How to Increase Your Social Media Engagement Posts: Tips, Ideas & Examples

Written by Maria
Written by Maria

Content Writer

Running a social media account (or many) on top of your professional responsibilities isn’t exactly a walk in the park, but if you’re truly committed to growing your online profiles, you’ll have to get serious about your social media engagement posts. 

If you already have several social media profiles in place, you’re halfway there! All you have to do now is learn to optimize it so that your audience finds it easier to connect and relate to the brand. How? 

There are a few ways to do so manually, but no one has the time for that. Instead, automating your social media engagement posts through a specialized app and a detailed social media strategy is the key.

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What Is Social Media Engagement?

Social media engagement is a way of measuring interactions on social platforms, such as likes, shares, saves, comments, and other engagement metrics. Engagement is measurable, which means that you can assess how your posts are doing by looking at the performance insights on your platforms. 

Picture this scenario: You’re scrolling through your Instagram feed and stumble upon a recipe that you love. Naturally, you double-tap on it, share it on your story, save it so that you can review it later, and maybe even tag a few friends or co-workers to see it. 

That’s social media engagement!

In other words, it’s the act of interacting with social media posts, which in turn boosts that profile’s growth and visibility and attracts potential customers. 

We know that aiming for an ever-growing follower base is everyone’s eternal wish on social media, but hear us out—an interactive audience is better than a large, inactive one, simply because quality beats quantity when it comes to these things.

Why Is Social Media Engagement Important?

In marketing, algorithms are ever-changing programming structures that dictate what type of content gets presented on user feeds, which indirectly affects your post performance and visibility.

Here are the main factors that social media algorithms consider when boosting content on user feeds:

  • The engagement generated by the post (likes, comments, shares)
  • Publishing date
  • Social media activity (how often you post) 
  • Social media users’ preference (the content users interact with the most) 
  • The post format (text, images, videos, links)

Once your social media engagement no longer stays at high parameters, visibility drops, and users will be receiving new suggestions instead. Therefore, it’s best to keep the engagement rate as high as possible for your older and more recent posts altogether. 

Managing Your Social Media Right Can Help You Boost Your Brand

Another reason why social media engagement is critical is that it helps connect brands with customers in an environment that doesn’t strictly rely on transactional interactions. Building a community around your brand and a loyal customer base will help your business get the spotlight it deserves, while also facilitating the interaction with customers. 

By tracking your social media engagement you can monitor your performance and discover which types of posts work best for your audience, then use this information to adjust and improve your social media content! 

With SocialBee, you can monitor the performance of all your social media posts. Go to your Analytics dashboard, select the social media profile you would like to analyze, and look over the data.

SocialBee provides insightful information about your post reach and engagement levels (clicks, likes, comments, and shares). Moreover, it also shows your top-performing posts and lets you know what post format had the best results on your account (e.g. images, links, videos).

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How to Boost Social Media Engagement

Now that you know what social media engagement is and how it affects your brand, it’s time to talk about the most important part of this article – how to boost your online engagement? Let’s see!

Here are five steps that you can use to boost engagement:

  1. Know your target audience. 
  2. Encourage interaction for more engagement.
  3. Schedule social media content smarter.
  4. Post more videos.
  5. Diversify your posts on your social media platform.

1. Know Your Target Audience

Before you jump to create eye-catching visuals and think about captions for your new content, you’ll have to define your target audience. Essentially, you’ll have to know who you’re addressing.

Start by defining your brand guidelines (tone of voice, visual assets, main messages, mission, etc.) according to your audience’s preferences and values.

For example, if you’re in the fashion industry, you’ll probably use a much different tone than if you were in the investing business or the home appliances industry. The same goes with your audience’s age.

If you’re targeting young adults, chances are your social media strategy will work best with memes, by hopping on trends, and reposting influencers and modern brands. However, if you’re targeting a mature audience, you’ll be best off using a more formal type of language and posting content that is more data-driven, such as studies, industry news, and relevant articles.

A good way to define your target market is to create a buyer persona containing the following details: 

  1. Age/ Generation
  2. Gender
  3. Social status
  4. Income/ Occupation (if you find that it’s relevant)
  5. Pain points/ challenges
  6. Objectives
  7. Needs and desires
  8. Buying behaviors (impulsive, research-based, habitual, etc.)

Essentially, to boost social media engagement, you’ll want to define these demographic factors as precisely as possible to find out what language works best with your target market and address their pain points through your social channels. Now, on to the next step!

2. Encourage Interaction for More Engagement

Essentially, your aim is to encourage interaction with your audience through brand-related social media engagement posts. 

Create content that is easy to read, feels relatable for your audience, or sparks their interest. To drive audience engagement, you’ll want to ask questions and encourage feedback, conversations, and the exchange of opinions. 

For example, you could try asking your audience to pick between two of your products, give their opinion on a challenge you’re dealing with, and ask them to share their feedback about their latest purchase, or anything you see fit. 

3. Schedule Social Media Content Smarter

An excellent social media engagement strategy is not just about the quality of your content. Scheduling posts at specific times when your audience is active on social media is another essential part of boosting your online presence. 

A manual planner takes too much time off of your hands, so you’ll have to look for smarter ways to get things done. Let’s explore one of them! With a specialized social media scheduling tool like SocialBee, you can create, plan, and post content weeks in advance! 

With SocialBee you can plan your content efficiently by:

  • Scheduling/pausing entire content categories at once
  • Re-queueing your evergreen content
  • Expiring posts at a specific date or after several shares
  • Creating a customized posting schedule for each social media platform

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Automating your content distribution tasks can help you save several hours every week, without compromising the quality of work.

Scheduling posts in advance can help you increase social media engagement, as it allows you to maintain a consistent posting schedule with ease, eliminate time-consuming tasks, and anticipate important events that will serve as valuable business opportunities (promotions, webinars, conferences, product/service launches, etc.). 

I can’t stress this enough! 

Being present on social media and posting regularly is crucial for your brand, as it keeps people engaged with your content and builds a loyal audience that will advocate for you. 

People want to know that by following you they’re subscribing to more of what you’re posting since that’s the main reason they pressed that follow button in the first place.

Naturally, that’s how your follower base grows larger and stronger, how brands are built, and more importantly, how you increase social media engagement.

4. Post More Videos

They say a picture is worth 1,000 words, so you can imagine the impact a video has on users

If you’ve been active on social media recently, you probably noticed the explosion of Reels and videos of all types. People love interactive content, which is why videos are a great way to speak directly to your audience.

Boost your engaging posts by:

  • Speaking to your audience openly on camera
  • Creating tutorials related to your brand
  • Posting lifestyle videos
  • Doing a live Q&A

5. Diversify Your Social Media Content

A study conducted by Microsoft Corporation shows that people start to lose focus after eight seconds. FYI, a goldfish has an attention span of about nine seconds, but that’s just some food for thought. 

That’s right! With so much information surrounding us, our brains have turned into real-life shields to protect us from an ever-flowing wave of content. 

Facts speak the truth, and that means only one thing for your social media strategy: you need to diversify your social media engagement post to drive audience engagement.

Instead of creating only one type of content for your social channels, such as promotional posts, you’ll have to develop a more elaborate content plan that doesn’t only sell, but also educates and entertains your audience. You can start by organizing your ideas in content categories specific to a certain type of post.

For example, you can develop the following content categories:

  • Promotional
  • Educational
  • Fun
  • Motivational
  • Industry-specific

Once you have content categories, it’s time to schedule them throughout the week—motivational posts on Monday, promotional content on Wednesday, and so on.

You can engage with your audience by designing a variety of future content ideas through SocialBee. The app allows you to create categories for each type of content in a fun way, from promotional to curated, educational, or even quotes and memes!

Add the scheduling feature, and your engaging posts will flourish!

SocialBee content categories

Organize your posts based on topics in different content categories and post alternatively throughout the week.

Start your 14-day free trial at SocialBee to diversify your content strategy with ease!

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10 Post Ideas for Social Media Marketing Success

Generating engagement on your social platforms allows brands to stay top-of-mind and be active in their community. The more you’ll get users to advocate for your brand, build brand trustworthiness, and grow your network. 

However, to build engagement, you’ll have to get creative. Your content should spark curiosity, attention, and emotion. Your aim is to keep your audience engaged with your social platform, simply because it’s that good!

To have such a powerful impact on social media users, you’ll need to diversify your posts and be on top of the trends. Moreover, if you run out of ideas, you’ll need some backup posts ready to go.

In a nutshell, you need creative ideas for your backup social media resources. If you find yourself lacking inspiration, or simply want to check out some cool ideas for your social media strategy, we’ve got you covered! 

Here are 10 engaging post ideas you can add to your social platforms:

  1. Posts AMAs (Ask Me Anything)
  2. Share “Fill in the Blanks” and “Caption This” Posts
  3. Create a Weekly Series of Facebook Posts
  4. Run a Contest or Giveaway on Your Social Media Accounts
  5. Post Content on Facebook and Instagram Stories
  6. Share How-to Posts and Tutorials
  7. Create Memes and Fun Posts
  8. Run Social Media Exclusive Deals
  9. Post Polls and Questions
  10. Promote User-Generated Content

Now, let’s explore them in detail!

1. Post AMAs (Ask Me Anything)

One great way to boost your engagement is through AMAs (Ask Me Anything) posts, which you can add to your social media feed or stories section. Encouraging your audience to connect with you by sharing their curiosities related to your brand will grow your comment section significantly. 

Replying to comments on the spot or a few days later are both great social media strategies to consider. Engagement grows as you keep threads active, yet coming back to a post a few days after it’s been inactive can help you get the spotlight back on.

Ask me anything post

2. Share “Fill in the Blanks” and “Caption This” Posts

Another way to boost your engaging social media posts is through “Fill in the Blanks” pop-ups, which is a type of interactive content that requires users to leave comments and sparks their interest in the process. 

Fill in the blanks Instagram post

If you’re a business and want to promote your brand, you can opt for posts like these:

  1. My favorite product from XYZ is ___.
  2. I always use XYZ’s product before ___.
  3. If I were to gift an item from XYZ to my best friend, it would be ___.

“Caption This” posts usually speak to younger audiences, as they encourage users to come up with something funny or relatable to the picture you’ve shared. 

Essentially, people will meme your post in the comment section, which can spark a lot of attention and interest from other users who find the thread funny and love your post.

3. Create a Weekly Series of Facebook Posts

If you’re running a business, Facebook is the place to be. Generally speaking, both young adults and mature users are active on the newly rebranded Meta platform. 

To keep your audience engaged, you’ll want to post relevant and regular content. You can do so by creating weekly series. Here are some ideas:

  • Create a featured product of the week
  • Share a blog post every week
  • Offer a special deal every Saturday
  • Do something similar to a throwback Thursday
  • Feature a star employee weekly

Employee of the week

Essentially, anything that you can repeat every week and makes sense for your audience to find out more about is a good idea, because it enables you to stay consistent and it creates a sense of anticipation among your audience. Don’t forget to be creative and have fun with your posts on your social platforms!

4. Run a Contest or Giveaway on Your Social Media Platforms

Considering that everybody loves free stuff, social media giveaways are a great way to increase social media engagement and grow your follower base. In exchange for likes, tags, reposts, and follows, both big and small brands agree to send out free products and services. It’s a win-win situation, and everybody loves it!

Set up a giveaway by choosing a product or service that acts as the prize, such as products from your latest collection, a free month for one of your best-selling services, or a pre-paid city break, and make a social media post about it. 

Allow some time, usually about two weeks or up to a month for your audience to engage with it and follow the steps required to enter the contest. 

When you’ve got the winner, announce it publicly and keep your end of the rope, meaning that you’re going to send out the prize. You can ask the lucky contestant to certify for you and let everyone know that you’re a trustworthy brand.

Instagram Giveaway

5. Post Content on Facebook and Instagram Stories

Along with social media engagement posts, stories are one the best ways to connect with your audience and maintain an open line of communication with your followers.

Through stories, you get to share events and ideas to the tiniest detail, as you don’t have to prepare a post for everything you want to communicate. You can share how your day went, repost something you find relatable, or further promote other posts on your feed.

Use stories to engage with your audience on a deeper level by asking questions with multiple answers, doing yes or no quizzes, Q&A sessions, sharing memories, “Did You Know?” contests, or other similar stories and polls.

SocialBee Instagram story

6. Share How-to Posts and Tutorials

Among the most popular posts on social media are tutorials and how-to posts. Essentially, these are posts that aim to educate your audience regarding your offering. 

Whether you’re a travel influencer, a food delivery company, an online clothing store, a service provider, or anything at all, tutorials are a great way to attract an active follower base and keep the ones you have loyal to you. 

Usually, a series of pictures or short videos work best when it comes to explaining to your audience how to use your product or how to do something you’re promoting. You can either film yourself explaining a step-by-step approach or create a post dedicated entirely to this purpose.

How to post

7. Create Memes and Fun Posts

Throughout this decade, memes rose from an internet-exclusive comedy genre to a whole culture, with history and levels of depth, much like notable periods in humanity. Although we like to joke about it, memes are one of the best ways to address the young generation.

If you want an active, engaged audience, you’ll want to pay more attention to fun content and especially social media memes. The more relatable they are, the better! 

People react and interact with content that speaks to them on a deeper level, such as acknowledging a common struggle.

For example, if you’re a fashion retailer, you could post a picture describing a situation where you make up a whole outfit in your head, but it looks chaotic when you try it on. Caption it with something relatable, and your social media engagement post is likely to go viral!

chipotle meme

8. Run Social Media Exclusive Deals

Social media success is dictated by your engagement efforts on your social accounts. To boost engagement, you’ll have to become a people-connect brand and reach out to your audience on a personal level. On another note, you’ll have to prove that your content can provide tangible benefits to your audience. 

Nothing drives a loyal audience more than exclusivity. Here are five examples of social media exclusive deals:

  • Special discounts
  • Promo codes
  • Free shipping
  • Free e-books
  • All that glaze that comes with subscribing to your posts and being loyal to your brand.

People love to be repaid for their active engagement, so receiving promo codes, vouchers or additional gifts will make them feel appreciated. Needless to say, you’ll surely help yourself in the process too, as you’ll notice a boost in sales and an increased engagement!

social media exclusive deal

9. Post Polls and Questions

Polls and questions are fun ways to learn more about your followers or let them learn more about you. 

Some ideas for polls are:

  1. I am a morning person/ night owl.
  2. I usually do cereal first/ I usually pour the milk first.
  3. I prefer the right/ left dress in the picture.
  4. I’d rather go to the XYZ business for lunch/ dinner.
  5. I find the XYZ company open-minded/ conservative. 

Get creative and fun, as this is your chance to let your followers know more about you, or for you to get valuable insights about them! Consider asking open-ended questions and make sure to read as many answers as possible to get a good perspective.

10. Promote User-Generated Content

User-generated content is any piece of material that comes from customers. It can be a review or testimonial, a video reply to something you’ve talked about, the product of a recipe you’ve shared, or anything similar.

User-generated content acts as social proof—it promotes the positive experiences other customers had with your brand. It improves credibility and encourages other prospects to give your products/services a try.

user generated content instagram

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Article written by

Article by

Alexandra
Alexandra

Content writer at SocialBee

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