Get More Engagement On Social Media With Your Content

And it’s not just because there’s a lot of competition out there for your target audience’s attention. Or that algorithms keep changing.

According to Global Web Index, the time we’re spending on social media is nearing saturation. The amount of time we’re spending on social media has stayed the same or decreased between 2019 to 2020. And 1 in 4 internet users has either tracked their time online or even capped their use of certain apps.

So posting content that will get you more engagement matters more than ever. Especially because social media engagement still generates a lot of value. It helps you build relationships with customers, strengthens brand loyalty, and gets you more word-of-mouth marketing.

And nothing beats visual content for engagement. 

Make Your Social Media Content Visual

Using visual content is one of the most effective ways to connect with your audience.

And according to Hubspot , the stats are overwhelmingly in favour of this:

• 90% of information transmitted to the brain is visual
• Visuals are processed 60,000 times faster in our minds than text
• Using infographics helps grow traffic an average of 12% faster.
• 40% of people respond more favourably to visual information than just text.
• People are 85% more likely to purchase products after watching a related video.

1) Develop A Social Media Strategy

Before you start posting more visual content, it’s important to create a plan. Now this plan doesn’t have to be overly detailed. But having a roadmap will help you get started. It will also give you a foundation to build off of.

So what to include in your strategy? Here are a few tips:

Audience Research: Research your target audience’s interests and make a list of the types of content that would be relevant to them.

Social Media Brand Guidelines: You may be a one-person army. Or you might have multiple team members contributing to your social media posts. Either way, a plan will help you develop your social media strategy. And your plan should include a mood board (include colours, content, and visuals that you want to post) and specific themes (decide what your posts will be about).

Platform-Specific Plans: Determine which platforms you’re going to focus on and then research which types of visuals are most effective on each. You’ll also want to keep an eye on your analytics once you start posting so that you have a sense of the times at which you get the most engagement and the post types which generate engagement.

2) Use Infographics

Infographics are visual representations of information. They can make complex matters easier to understand. And a lot more engaging. To that end, people following instructions with text and illustrations actually do 323% better. 

Using infographics can help you get more engagement on social media. Especially as they’re highly useful and shareable pieces of content. To help make them easier to share, be sure that you’re designing them with the best sizes for mobile in mind. 

You can also try out different types of infographics in your social media calendar to see which get the most engagement.

Timelines – If you want to share information about several incidents or changes over time, using an infographic is a great option. This could be useful for sharing the evolution of your product or service – or even your company!

Data Visualization – These infographics include charts, graphs, and other elements that summarize data sets. They are meant to make it easier to understand, compare, and remember your data. This can be handy for comparing your product or service to competitors.

Overviews – Infographics that offer overviews are helpful to communicate the top benefits and features of a product or service. 

How-To Guides – How-To infographics describe processes step by step. The best way to approach these infographics is to consider problems and challenges that your audience faces. And whether they are beginners or experts in these matters.

3) Incorporate Images, GIFs, and Videos

On every social media platform, posts with images get more engagement on social media. And these images don’t have to be anything complex. They can be product shots or even stock images posted with an interesting caption. Check out these sites for some great stock photos.

Another way to incorporate images is to use GIFs and memes. These types of posts can also add a bit of storytelling to reinforce your brand identity. If your brand is playful you can use them often. Or just on occasion when you come across ones that are relevant to your industry. To keep your Instagram grid looking consistent and branded, consider posting memes as IG stories, or as part of a series of images. This way you can make sure that the first image visible follows your brand colours.

Videos tend to get more reach and engagement than images. And they don’t have to be big-budget productions. Just something simple, with some subtitles to help get your message across. Types of videos that you can consider adding into your social media calendar include explainers, presentations, vlogs, tutorials, webinars, ads, customer testimonials, interviews, live streams, product videos, and live videos.

Need a little nudge to try out your first video? Video marketers get 66% more qualified leads every year.

4) User Generated/Customer Content

Customers are the most important part of any business. And their feedback is important when it comes to convincing prospective customers of the quality of your service/product. So showcasing their reviews can be a great way to encourage others to consider your product or service.

Apart from reviews, fans appreciate when their favourite brands recognize them. And reposting their content is a great way to do this. It helps to strengthen relationships with existing customers and can help connect with new customers. Especially since fans often post content that shows how they’re using and enjoying a product or service.

This is great validation for your brand, and an opportunity to demonstrate to your future customers how they could use your product or service too.

5) Newsjacking And Datejacking

Trending news and popular, or even obscure, holidays can be great opportunities to get more engagement on social media for your brand.

Newsjacking requires you to be paying close attention to what’s trending. A great tool for this is Google Trends. You can also set up Google alerts for keywords, keep an eye on Twitter for trending hashtags, and follow bloggers who cover stories related to your industry.

Whenever you come across something topical that you can tie your brand into, make the most of it. A couple of options here are designing posts, or writing up blogs that provide your take on the topic.

Be sure to carefully vet the topic before getting started, though. As there are some cases where newsjacking goes sideways if you’re perceived as insensitive or out of touch. And also, make sure that you’re only using images that are licensed for reuse. If you don’t have access to images you can use, consider creating a parody.

Datejacking is a bit easier. Since this involves piggybacking off of the larger conversation around a holiday, you can plan ahead. Research holidays that are celebrated by your target audience. They could be much-celebrated like Valentine’s Day or Mother’s Day. Or a more obscure day that is relevant to your audience and city/region/country. Like International Bubble Bath Day if you sell bath products. Either way, using these days can help you gain much attention and engagement from your audience through well-designed content.

 6) Interactive Contests

Contests are all about engagement. And they can be really simple. Just prepare a series of posts that show off the prize as well as the rules to participate. You can use a combination of photographs and branded designs to this end.  

Give your audience very few, and simple steps to enter. And make sure they adhere to your platform of choice’s terms and conditions for contests. Here are few ideas:

• Like and/or follow to win
• Share or repost to win
• Tag a friend/friends
• Caption a photo
• Answer trivia or take part in a game

Your prizes for your fans could be free giveaways or exclusive offers. And in exchange, you’ll generate interest in your product or service, spark conversation and build community, and gain more engagement on social media.