comments and create organic engagement regardless of algorithm,” Stephanie Saenz, marketing strategist, shares, “when you respond with a clever or cute Gif in response to someone’s comment, you can begin what we call a “Gif Train” . More than 50% of the time, they will respond with an equally funny or cute gif and others sometimes join in”.
Saenz also shares how this helped with the algorithm and a negative feedback, “the more positive reactions vs negative reactions on a post or ad, helps social media algorithms to decide to share your content to a larger audience organically”.
- Create emotional engagement through the content sandwich method
“A lot of businesses make the mistake of only talking about their offers and not focusing much on creating that emotional connection with the audience,” Eddie Smith, business strategist, shares, “so I use the content sandwich method, which involves 3 types of posts being posted- entertainment, value, and inspiration- throughout the day”.
Smith explains the content sandwich method, “the entertainment and inspirational focused posts tend to be short.. But it starts and ends the day with them. Eventually, they’ll get used to seeing your content at the start of the day, and at the end of the day… Becoming more likely to engage with you”.
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- Adapt to the new feature that the platform is pushing
“Many social media platforms push out new features all the time,” Kamila Gornia, founder of HeartBehindHustle, explains, “then, they change the algorithm to make it so that the contents of the users leveraging the new feature rank higher up on the newsfeed”.
Gornia gives Instagram’s new feature, IGTV, as an example for this, “Instagram is really pushing out IGTV feature. So I repurpose my content to make it more fitting for the IGTV feature… And that gets me anywhere from 5 to 7 times as many views and comments than it normally does because the algorithm pushes my content up the newsfeed.”
- Ask them questions about themselves
“People sign up for social media platforms to interact with other people and to share about themselves,” Extus Justin, business success mentor, shares, “and everyone loves to talk about themselves. So why not do that for social media posts?”.
Justin adds, “ask them a simple question about themselves and encourage them to make a comment on the post. Whether it’s about what they do for business, where they want to travel to next… Every time I do these types of posts, I found that I get at least double the number of comments, reactions on the posts. Plus, it’s a great icebreaker to get your audience chatting… And if people are naturally engaging on the post, it will also impact the organic reach. It’s a win-win.”