A guide to increasing your social media engagement and why it matters
If you’re trying to build your social media presence as a business owner or a creator, and you’re mostly just posting, this is your sign that you need to do more.
Pumping out content is great, but if you’re just posting and not engaging on social media then you’re missing an important piece of the puzzle.
Engagement is important for several reasons, it helps build relationships, community, and credibility, and platforms often reward engagement by, for example, suggesting content and pushing it in the algorithm.
What types of social media engagement should you be doing daily?
Your approach to engagement might look a little different depending on the platform, but a lot of platforms share a set of basic interactions. All of the platforms listed below will give you the option to like, comment, save, and share. And when it comes to commenting, you shouldn’t just be commenting on your own posts, you should be commenting on posts from your followers (like content you’re tagged in) and on posts by those you follow.
Let’s break down some of the other types of engagement that you can and should be doing based on the platform you’re using. Today we’ll be looking at four of the biggest platforms.
Reactions - These kind of go hand in hand with likes. If you’ve been on Facebook and noticed emojis that differ from a thumbs up, such as a heart, an angry face, a crying face, or another emoji, you’re probably looking at a reaction. Similar to a like, but a little more descriptive in how you’re receiving and interpreting the content, it adds an extra layer to your engagement on Facebook. Responding to comments still remains a necessity!
I know I said all of the platforms listed here allow you to comment, save, and share, but I want to dig into these a little more for Instagram in particular. Instagram prioritizes these interactions over likes. This means it will show content with more comments, shares, and saves to more people. These interactions are prioritized because they signal that there is an interest in this content and it is sharable and higher quality content.
So if you see a post that you think your audience would find interesting or useful, this is a great option to connect with them and give the brand/creator a more meaningful interaction.
Another way you could be engaging with your audience is through answering their comments with a Reel. When you’re looking at your comments, you should see an option that says “Reply with a reel.” By clicking this, you can record which will also display the comment you’re replying to. Then you can film your response, whether that’s answering a question or reacting to the comment you’re responding to.
TikTok
Similar to Instagram, TikTok prioritizes shares and saves, so if content resonates with you, I encourage you to share it with others. That could be on your TikTok Story, to friends in-app, or to others outside of the app. If you find it useful and want to revisit it, save it!
You could also engage with content by replying to comments with videos. Another option is the “stitch” feature. This feature can be used when you want to react to another video. It will allow you to “stitch” (incorporate) another creator's video with your own content. So let’s say someone is posting that they need a solution for something that you can help with, you can “stitch” part of their video stating the problem and the need for help and then respond with your own video providing the solution.
As with the above platforms, likes and comments are also simple ways to interact with others.
YouTube
Community Posts - This is a tool that is available to creators/users with 500+ subscribers. It gives creators and their followers the opportunity to connect through text posts, image posts, polls, and more. Both creators and their followers can post and comment.
The Hype Feature - This feature is only available for select creators and is designed to help those with under 500,000 subscribers. Viewers are prompted to give Hype points on videos within the first 7 days o fbeing posted. These points are designed to help with discovery. You can learn more about them here.
How to get started - and stay on track
You may think that all of this engagement sounds challenging and time consuming, and it can be. You can get stuck scrolling for hours. But there are things that you can do to help keep you on track.
Schedule your time
Take a look at your schedule and block off time specifically for scrolling, this could be 15-20 minutes, 30 minutes, 3 times a week, everyday, whatever works for you. And you can change this up later once your strategy evolves. If you need to, use timers or in-app/phone limits if you need to.
Be consistent
Making engagement a consistent part of your routine can help you stay on track in the long run. It also helps ensure that your audience can trust that you’ll answer their comments and DMs. 79% of customers expect brands to respond within 24 hours, further, 39% expect a response within an hour, you can learn more about these expectations here. Needless to say, these stats highlight the importance of consistent engagement. And, at the very least, you should be in there checking at least once a day to ensure you don’t miss anything.
Engage with intention
You don’t have to like every single picture that pops up. If you’re doing that, you’re probably going to scroll through a bunch of posts at lightning speed without doing anything that’s valuable in the long run. You also don’t have to comment on every single post. Instead, engage with intention. It’s absolutely fine to comment with just emojis sometimes, like “🔥🔥🔥” or “❤️❤️❤️,” where it makes sense, and you’ll probably see a lot of these. At other times, it will be more appropriate to leave a text comment, and of course, what you comment will depend on the post. It could be a funny comment, an insight you want to share, a kudos, or something else.
Remember it’s social media, so be social! It’s all about building a connection and not just posting, scrolling, and likes!