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Best Practices for Better Engagement on Social Media

Social media engagement ideas

Likes, comments, shares, saves, sends, reactions — there are many different ways customers and audiences engage with social media. But what does it all mean? Despite popular belief that the size of your following is what matters, it’s engagement you want to focus on. Why? 

The more users engage with your content, the more visible you’ll be on your followers’ timelines. And their followers’ timelines. And possibly their followers’ timelines. Before you know it, you’re reaching customers beyond your following.

So, how do you go from simply posting on social media to generating real, meaningful engagement? Here at ThumbStopper, we’re sharing our best social media engagement ideas. 

Consistency is Key

The more consistently you post, the more likely your followers will become better acquainted with your brand and what you sell. To stay top of mind (and hopefully top of feed), set a goal for how often you want to post. Then, create an editorial calendar and plan ahead to ensure you follow through. But don’t post just for the sake of it, as the quality of your content is more important than quantity. 

Pro tip: Don’t limit yourself to just posts; use every feature of your social media platforms, like Instagram and Facebook Stories, IGTV, and links to your website and latest posts.
Example: Ulta Beauty is a great example of how to mix different types of content throughout one platform. In the first post, they featured several different brand products to create a how-to. It was shared as a post with a link to watch the full video on IGTV. On their Instagram Stories, they shared posts from other profiles — no product or brand promotion — as a way to increase content output and engagement.

ULTA BEAUTY:

Best Practices for Better Engagement on Social Media

Engage in Conversation and Community

Another way to enhance your engagement on social media is by sparking genuine conversations with your followers and like-minded profiles or businesses. You can start these conversations by:

  • Responding to comments
  • Responding to reviews
  • Engaging with other profiles
  • Building connections with other small business owners
  • Providing thought leadership on important or timely topics
  • Using hashtags and location markers

Engaging with other people and businesses can showcase the quality of your customer service while building connections. By offering genuine support and encouragement to your followers and community members, you’re likely to see others do the same for you. Win-win.

Example: Made in KC, a retail store in Kansas City that sells local goods, joined the Takeout Tuesday trend as fellow businesses struggled to stay afloat during the COVID-19 pandemic. This post below is an example of one of the local restaurants they spotlighted, despite having no affiliation or selling any of their goods. It was a simple, yet effective, nod to the local community and small business owners.

Best Practices for Better Engagement on Social Media

Encourage Feedback and Responses

One of the simplest ways to get your followers to engage is by asking them what they think. There are numerous creative ways to ask questions without directly promoting your business or brand. You can try things like:

  • Asking questions (and encouraging responses)
  • Creating polls
  • Using the ‘Ask a question’ feature
  • Posting a contest or giveaway
  • Creating sharable and savable content
  • Asking customers to share their reviews or experiences
  • Creating a unique hashtag

Pro tip: Don’t just ask questions and ignore the answers. Post and share your followers’ responses. That will show you take the time to listen to their feedback and genuinely value what they have to say.

Examples: Boulevard Beer utilizes the ‘Ask a question’ feature on Instagram Stories to engage their followers. Target uses a similar strategy on Facebook, asking users to answer their question in the comments. Wendy’s — which receives significant engagement on its social platforms — tweeted a poll for followers. While it didn’t necessarily ask for direct feedback, it still showcased a fun and creative way to boost engagement. Check out the 19,000+ votes! Finally, take a look at another example from Ulta Beauty on Instagram, where they encourage followers to use their unique hashtag, #ultabeauty, to share posts and pictures. This is a smart way to get engagement and free brand engagement at the same time!

Best Practices for Better Engagement on Social Media
Best Practices for Better Engagement on Social Media

Find a Trusted Social Media Automation Tool

As a small business owner, managing all your social media profiles on your own or without experienced help can be costly — in terms of both money and time. With a social media management partner like ThumbStopper, you can experience growth and exposure on your channels without doing the heavy lifting yourself. Your social growth will translate into more customers and in-store traffic — and an overall boost to your business. 

Engage Your Audiences with ThumbStopper

Social media engagement is crucial to growing your business, but so is your time. Thumbstopper’s automated, turnkey solution maintains and posts content to your social media profiles without you lifting a finger and, most importantly, without sacrificing quality. Ready to find a customized solution for your business that doesn’t require you to come up endless social media engagement ideas yourself? Get started today.

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Key Points:

 

  • Companies should understand the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) to ensure their websites are accessible.
  • Brands that concentrate on accessibility on social media demonstrate care for their customers and build a positive brand reputation.
  • Brands should always consider inclusive design, such as plain, straightforward language, in their social media posts.

 

 

Accessibility may not be a term you usually associate with the internet and social media. You might picture wheelchair ramps, directional signs in braille, or sign language interpreters at live performances. The landmark Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990 dictates the legal necessity of these and similar accommodations in public spaces. As we’ve come to rely on the internet for everything from entertainment to buying groceries, it’s become clear that the internet is now also a public space. It must be accessible to everyone. And like other applications of ADA, businesses that do not comply are liable for damages caused by inaccessibility.

 

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) are an international set of standards to provide instruction on meeting accessibility needs. It’s important for companies to understand how this applies to their websites, especially if they engage in e-commerce. In terms of social media, the requirements are less concrete. But prioritizing accessibility on your company’s social media is essential to your reputation, even if the legal requirements are uncertain. We’ll look at why it’s important to your customers, how it affects the perception of your brand, and how to make these changes efficiently.

Social Media for All

The cornerstone of accessibility is inclusive design: products or experiences that are accessible for everyone regardless of disability. The most important place where this shows up is on company websites where most users expect to also find links to the brand’s social media profiles. Unfortunately, the overwhelming majority of websites are not accessible, despite the fact that the application of ADA to the internet is over 20 years old. Making websites accessible is a complex process without the use of specialized software like Accessibe or EqualWeb.

Unlike websites, making sure your social media is accessible is a straightforward, ongoing process. Every social platform has been quick to release optional accessibility features. These features are important to many users even if they don’t rely on them to use social media.

Making your social presence accessible tells users that your brand cares about people, not just profits. It’s the same idea as the push for the representation of different body sizes in fashion or more expansive skin tone ranges in beauty products. Brands that meet the needs of underrepresented groups endear themselves to others as well. And while optimizing your brand website for accessibility might be a larger project you aren’t ready to tackle yet, starting with your social media pages is a great way to show customers that you’re listening to their concerns. 

 

Making Content Accessible

Shifting to accessible content means incorporating inclusive design into your creative process. The practice varies by type of media. For platforms that have graphics or videos with captions, it means not only adjusting each component but also being mindful of how they interact with each other.

For example, YouTube’s automatically generated closed captions and subtitles are often inaccurate. It's one of many examples where the caption generation software has issues picking up strong accents and mumbled words. This could be remedied with handcrafted video transcription services. If that’s not in the budget, the video creator could add their script or transcription to the video description.

None of the technology for accessibility is perfect yet. Teaching computers to digest complex information for human understanding is difficult, and the variations in disabilities further complicate it. The majority of adjustments creators need to make revolve around helping assistive technology better understand their content. Let’s look at how to make different kinds of content accessible. 

Text

  • Use plain language that’s easy to understand 
  • Avoid text in all caps
  • Capitalize the first letter of each word in a hashtag, like #SocialMediaMarketing, a practice called camel-case

Videos

  • Provide descriptive captions. Instead of just displaying the words people on-screen say, explain background noises and other sounds that are relevant to the scene.
  • Add your own subtitles or enable auto-subtitles on the video platform of your choice
  • Use captioning for live videos when possible

Graphics

Distribute Accessible Content

Many users find their new favorite brand through social media. When disabled people (who make up 26% of the population according to the CDC) can’t access your brand’s social posts, you miss the opportunity to connect with a demographic that’s eager to engage in online communities. On a hyper-local level, that kind of connection goes even further.

That’s why ThumbStopper exists to help brands distribute their social content to their retailer network. Retailers can connect with their local audience - with your accessible, branded content - in a more personal way. And since content goes to their page automatically once they sign up, retailers can effortlessly promote your brand online while focusing on running their business. 

Ready to see how ThumbStopper can help your brand improve its reach? Check out our brand reach calculator or book a demo.

 

 

accessibility
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What Is Social Media Automation?
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10 Ways to Automate Your Marketing
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[/et_pb_column]
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[/et_pb_section][/et_pb_column]
[/et_pb_row]
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Key Points:

 

  • Companies should understand the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) to ensure their websites are accessible.
  • Brands that concentrate on accessibility on social media demonstrate care for their customers and build a positive brand reputation.
  • Brands should always consider inclusive design, such as plain, straightforward language, in their social media posts.

 

 

Accessibility may not be a term you usually associate with the internet and social media. You might picture wheelchair ramps, directional signs in braille, or sign language interpreters at live performances. The landmark Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990 dictates the legal necessity of these and similar accommodations in public spaces. As we’ve come to rely on the internet for everything from entertainment to buying groceries, it’s become clear that the internet is now also a public space. It must be accessible to everyone. And like other applications of ADA, businesses that do not comply are liable for damages caused by inaccessibility.

 

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) are an international set of standards to provide instruction on meeting accessibility needs. It’s important for companies to understand how this applies to their websites, especially if they engage in e-commerce. In terms of social media, the requirements are less concrete. But prioritizing accessibility on your company’s social media is essential to your reputation, even if the legal requirements are uncertain. We’ll look at why it’s important to your customers, how it affects the perception of your brand, and how to make these changes efficiently.

Social Media for All

The cornerstone of accessibility is inclusive design: products or experiences that are accessible for everyone regardless of disability. The most important place where this shows up is on company websites where most users expect to also find links to the brand’s social media profiles. Unfortunately, the overwhelming majority of websites are not accessible, despite the fact that the application of ADA to the internet is over 20 years old. Making websites accessible is a complex process without the use of specialized software like Accessibe or EqualWeb.

Unlike websites, making sure your social media is accessible is a straightforward, ongoing process. Every social platform has been quick to release optional accessibility features. These features are important to many users even if they don’t rely on them to use social media.

Making your social presence accessible tells users that your brand cares about people, not just profits. It’s the same idea as the push for the representation of different body sizes in fashion or more expansive skin tone ranges in beauty products. Brands that meet the needs of underrepresented groups endear themselves to others as well. And while optimizing your brand website for accessibility might be a larger project you aren’t ready to tackle yet, starting with your social media pages is a great way to show customers that you’re listening to their concerns. 

 

Making Content Accessible

Shifting to accessible content means incorporating inclusive design into your creative process. The practice varies by type of media. For platforms that have graphics or videos with captions, it means not only adjusting each component but also being mindful of how they interact with each other.

For example, YouTube’s automatically generated closed captions and subtitles are often inaccurate. It’s one of many examples where the caption generation software has issues picking up strong accents and mumbled words. This could be remedied with handcrafted video transcription services. If that’s not in the budget, the video creator could add their script or transcription to the video description.

None of the technology for accessibility is perfect yet. Teaching computers to digest complex information for human understanding is difficult, and the variations in disabilities further complicate it. The majority of adjustments creators need to make revolve around helping assistive technology better understand their content. Let’s look at how to make different kinds of content accessible. 

Text

  • Use plain language that’s easy to understand 
  • Avoid text in all caps
  • Capitalize the first letter of each word in a hashtag, like #SocialMediaMarketing, a practice called camel-case

Videos

  • Provide descriptive captions. Instead of just displaying the words people on-screen say, explain background noises and other sounds that are relevant to the scene.
  • Add your own subtitles or enable auto-subtitles on the video platform of your choice
  • Use captioning for live videos when possible

Graphics

Distribute Accessible Content

Many users find their new favorite brand through social media. When disabled people (who make up 26% of the population according to the CDC) can’t access your brand’s social posts, you miss the opportunity to connect with a demographic that’s eager to engage in online communities. On a hyper-local level, that kind of connection goes even further.

That’s why ThumbStopper exists to help brands distribute their social content to their retailer network. Retailers can connect with their local audience – with your accessible, branded content – in a more personal way. And since content goes to their page automatically once they sign up, retailers can effortlessly promote your brand online while focusing on running their business. 

Ready to see how ThumbStopper can help your brand improve its reach? Check out our brand reach calculator or book a demo.

 

 

accessibility
[/et_pb_column]
[/et_pb_column]
What Is Social Media Automation?
[/et_pb_column]
[/et_pb_column]
10 Ways to Automate Your Marketing
[/et_pb_column]
[/et_pb_column]
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