4 Ways to Stay Engaged with Your Social Media Fans and Followers

Keeping your fans and followers engaged to your social media pages and profiles is more important now than ever before. Keep in mind that if they are not engaged to your specific page or profile, chances are that they are attached to one of your competitors. Gain control of the ball by forcing it back under your control.

Organize Contests to Spark Interest

Who doesn’t want a chance to win a valuable prize? Think about the growing number of game shows on TV that seem to never go out of style. If the opportunity to win a valuable prize is on the table, attention and engagement go together. Focusing your social media strategy on highlighting at least one contest periodically will progressively boost your engagement and overall customer interactions.

The best part is that you do not necessarily need to spend a lot of money to set anything up and draw a crowd. Social Media Examiner recommends thinking outside of the box when developing contest concepts and ideas for your brand. Before long, you will notice your organic reach and following start to increase as more and more consumers recognize your increasingly popular brand.

Integrate Original Videos into Your Content

It may not seem as if recording videos for your brand is necessary. That is, of course, until you pay close attention to the facts and figures supporting the need to do so. For example, based on an article published by Social Media Today, video posts can generate over 130 percent organic reach in comparison to photograph posts. This may seem a little backwards for the people and professionals who have been following the success of such social media platforms as Facebook and Twitter for years.

Back then, photo posts were the bread and butter of most social media pages and profiles. This was primarily because sharing likeable photos from one page to another seemed to be the most efficient approach to relaying that information and getting it to spread. With the average number of videos poste per consumer increasing by 75% in 2015 alone, it is crystal clear why so many people and brand marketers have shifted their focus in recent years to recording, posting, publishing and promoting video content – especially on Facebook.

Use Facebook & YouTube Exclusively for Streaming

There are a lot of video streaming websites and applications available online. With each passing year, a new crop of video applications and programs seem to emerge out of nowhere. However, the two video content powerhouses that have raised the bar of expectation to new heights are Facebook and YouTube. One report shows that an average of more than 8 billion views are generated on Facebook daily. From educational and entertaining to inspiring and intuitive, there are many different subjects or niches on which you can discuss and cover.

Chances are that there is an audience for everything. What you post does not necessarily matter as much as how, where and when you are posting it. Pay close attention to the trends and needs of your growing fan base. When are they online the most? Which of your posts have been the most active? If you decide to live stream to Facebook — a service for which tutorials are available through BlueJeans — this type of high-quality content is exactly what your fans and followers need to see from you to stay with you.

Don’t Force the Funny, Let Humor Flow Naturally

One of the biggest mistakes you can make when trying to build social media engagement for your fanbase is to forcefully attempt to become the “fun page.” If you are not naturally known as the “fun brand,” perhaps there is a way you can boost engagement by shining a light on the fact that your brand has a sense of humor. Think about the increasing number of popular commercials and advertisements that creatively and skillfully take an apparently boring and unengaging brand and flip it on its side thanks to a high-quality marketing plan. However, the exact opposite can occur if you decide to force the funny side to come out too much and end up making your customers, clients and guests more uncomfortable.

The Bottom Line: Focus on Your Audience

Social media thrives off audience interaction and engagement. What works for one audience may crash and burn for a different audience, which is why you should take this process serious from start to finish. Identify your target audience and market. After you have identified the audience, the next step is to focus on what your audience prefers to see. This can be accomplished any number of ways – including surveys, focus groups and online polls.

Regardless of the method you use to obtain this honest feedback, the better.  The key, though, is to not become discouraged by how your competitors and other brand marketers are performing. Your primary objective should be to analyze your own areas of improvement and develop an action plan to turn them into strengths.

from Finance Girl http://www.financegirl.co.uk/4-ways-to-stay-engaged-with-your-social-media-fans-and-followers/