Getting Social engagement without nagging customers

December 15, 2015 By rightly No comments yet social engagment, Social Media

Since the beginning of time, humanity has tried to answer some of the most difficult questions, like is the universe finite or infinite, which came first, the chicken or the egg, and how can brands engage with their social media audience without being pushy?

Social media is a great way to connect with your customers and build lasting relationships with them. But, if you don’t know how to use it, you can end up annoying your fans, and your efforts will translate to nothing.

This article will discuss four ways you can improve engagement levels on social media without being nagging.

Understand Why People Share Content

You can’t trick your fans into sharing content on social media. To get them to engage, you need to understand the psychology that drives social sharing.

According to a study by New York Times Consumer Insight Group, there are five reasons people decide to share something with others:

To entertain: 49% say sharing allows them to feel involved in the world and to inform others of things they care about;
To define themselves: 68% share to show others who they are and what they care about;
To nourish relationships: 78% share information online because it helps them stay in touch;
To feel useful: 69% share content because it allows them to feel more involved;
To support a cause or brand: 84% share to support causes they believe in or the brands they love;

The main takeaway is quite simple and obvious: people engage with content that fits their personality and their interests. Other than supporting a cause they care about, their motivations are centered on connecting with others and feeling useful. So, to get more social engagement, try to create content that will make your audience feel smart, cool or useful.

Ask, Don’t Beg

For some reasons, some small business owners forget to include a call-to-action in their social media posts. But, Dan Zarella from Copyblogger.com found out that simply asking for retweets can increase engagement by 40%. It’s that easy! A simple “Please Retweet” or “Please share” will make your posts four times more likely to be shared.

Be careful, though, don’t beg for shares. Ask your fans to share your content in a respectful manner.

Find Your Post Frequency Sweet Spot

More than 2 million blog posts are written every day and around 1,500 posts per day compete for a place in your customers’ News Feed. With numbers like these, you might believe that you need to post more to break through the noise.

According to one study by Hubspot.com, posting more doesn’t necessarily increase engagement. In fact, what really matters is the quality of your posts rather than the frequency. If you create stellar content, the result will snowball, and your post will appear on more feeds.

Focus on Creating Copy that Evoke Emotions

You might think that writing compelling posts is enough to get your audience to share it. But, emotions are extremely important, especially in social media marketing. According to numerous studies, people feel first and act second. The human brain process audiovisual information in one fifth of the time the cognitive part takes to assimilate the same information.

So, if you want to get more engagement on social media, your posts have to have an emotional effect on your fans. Focus on emotions like curiosity, amazement, astonishment, interest and uncertainty to get your audience to share your posts.

There shouldn’t be an equal sign between getting more social engagement and annoying your customers. Quite the opposite: the more you entertain them, the more they will share.

Have you tried any of these techniques? What were the results?