Audiences prefer content that is visually engaging. You can communicate your message more effectively through images than large blurbs of text, and your audience will even retain it better afterward. If your social media page is visually appealing, you are more likely to gain and retain followers. Find a cohesive look for all of your images that reflects your brand and stick with it for all of your visual content.
2. Post Videos
Just as images are visually appealing and communicate a message, video content can accomplish the same and is much more engaging. Video marketing has been named the crown jewel of 2018. 64% of consumers say that that watching a marketing video on Facebook has influenced a purchasing decision. Video content can be used to entertain, inform, and persuade. Many social media videos are watched without sound, so production must follow suit and ensure videos are edited for how they will be watched. Add subtitles to your videos!
3. Ask For Responses
Like our status if you hate MondaysEngage your audience by asking them questions or posting content that provokes a response either by a reaction, comment, tagging their friends, or sharing. Here are some ideas:
What’s your favorite product of ours? Comment below!
Our Saturday morning classes really make our weekend. Share if you agree!
Give your audience a simple call to action that does not involve having to purchase anything. It will give your audience relatable content that they can engage with in a simple way.
4. Create Polls
u can post polls on Facebook, Twitter, and even Instagram Stories now. Polls are an easy way to get quick engagement from your audience that can also help you determine where they stand on certain issues or how they feel about your business. And because it takes minimal effort to click on a picture, as opposed to commenting on or sharing a post, followers are more likely to respond. Create simple polls, things like:
What is your favorite product of ours? X or Z.
What do you want to see more of on our page? X, Y, or Z
This way, you get analytical engagement and direct feedback from your audience on your practices and what they want to see.
5. Be Funny
People don’t usually get on social media to buy things, they’re there to be entertained. So entertain them! Post memes relating to your brand or your line of business, use emojis or puns, show your followers your funny side. Funny and relatable content accounts for a large portion of what people use social media for.
6. Have Contests & Giveaways
Find low-cost prizes from your business that you can give away in exchange for engagement. Encourage your followers to tag friends and share your posts to enter for a chance to win a $10 gift certificate, for example. This will increase brand awareness organically and will reward your customers for pretty much doing all the work for you. Facebook does have some rules limiting these kinds of contests, but there seems to be low enforcement of these rules on smaller brands. If you’re going to conduct contests or giveaways keep these rules in mind.
7. Talk About Your Topic, Not Just Your Brand
Don’t overwhelm your followers by only posting about your brand and your services, engage your followers by posting interesting content involving the business that your brand exists in.
For example:
If you’re a healthy smoothie shop, post about other beneficial health practices that can go along with drinking smoothies. Or maybe post about the health benefits of each ingredient that you carry.
If you’re a student housing company, post about funs ways to decorate your apartment or life hacks that would be helpful to your customers.
8. Engage With Other Business Pages
Form professional partnerships with other businesses in your town. Find neighboring businesses that complement what you offer to your customers and host events together to post about, mention each other on social media, and maybe even set up customer referral programs with each other. This encourages their customer base to follow your social media accounts because they know your services are similar to what they are interested in and they can benefit from it.
9. Live Stream Videos
Live streaming creates a sense of immediacy with your followers. They are immediately notified once you begin streaming and they are able to communicate with you directly in the comment section with real-time responses. Some ideas for live streaming include:
Q&A about your business and/or industry
Events at your business
Seminars
10. Get Personal
Let your followers get to know your employees and get to know your followers! What is your story? Who is on your team? Let your followers meet your employees on social media and highlight customers! For example, you can:
Post pictures of your employees with short bios
Highlight employees regularly on social media for their hard work
Highlight regular customers and customers who win any contests you run
Tell your followers how your business started and where you come from
Post about day-to-day things that happen within your business whether it’s pictures of your employees having fun or work events
The Pod Advertising is a credit union marketing agency with over 85 years of collective industry experience. We LOVE credit unions, and we KNOW credit unions. We've been in your shoes. We understand that you’re not just selling checking accounts and mortgages. You’re changing lives. That’s our secret sauce. It's why we've been able to help credit unions like yours identify and resolve marketing and operational challenges through insightful knowledge, experience, lots of coffee, and hard-work.
