TIP: Pair your organic campaigns with a unique hashtag. Then, encourage your audience to follow that hashtag to view more of their favorite content. By following your hashtag, content from your campaign can reach audiences who don’t normally see your brand’s posts in their feed.
3. Post More Videos
Videos are much more entertaining content for your audience to engage with than static images and graphics. With video, it’s easier to convey information or share a story in a more amusing and relatable way. Videos are also likely to earn more comments than static posts. According to SocialMediaExaminer.com, a study by Mention found that out of 115 million analyzed posts on Instagram, videos earned 46% of the total comments.
TIP: The higher the quality the video is, the more engagements it will receive. However, creating a high-quality video isn’t as easy or as cheap as one might think. There are many elements to consider and plan out before production, including storyboards, talent, lighting, sound, equipment, and much more. If you don’t have the resources or time to produce your own video, consider reposting a video created by another profile, or create more simple videos on apps, like Ripl.
4. Repost Content
Building your brand’s community by proactively engaging with your audience is just as important as getting engagements from them. By reposting, you are interacting with your audience, sharing meaningful content on your page, and strengthening your brand’s online community. Reposts also diversify your profile with great content that your social media agency team didn’t have to create.
Reposting user-generated content is a great strategy to start with, for two reasons. First, customer reposts are considered as engaging customer testimonials. Second, it’s a great way to show your appreciation to your community of consumers for using your product or services. Most people will feel flattered that one of their favorite companies wants to feature their content on the company’s feed.
Our client, Dole Plantation’s, social media community continues to strengthen due to our Dole Plantation repost program. We found that our reposts perform strongly on our feed, earning a lot of comments, shares, and likes. It’s also a sustainable content strategy that doesn’t require our team to create new content from scratch, which saves our client time and money when used as one piece of an integrated social media program.
You can also repost content that is on-brand but not directly linked to it, like quotes, memes, stats, or anything that you think your audience will enjoy. For example, for Castle & Cooke Hawaii, one of Hawaii’s leading real estate developers, we repost homemaking and home improvement content, including delicious recipes and simple DIY crafts, to diversify their feed.
TIP: Make sure to get permission to repost other people’s content, preferably by having them sign a waiver, and properly credit the original posters. Without these extra steps, you can potentially face legal issues.
5. Post Questions & Fill-In-The-Blanks
Remember, comments are social media metric gold! The more your posts get, the more discoverable and viral your post will become. Comments can also give valuable insight into your follower’s likes and dislikes.
Naturally, a practical strategy to boost the number of comments on a post is by asking audiences to share their opinion on a hot topic. Your questions can include something about your industry, brand, or something fun, like your audience’s favorite ice cream flavor. Your brand can also take this opportunity to get to know your followers better by having them share something about themselves, like what their favorite things to do in Hawaii are.
Another option that’s more convenient for your audience to interact with, are fill-in-the-blank questions. These questions usually require a one-word or very short answer, and they are just as effective.
TIP: Make sure to ask questions that don’t require long answers from your followers. The key to increasing audience interaction and participation is to make the interactions as convenient as possible.
6. Implement a Stories Poll
Polls are an effective option to entice audience interaction and feedback with their easy, one-click format. They can be sales orientated or fun and conversational, like this poll on what’s the best way to #DoleWhip, which we posted on our client’s Instagram Story:
