Social media is one of the most powerful tools in the digital marketing world. With the right profile, you can connect with your customer on a deeper level, inspire loyalty, and turn potential leads into repeat sales. However, sometimes, no matter how hard you try to get the right response, you can find yourself struggling with a lack of engagement in your social strategy.

If you’re the kind of brand that constantly finds itself hitting the refresh button on your Facebook page, and looking for signs that someone cares about your new update, then you’ve come to the right place. If none of your followers like or share your posts, you need a way of getting them engaged, and the following tips could help.

1. Use Visuals in Your Posts

Images are the perfect addition to a social media strategy. In fact, there are entire platforms out there today that are specifically designed to help you share more images with the world.

The key to making the most out of visuals in your social media strategy is making sure that you use authentic image. No-one wants to see a stock picture that they can find everywhere else. Instead, snap a quick picture of your team or your product, and add a filter online. You can even get a freelancer to create illustrations on your behalf.

2. Ask Questions

Starting a conversation with your social media followers is a great way to get them engaged with your brand. When you post on social media, consider asking questions at the end of every post to convince your customers to speak back to you. You could even ask questions relating to the things you’re posting about. For instance, “What do you think of our latest blog?” or “Would you buy our new shoes in blue or red?” That way, you get engagement and feedback on your products.

3. Use Emojis to Encourage Reactions

No matter how professional you consider yourself to be, you can always get a better reaction on social media if you’re willing to use emojis. These little smiley faces are a great way to give personality to your post and make your comments stand out online.
A little laughing emoji can even be enough to remind your audience that you’re telling a joke, so your comments don’t fall flat when you’re trying to convey humour. It can be difficult to share feelings online when all you have is text, but social media is a highly emotional concept. Emojis can be a great way to boost your brand- just make sure that you use them sparingly.

4. Have a Sense of Humour

Social media isn’t the place to be all formal and bland. You need to show your customers that you’re more than just another business. In other words, you have to have a personality and a heartbeat behind your brand. A sense of humour can be a great way to draw attention to your company, and if you share the right posts, you can even find that people end up sharing your jokes.

Add some fun and light-hearted humour into your posts but be careful not to get involved with anything too dangerous. If you’re concerned about writing your own jokes, you could always share a meme or video instead.

5. Hold Contests and Giveaways

Everyone loves an opportunity to get something for free, so consider hosting a contest or giveaway when you want to boost your engagement and get more attention towards your brand. One of the simplest way to host a giveaway on Facebook or Instagram, or even Twitter, is to simply announce that your customers have a chance to win something if they follow some basic instructions.

For instance, you could ask people to like, share and comment on your post for a chance of winning something for free, or getting money off their next purchase. Just make sure that the things your customers have to do aren’t too exhausting, or they’ll wonder if the reward is big enough.

6. Share Content from Other People

While the main focus of your social media strategy may be to attract as much attention to your company as possible, that doesn’t necessarily mean that you should focus on yourself and nothing else. If someone else can give your customers better information about a topic, or provide them with insights that they need, make sure that you share links to that content too. Your social media feed should be about giving your clients value – even if that means sending them elsewhere.

To ensure that your customers don’t get bored, make sure that you keep your content diverse and relevant, and curate information from other people or brands.

7. Work with an Influencer

A great way to boost engagement if you’re struggling to get people to interact with your brand is to develop a relationship with an influencer in your target market. Influencers come in many different styles, but make sure that you choose one with access to the kinds of customers you want to reach.

To improve your chances of a successful collaboration with an influencer, make sure that you offer them something in return, like a free product or a huge discount.

8. Try Video

Video is becoming an increasingly popular way to connect with people on social media in this digital world – particularly thanks to the rise of things like Facebook Live. With live streaming, you don’t have to worry about your videos being professional-quality, as people will expect whatever you post to be raw and unedited.

Host video Q&A sessions and interviews to keep your customers entertained and engaged at the same time.

9. Use a Branded Hashtag

Give your followers an easier way to connect with you and your brand by providing them with a branded hashtag that they can use. Make sure that you include hashtags in your post too so that your content is more likely to appear when your customers search for content that’s relevant to what you sell, or whatever you’re sharing.

10. Post at the Right Times

Finally, make sure that you’re choosing the right times to post to reach your audience. You can find out which times are right for you by checking your analytics platforms. Most analytics tools, including Facebook’s inbuilt “Insights” options will show you when you get the most engagement from your target market.