Guest Times: How to boost engagement on social media organically

Swati Bhargava, Co-founder, CashKaro.com, writes that the new algorithm for organic reach for business pages is plummeting, and is driving brands to change their strategy

Delhi | June 13, 2016

Swati Bhargava

'Relevancy over Recency' has snookered the organic reach of a post/tweet to under 10% of the total followership on social media platforms. The new algorithm for organic reach for business pages is plummeting, and is driving brands to change their strategy and study the impact of social media on their business.

It's not as though it's now impossible to have a higher engagement rate. It's just a lot, lot harder. If you want organic reach, you need to do extraordinary, useful things. Here's how you can revolutionize your social media engagement and garner all the benefits that accrue.

• Create & Share Interesting Content: Give your audience eye candy that appeals to them. Long-winded monologues and stories quickly become uninteresting and people tend to ignore such posts. Sharing creative graphics, GIFs and videos will make your channel worth checking out. In fact, research conducted by Media Blog suggests that images increase retweets by 35%.

• Ask Questions Creatively: Asking questions that are fun and engaging will definitely get responses from your audience. It will directly increase engagement and put your channel on the social media map. You can even ask questions in the form of contests and give your customers a chance to win prizes. Putting your customers in the spotlight will add value and goodwill to your brand. It might even attract more customers.

• Tag People on Relevant Content: It's simple. When you tag someone relevant, your followers notice and the network of the person tagged notices. So, just tagging one person increases your visibility exponentially. Exciting? But before going on a 'tagging spree' it is essential to focus on the word 'relevant'. If you start tagging people who have nothing to do with your content, the tagging will be reduced to spamming. That will just portray your channel in a bad light.

• Use Trending Hashtags: Using hashtags that are trending will boost your visibility, thereby increasing customer engagement. If you use the right hashtags on the right post/tweet, you will find that more people stumble upon your post and may decide to associate with your brand. Again, use only what is relevant and don't go overboard.

• Arrange Q&A Sessions: If your brand is even moderately popular, it is likely that people have questions about it. Give your customers a chance to be heard through Q&A sessions such as Twitter chats. You can also set up interviews with industry experts where your customers could learn more about what your brand does. Such sessions are imperative if you want to increase engagement, followership and most importantly, credibility.

• Promote User Generated Content: Sharing user generated content will create a buzz around your page and get people talking about it. For instance, if you retweet positive feedback from a customer, it makes him feel appreciated and he wants to keep coming back to your brand. Other followers get a whiff of this customer engagement technique and they want a piece of the action as well. So, you get loyalty plus visibility.

• Share Creative and Unique Content: Social media is always evolving. Before you know it, things get stale. Weave in topical content that will bring added traffic to your page. Talking about something that is all the rage will get people talking. Be mindful of current events while you create content.

• Include Links: Want to inspire conversation on your page? Give your audience links to click on and things to read. This will add value to your post and is a sure fire way to increase engagement on your page. Research by Buddy Media suggests that tweets with links get more retweets than tweets without them – 86% more to be precise!

Social media is an amazing way to gain traction for your brand. Incorporate these methods in your social media strategy and watch how your engagement grows by leaps and bounds.

Info@BestMediaInfo.com

Info@BestMediaInfo.com