Best-in-Class Tactics for Social Media Engagement

Best-in-Class Tactics for Social Media Engagement

When it comes to your organic content strategy (paid media as well) engaging your existing community is likely your core focus. However, how do you generate engagement without always “asking” for engagement?

Below, we break down our favorite tactics and content types you can incorporate into your editorial planning to entice audiences to engage with your brand on social media.

Best-in-Class Tactics for Social Media Engagement

Instagram Stories

A mind-blowing 500 million Stories are posted on Instagram every day. Instagram Stories provide many great engagement tools that are simple, yet effective. So many people are watching Stories, you’re already targeting users where they spend a lot of time. Stories also make it very easy to engage without the user having to reply, leave a comment, or post something they may not want visible on their feed or others’ feeds (such as replying to a tweet).

Our team loves the engagement tools that are native to Instagram Stories. There are so many things you can do with them. There are poll stickers, open-ended question stickers, quiz stickers, sliders, countdown stickers, location tags, and more that encourage engagement and build awareness. One example is how Tastemade Travel uses these tools to gamify their content, making it fun for the user to play along and also educational on new foods and places to travel. Below are a few more ways our teams love to engage with consumers on Instagram.

This or That Stories

There are several ways to accomplish these Stories, like a screenshot that the audience reposts and tags you in, or more recently, leveraging the poll sticker natively. There are so many different ways you can customize these for your brand, the possibilities are endless. For example, here’s a poll-style Story asking to see the user’s favorites.

This or that Instagram Story example from Benefit Cosmetics

Polls

This technique is simple, fun, and engaging! Not only does it make fans and followers feel special because they’re getting to decide what future products might look like, but it also collects very helpful insights for the product team creating new things. Win-win!

Instagram poll examples

“Choose Your Adventure” Style Content

This technique allows the audience to easily “choose” multiple products you offer to put together their perfect combination for fun. This can give them ideas on things to buy or how to use your products, all in one engaging activity.

Instagram choose your adventure example by ULTA Beauty

Commenting Techniques

Emoji Commenting

Each person uses different emojis in their texts, social, etc. Inviting them to comment with theirs, like the example below, makes it personal and easy enough for anyone to do. Many users will follow this trend, want to jump into it quickly, and engage with it.

Emoji commenting example

“Tell us your ____ and we’ll tell you your ____”
This gives brands a chance to engage one-on-one with every comment and leave a unique, personalized reply, which can get attention from more than just followers of that brand. This is also a lot of fun for community managers, another win-win!

Busch Beer example of engagement

Follow The Trends: Memes and Interactive “Games/Puzzles”

If a trend is appropriate for your brand and you can get the content created and published quickly, it can be fun to jump in on puzzles/games/fill-in-the-blanks that make their way around social and have a call-to-action for the community to leave their answers in the comments. It creates engagement from the community and opportunities for reactive responses, too.

Instagram engagement example

 

If your social media team is looking for assistance with optimizing your content strategy, contact us for assistance. 

Additionally, keep yourself up-to-date on new tools and features, as well as other trends in the social media marketing space by subscribing to our e-newsletter below.

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