Last Updated 9 months by Emily Standley-Allard
Creating engaging social media posts and superior content requires a true understanding of your audience and the platforms you’re on. You want just the right tone and personality. There are many things you must consider before you take the time to create a post on social media that represents your brand image in the best possible light.
According to DataReportal, approximately 4.55 billion social media users are on at least one platform. Whatever target audience you’d like to reach, you can be sure you’ll find some of them on social media.
Knowing you need a presence and how to translate that into engaging social media posts are two different things.
We’ve gathered the best tips below for coming up with content for your followers and creating the most impact.
1. To Create Engaging Social Media – Study Your Competition
If you want to make the maximum impact on your followers, you must know what your competitors offer. How often do they post and what about? What types of posts get the maximum engagement?
Take careful notes about their tactics.
Your brand has its own personality, so you shouldn’t copy another, but if they are highly successful, looking at when they post, who they engage and some of their strategies, can give you tips and ideas on what to avoid and what to embrace.
How to Crush Your Competition Even as a New Business or Blog
2. For Engaging Social Media – Limit Your Text
If you add too much text to your posts, people won’t take the time to read them.
For a slideshow frame, calculate eight to 12 seconds of focus.
Attention spans are short these days. People see your post as they scroll down their feed and likely folks won’t stop to read a whole block of text.
You want to say as much as possible with your pictures and save the most captivating text for headlines and calls to action (CTAs).
This guide can help you master the art of copywriting to create the most compelling and eye-catching subject lines and headings.
Mastering the Art of Copywriting for the Web
3. For Engaging Social Media – Use Relevant Photos
You’ve likely heard the saying that a picture is worth 1,000 words. You can get your message across with a relevant image where text alone doesn’t do much.
Stock images to create engaging social media, are getting better than ever but if you happen to have the budget your best bet is to use photographs shot by a professional for your business.
If hiring a professional photographer is out of your range, look for stock images that are professional and with a bit of flair. You want high quality, expert shots pertaining to the message you want to send.
For example, if you sell realtor services, add the most enticing images you can of beautiful homes, luxurious properties and photos that capture the best angles possible.
The 27 Best FREE Stock Photo Images for Your Business
According to Review Trackers, review searches are up by 50% from pre-pandemic levels. More people shop online, and they want to know what others think of your products and services.
When you get an excellent review, share and post about it.
You can also add a review section to some social media pages, so followers can share about you and entice others to do the same.
Reviews give you instant word-of-mouth marketing and engaging social media.
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5. Ask a Question
Engaging social media involves involving your users. Want to engage your users? Ask them a question they’re likely to answer. Start your post with “What,” “Why” or “How,” and watch people jump in and respond.
If you want to ramp things up even more and really encourage interaction, give them points toward discounts or freebies for sharing your post and engaging.
6. Run a Contest on Social Media Platforms
To create engaging social media, not every social media post needs to be your creation. You can also run a contest and elicit user generated content (UGC) for your page. Ask people to post a photo of how they use your product and tag you.
Crowdfire is an inexpensive tool that curates and posts content for you automatically, so you don’t have to spend all your time searching for relevant designs.
UGC is an option because it gives you free material, and also helps spread the word and extend your audience reach. People love to share about things they use regularly, so creating contests or giveaways and rewarding them for doing so is a great strategy.
Stay up on what is trending at any given time. Choosing a hashtag your audience is already engaged with helps to put you in front of new people and generate more conversation.
An example for the realtor business mentioned above might be when housing prices are low and using hashtags such as #soflorealestate or #realtyinsouthflorida, #luxuryfloridarealestate #luxuryhomeowners and so forth.
In this post there’s a handy hashtag generator you can utilize to access hundreds of relevant hashtags for any business.
11 Ways to Use Hashtags on Instagram to Increase Followers
Create a post related to your industry and use the hashtag to grab new followers. You can even quote influencers and tag them in your posts to reach their audience and attempt engagement from them.
8. For Engaging Social Media Posts – Appeal to the Emotions
There is a certain psychology to colors. Know what emotion you want to elicit in your audience. If you want to generate excitement, red or yellow is a great option, for example. Know your customer pain points and the emotions driving them to find a solution to their problem.
A pop of color on the CTA can grab interest. Unique typography in a bright hue pulls attention. Use colors to create a consistent brand image, make your ad pop or stand out from your competitors.
For Engaging Social Media – Create a Visually Pleasing Layout
Is there enough white space in your posts to create engaging social media?
Take a step back from your computer and look at the design of your post. Is it attractive, draws in your attention, and visually pleasing?
You should also pull it up on a smaller screen and see how it looks there. Making minor adjustments to UX design, sizing and white space can make a huge difference in the final appearance.
Keep in mind that proper UX for your website is also a clear and important SEO ranking factor for Google.
What is UX design? 15 User Experience Experts Weight In
11 Website Essentials You Can’t Afford to Ignore
The Ultimate Templates and Toolkits to Design Anything
About the Author
Eleanor is the editor-in-chief at Designerly Magazine. She was the director at a marketing agency prior to becoming a freelance web designer. Eleanor lives in Philly with her husband and dog, Bear.
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