How to Engage Customers on Social Media

Engaging your audience on social media is no easy task. It requires the right strategy, a deep understanding of your followers, and crafting interesting content that aligns with your company’s desired experience. When done well, it’s one of the best ways to build your online community and brand awareness.

If you’re still struggling with engaging your audience and customers on social media, consider these tactics:

Make it personal. Personalization is one of the easiest ways to improve social media engagement. Publishing content isn’t enough. Respond to your followers quickly and spark a conversation. Don’t think of them as random customers. Reply as if this is a customer you’ve seen many times before and are excited to help or engage. Rapport can build loyalty.

By having a conversation with your digital audience, you motivate them to comment on posts and connect with your company in the future. It’s all about trust and expectation.

Bonus tip: We cannot stress how important it is to use the person’s name when responding. It’s simple, it’s effective, and it’s direct. Chewy is a great example of using the person’s name when responding to comments.

Experiment with content formats. Live video continues to reign supreme. It’s a great (and entertaining) way to engage your audience. By next year, 82 percent of consumer online traffic worldwide will come from videos. Product releases, FAQ, clever community responses, UGC celebrations, and video trends are great examples of smart video usage. Here are some other content formats to try:

• Customers love to use GIFs and emojis to express themselves across digital platforms. Using them smartly will help your customers relate with you.
• Create fun interactions through the use of polls and surveys. In the example below, Airbnb’s poll not only sparks a discussion but helps them tailor future holiday deals.

Provide value without adding to social noise. Offer something worthwhile to your audience in your posts. Create content that informs, teaches, or entertains.

The Netflix example below is a good representation of speaking the language of your audience (what they like to see, and how they like to see it). Their posts tend to be fun and relatable. They pick up on trends quickly and keep their tone conversational.

The Witcher was one of the most-watched Netflix series ever. When its first season sparked discussion on Twitter, Netflix engaged with fans. They shared a snippet from the next season’s trailer on the platform. The tweet garnered over 21,000 likes and more than 4,500 retweets. Communicating with your audience can be effortless when you know them well enough to provide what they want.

Show the human side of your business. What do we mean by the “human side”? It’s a wonderful blend of empathy, realness, acknowledgement, and personality. Wouldn’t you rather chat with someone who is going to engage you as a person, and not a response ticket? When you’re frustrated as a customer, isn’t it better to feel that the voice on the other end of the communication recognizes you? Is specifically helping you? Is relating to you and empathizing? When people care, they expect some respect in return, and they’re open to investing time and energy into the experience. No matter what kind of company you are — SaaS, restaurant, online kitchen appliance store, whatever — you can engage with customers by simply being human.

One way to make your brand’s social accounts more human is to post relatable content that talks about common challenges, pain points, or experiences. Be relatable. It’s also a good idea to express emotions, with humor being particularly effective.

Here’s a great example from Oreo. The company talks to its social media audience in a unique and personable way.

Encourage user generated content. Customers can be a surprising source of useful content. If they don’t know what your audience wants to see and hear, who does? First hand experience is everything. Allowing posts from users creates an inclusive community of like minded people.

Swimwear brand Cupshe has more than one million followers on Instagram. How? The team is smashing it with user generated content. Their strategy plays into the hands of followers who want recognition for their photos. This strategy is almost reciprocal: Thousands of people see the user’s content and the brand gains exposure for their swimwear, without having to lift a finger.

Sometimes it’s the simple things. In their bio (above), Cupshe is actively encouraging followers to share pictures using its handle and dedicated hashtag. Leveraging their own hashtag allows for easy access to filtered user generated content.

Engaging customers on social media can be a challenge. “Know thyself” — know your customers, what they want, what they expect, what gets them excited, and make it easy to celebrate them. While tools and tricks of the trade may change, giving people what they want will not. Learn about your audience, engage with their messages, and show personality. You can and will create a loyal community out of your customers.

If you’re interested in learning more about how ModSquad manages and strategizes for social media, contact us today!