How to Increase Social Media Engagement for Brands in 2022

Every marketer is aware of the importance of engagement. But figuring out how to increase it can be more of a challenge. With so many metrics available to analyze, it can be hard to choose which ones to focus on in order to get results. That’s why we wanted to give you a rundown on why fostering social media engagement is important for your brand and share our tips and tricks on how to increase it, so you can start the new year at full speed!

Why Does Social Media Engagement Matter?

Social media engagement is a measure of how people are interacting (aka engaging) with your social media accounts and content across platforms. Most brands that have social media accounts use this metric to measure success in their posts and determine what kinds of content is appeals to their audience. 

But why is it important to foster engagement? Social media is a two-way street where people seek interaction with others – whether they’re friends, strangers, or even brands! As a brand, interacting with your followers, and other accounts, can help build meaningful brand-customer relationships. These interactions can range from liking or commenting on their posts to reposting their user-generated content. 

In addition, engaging with customers on social media is another way of providing customer service. According to a survey conducted by Sprout Social, 90% of people have used social media in some way to communicate directly with a brand for a customer care reason. 

(Photo credit: Sprout Social)

This shows that social media is a key tool both for attracting potential customers and for continuing to build your relationship with them after they purchase.

How you choose to interact with users on social media can affect public perception of your brand significantly, which is why engaging with them via responding to comments, direct messages, and other forms of interaction via social media is key. 

Now, let’s move on to …

Tips for Increasing Social Media Engagement

• Understand the algorithms - Engagement works differently on different social media channels as their algorithms reward different actions. For example, Instagram rewards accounts for interacting with fans (such as by replying to DMs and comments) while TikTok tracks how long users watch your videos for and rewards content that is being watched for longer with more exposure.
  
  Having this knowledge can help you craft your content in such a way that takes advantage of the algorithms to help you earn more engagement. Get familiar with Instagram’s algorithm and TikTok’s algorithm so you can make the most of them.
  
• Interact with the community - This might seem obvious, but it’s key to fostering engagement. People are more likely to engage with your content if they know they'll get reciprocal interactions. Think about it this way: you wouldn't keep texting someone who never texts you back, so why would you expect one of your followers on Instagram to keep engaging with your content when it's going totally unrecognized?
  
  Commenting on other people's posts, replying to comments, creating polls and reposting UGC are just some of the ways your brand can interact with your followers and other accounts in order to foster engagement.
  
  One great example of a brand that takes this tip seriously is The Washington Post. They use their TikTok account to post funny videos featuring different employees, their take on current trends, and they manage to interact with the TikTok community while maintaining an active presence.  Take their interaction with @emilyzugay as an example: she redesigned their logo in this video. Then, The Washington Post actually changed their profile picture to the logo she created! Here's what it looked like:

Their large following and high engagement rates go to prove this tactic can lead to real results!

• Join in on the latest trends - This is an effective way to foster engagement because it allows your brand to interact with others on social media in real-time over a topic that people are already engaging with. On Twitter, this can mean participating in trending threads or using trending hashtags, and on Instagram this might mean using trending hashtags and effects.
  
  When it comes to TikTok, Duolingo is a brand that understands the assignment! On their account, their employees and mascot (the famously insistent green owl) have joined in on many trends by using popular sounds and songs.
  
  They began sharing several videos where their mascot was “harassing” users not just with app notifications, but on TikTok as well. This led commenters to engage with their videos, with comments like "can I have my dog back?" or letting the owl know they did their lessons.
  
  Take a look at this video of Duo’s legal team marching behind him to the beat of a popular sound after seeing his TikToks. This is a great example of how Duolingo joined in some current TikTok trends while showing off their unique brand personality which helped their engagement to skyrocket. They currently have 1.8M followers on TikTok, with 28.4M likes on their page and several hundred comments in their videos.

• Collaborate with influencers and brand ambassadors - Partnering up with influencers is a way to be proactive in driving engagement and social mentions, both of which can drive new social media followers to your brand's accounts, get more people visiting your website, and more.
  
  This tactic, also known as consumer-to-consumer marketing, is a great strategy to increase engagement by harnessing the engagement of others. Getting creators, brand ambassadors and even everyday consumers posting about your products draws attention to your brand from a trusted source and can lead to other people visiting your social media profile or website, following your page, posting about your brand themselves and more.
  
  We see this time and time again, a video or picture from an everyday person takes off, drawing attention to the brands’ social media profile as a result and even creating a lift in sales. It’s the magic of authentic, user-generated content created by people who have nothing to gain, except for sharing their experience for their friends and followers to benefit from. 

Staying up to date with social media marketing practices can be overwhelming, especially when it comes to thinking up new ways to engage with your audience and attract new followers. But don’t despair! Our consumer-to-consumer marketing experts can get consumers posting about your brand in a flash. We handle it all, from finding the perfect-fit creators to sending them your products to reporting and more.

Engagement here we come!

Get in touch with us to learn more about how we can apply consumer-to-consumer marketing to get creators posting about your brand on their social media accounts.