By Tara Smith
It is a well-known fact that social media use is a major part of our society today. Public relations professionals are required to stay up-to-date with trending topics on different social media platforms, and it is especially valuable to know how to create and post content that will give people an opportunity to be engaged with you through your posts—whether they are for professional or personal use.
Creating engaging content doesn’t have to be hard, but it isn’t a piece of cake either. In a professional setting, engagement means more people will see your posts and awareness of your company will rise. On a personal social media site, one could also hope for engagement if they hope to show that they know how to be effective on social media. Regardless of who you are generating content for, doesn’t everyone want to see likes, comments, and re-tweets on what they post?
Having a basic understanding of how to effectively engage with followers on your social media platforms will guide you in the right direction. Keep in mind some of the following points when aiming for feedback on your posts.
- First of all, make it easy for people to know where to find you on your social media platforms of choice. As we all know, some of the most popular social media sites include Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Google+, and blog sites. And that’s not all of them! If you want a lot of followers, give links to make it easy for people to follow you on each site, as well as in personal emails. Share the information across multiple outlets so that people can easily find you on the platforms they use as well.
- Gain insights from Facebook data. On business Facebook pages there’s an option to view the results of your posts to measure reach. There is also information about the peak times most of your followers are online, which is obviously the best time to post. Take a look back at what types of posts have been successful, and aim to do similar posts in the future. Think outside the box, beyond tactics like asking questions to gain responses, and focus on generating posts that people will actually be excited to reply to.
- Utilize different calls to action. People will respond to different types of posts. Some might enjoy seeing photos of you, your product, or images that could represent you. Others might enjoy reading articles about topics you are interested in to gain insight about who you are. Most people enjoy short video clips that make them laugh or spark some type of emotion. Others might appreciate links to different pages or websites where they can learn more about a trending topic. By rotating the type of content you post you’ll be able to reach the interests of many different types of people, and hopefully get feedback and shares from your followers.
- Remember that people use social media to build relationships, and they want to get to know YOU. Only post content that you feel represents you personally or professionally. By sharing things that are personal to you, your followers will feel like they are part of a community and will be more likely to respond to you now and in the future. It can be rough starting out, but once you have built friendships through social media, it will become second nature for your followers to engage with you in many different outlets.
2 Comments
This is really helpful information! Everyone should get a grasp on this topic because it is so vital in today’s PR environment!
This was a really helpful article, especially at the beginning of my PR career. Quite often I over look the social media platforms that I don’t use, forgetting there is still an entire audience that does use them. Just knowing or remembering to utilize every opportunity that you have will open so many doors for a person or company. Thanks for the tips!