Why your engagement is low and how you can fix it!
Social media channels can be hugely powerful. They’re a great way to get your brand in front of new potential customers.
However, with the changing algorithms, some brands are finding it difficult to get their posts seen. And it’s harder still to get people to connect and engage with what they’re posting.
What does social media engagement include?
Engagement on social media is defined by a user interacting with your posts. There are a number of ways that this can happen.
Engagement metrics include:
- Follows
- Likes/Reactions
- Comments
- Messages
- Shares
- Saves
- Link clicks
- Video views
- Image views
- Profile Visits
- Buying a product
Something that some people can do is focus on what is often called ‘vanity metrics’. They’re metrics that can be measured but don’t impact or indicate a genuine return on investment.
For example, you might be disappointed because your posts don’t get more than 5 likes. However, focusing on just this aspect might mean you’re missing out on the 20 people who clicked your link and went to your website, where they hopefully committed a positive action (like buying or subscribing to your newsletter).
That doesn’t mean that things like likes, reactions and comments aren’t valuable. They just shouldn’t be the only indicator of value when you’re looking for social media engagement.
Do you have an outdated website design?
Not getting the right engagement?
If your posts aren’t being engaged with, then it can feel like the end of the world. But try not to panic; use this as a learning opportunity.
Even if it’s a slow process, building genuine engagement on your social media is valuable and can be done.
How brands can thrive despite rising marketing costs
Why you’re not getting engagement, and how you can fix it
1. You’re not on the right social media channel
Many businesses make the mistake of thinking that they have to be on every single channel. That’s not true. Only be on the channels that are valuable to you.
Each social media channel will have a different type of audience. For example, Instagram is very visual and has a younger audience compared to Facebook.
Think about where your audience is before putting together a social media strategy that makes sense for your business.
2. You’re talking too much about yourself
It might seem odd, but you should be talking about more than just who you are and what you offer.
Think of social media marketing as a first date with a potential customer. If all you ever do is brag about yourself, then you probably won’t be getting a second date.
Try to stick to the 80/20 rule, where you’re providing value to your end customer at least 80% of the time. Use the remaining 20% to promote your services and products and why they should spend money with you.
3. You’re not using the data to inform posts
When you’re putting together your social media content calendar, you should be looking at the analytics of past posts first.
This will help you figure out what your audience likes and engages with most. Pay attention to the media the post uses and also the topic it focuses on.
4. You’re posting at the wrong time!
You need to make sure you’re posting when your audience is normally online. By posting at popular times, you’ll more likely to get engagement on your posts.
If people engage with your posts in the first few hours of being posted, the algorithms will show your posts to more people.
5. You’ve missed a CTA or engagement marker
Encouraging an action can help prompt users to interact with your post. For example, asking questions encourages users to comment on the post.
Some social media channels will also offer a variety of post types like polls or questions. These types of things appeal to audiences as they’re quick and easy to interact with.
6. You didn’t stand out in their feed
The truth is that social media feeds are full of content, regardless of the social channel. So, it’s important to stand out from the rest and get the user to pause on your post.
Using a variety of media will help you do this. You can range between branded social media assets, photographs, and videos to have a variety of fresh content.
7. Your posts don’t feel authentic
People buy from people. Social media offers brands a great chance to humanise themselves.
You are unlikely to get much social media engagement if your posts seem wooden, one-dimensional, or even fake.
Make sure your posts convey your personality and that you aren’t afraid to show things like behind-the-scenes or humour. As long as it fits with your brand.
8. You aren’t unique enough
There is no one-size-fits-all for social media posting. A social media strategy that works really well for one company might do awful for another.
Copying another brand’s strategy is likely to result in you being forgotten. Even with large brands, you’ll see they each have different posting strategies.
If you’re not sure where to start, using a marketing framework like a brand positioning map can help.
9. Your posts don’t fit with your audience
Are you posting with your end customer in mind? If you aren’t making sure to post content that they’ll find useful, entertaining, or engaging, then you’re giving yourself no chance of success.
Putting customer personas together to identify who your buyers are and what’s important to them can help hugely. Once you know who your audience is, research them on social media.
Finding other brands and the content they engage with can help you identify relevant things to focus on (content strands). See where there is a crossover and replicate it for better social media engagement!
10. You’re not engaging back
Providing answers to comments and questions encourages other users to participate as well. Taking the time to do community engagement is important. This is where you interact genuinely with users on your social media channels.
And this doesn’t mean messaging 100 people and telling them why your service is great. It means genuinely engaging with their content.
Providing authentic responses that feel human. Building a loyal community of followers will result from doing this routinely.
11. It’s not you
Sometimes, no matter how hard you work on your posts, you won’t get the engagement levels you expect.
They could be designed and presented beautifully, have witty and engaging content, be posted at popular times and still not get great engagement.
There might be other factors affecting engagement, like the weather being great, so users are looking at their phones less. Or even unseen algorithm changes.
The important thing is not to give up. It’ll be worth it when you start to see improvements.
How Copper Bay can help improve your social media engagement
There are many benefits of working with a digital marketing agency, from it being cheaper than hiring internally to lessening the pressure on your team’s time.
Working with us can be a cost-effective and time-efficient way to elevate your digital presence.
We will be able to put together a social media strategy designed to help you reach your goals.
Contact us today
