If you’ve been running a business for any length of time, you probably already realize how important it is to cultivate strong engagement on social media.
By definition, social media engagement refers to metrics that include the number of comments, likes and shares on your posts.
It might feel great to have thousands of followers, but if nobody is actually interacting with your posts, something’s missing from your strategy.
With over 16,300 followers on Instagram and an audience of nearly 7,000 on Facebook, social media is a vital part of Picks and Giggles and a driving force in everything we do.
Our strategy is simple: we don’t take shortcuts. We aren’t aiming for a number; we’re curating a meaningful message that will resonate with our target audience. We work hard at creating content that resonates with people – quality over quantity, every time.
Here are our top tips for generating strong engagement on social media – the right way.
How To Increase Social Media Engagement And Drive Sales
Our Top Tips For Handmade Businesses
1. Be authentic
Effective brand messaging ultimately revolves around your values. Why are you doing what you do? What got you started, and what kept you there? What’s the heartbeat of your business? Share that honestly, consistently, and transparently.
At Picks and Giggles, our commitment to supporting local businesses and entrepreneurs is everything. It’s our reason for being. But that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s going to be immediately obvious to every person who lands on our social media. That messaging needs to be consistently reinforced to our audience again and again, not just to remind our followers why we exist, but to remind them why buying local is important!
In this way, we can drive our brand messaging simply by reinforcing the values that hold our business- and thousands of other local, handmade businesses in our community – together.
2. Be consistent
Your brand messaging and “voice” is unique to you and will add colour to everything you share. If the tone fluctuates or doesn’t feel consistent, it can be a really quick turn-off for your audience. Any sense of sudden unfamiliarity will create barriers to connection, de-personalizing the experience for your audience and making them feel less “at home” with you.
Nailing the right tone on a consistent basis can become especially difficult if you have a team of people working together to create content. If you’re working with a team to create social media content (or any kind of content), it’s important to systemize your processes so that everyone stays on the same page, all of the time.
3. Be repetitive.
Ever notice how people sometimes need to hear the exact same thing about a hundred times before they actually get it? If you’ve ever tried promoting an event, you’ll know that your audience needs repeated reminders of dates, times, and places. Sharing it once just isn’t enough!
The same goes for any kind of promotion or piece of content you want to really “catch” with your audience. If you feel like you’re regurgitating the same information or message in a slightly different format over and over again, you’re probably on the right track! Repetition doesn’t necessarily mean uniformity. There are a hundred ways to say the same thing; you just need to exercise a little creativity.
4. Be patient
Building a dedicated audience takes time. If you have thousands of followers but only get likes, comments or shares from a tiny percentage of them, you’ve got some work to do.
Work with the audience you have. Give them the good stuff, and be generous with it. And then wait and see what happens! An engaged customer base is the engine of your business. Be willing to start small and give your all, right from the beginning.