Social Media Post Engagement Ideas That Work

Share

Christine Lee

October 29, 2021

Type:

Popular
category folder

Category:

Social Media

Since social media is constantly evolving, you need a content strategy. Otherwise, you might get tempted to post content without considering your engagement goals. So, what types of content will get you more shares?

When content attracts engagement, there’s usually something exciting that the audience grabs onto. If you don’t know your audience very well, that would be the first place to start planning your new social media content strategy.

To help with your social media content journey, we’ve put together the top social media content ideas that have proven to be engaging. However, these ideas are just the start. It’s best if you go through a complete social media audit, create buyer personas, and start an editorial calendar to build your new content.

Engagement Post Ideas for Social Media

Someone liking an Instagram post

From trying some new formats to building incredible visuals with new tools, there are various ways to create engaging posts. Since social media is made to serve up content to audiences looking to consume, if you don’t get any engagement on a post, you may need to take a step back and look at what your audience likes on other pages first.

You can also use Facebook Insights, Google Analytics, and other social content tools to see your best content for engagement and get more ideas.

1. Try Instagram Reels

Instagram announced Reels in late 2020, and ever since, people have been obsessed with posting 15 to 60-second video clips. These are easy videos to consume and engage with, and it helps your brand reach audiences instantly.

Many brands use Instagram Reels to target more mature audiences, rather than trying TikTok, which is skewed much younger. To create a Reel, you need a short video clip of something interesting about your brand and make sure it’s under 60 seconds. You can also include hashtags to help your Reel get seen by the right audiences.

2. Repurpose Your Best, Evergreen Content

Do you know what your best content pages are? You can use Google Analytics and Facebook Insights to understand what posts and web pages bring in the most traffic and engagement. Once you do, you can use these topics to build out other content. For example, let’s say your page on “How to Take Care of Rose Gardens Year-Round” has the most traffic on your site.

You can use data like this to build a post series for Facebook or Instagram around rose gardens, including how to take care of them, gardening tips, winter rose garden preparation, and so many other topics. Tools like AnswerthePublic.com can also help you find questions commonly asked about keywords, which you can then use to create Q&A posts on social media.

Ideally, this content is evergreen, which means that you can post it any time, and it will constantly deliver likes, shares, and follows. It’s essential to continually update these articles and provide new information, especially when linking to your blog or company site posts.

3. Partner Up with Influencers

Influencer taking photo of a beverage

If you’ve been researching your audience on various social media platforms, you’ll likely have a list of influencers or popular accounts that your audience follows. Perhaps these are other brands, but in many cases, it’s an individual with 10,000 followers or more who post on topics related to your business.

These are the movers and shakers of social media, and they have the power to send a lot of visibility to your brand on social media channels. You’ll want to pick influencers that match your aesthetic and tone, as well as those who are professional.

The best way to find influencers is to look at popular hashtags related to your products and services, see what accounts your audience is following, or try an influencer search website like www.heepsy.com.

Depending on audience size and the type of content you agree to, you can get thousands of followers overnight with just the right post. Some brands choose to do contests, while others like influencers to demo the product with a YouTube video.

Popular influencers will likely have fees and can be very expensive to work with. However, if you know that a particular influencer’s word will bring lots of engagement for your page and content, it’s an easy way to earn visibility and more followers in a short amount of time.

4. User-Generated Content

When a social media user provides a review or testimonial of your brand, it’s incredible publicity for your company. Still, it also provides social proof, which makes their friends and followers want to check out your content.

Sharing is the way that many brands get found on social media. With a simple email follow-up, you can also promote this type of content by showing how you feature social media posts, testimonials, and videos with your product on your website or your social media feed.

Reposting user-generated content, specifically testimonials, and positive reviews, also helps others see how great your brand is and why they should engage with your content.

5. Write More Blogs

A person writing a blog

Original content is king nowadays. Everyone has seen much old content reposted, so having behind-the-scenes and new expert guidance content is critical. You want to share the best with your audience, including the insight that comes directly from your knowledge. Otherwise, you’re just regurgitating what someone else already said.

However, you want to look at what competitors are posting and what topics they post about on their blogs. You can use their research to create more original work while also answering questions related to your audience's topics. This makes your content better for SEO, but it also improves engagement on social media.

There are various types of search that will bring social media users to your content. Blogging also gives your company a chance to publish positive content, informative content related to your products and services. When cross-posted, your content can drive free organic traffic via search engines and social media channels.

When you create guides and long-form content, you establish authority and build linking opportunities. This helps your website rank further up in search engines. As you share this content on social media, engagement will increase its ranking signals as it gets more shares and likes.

Additionally, blog content redirects your social media audience to your website. Instead of sharing what others are doing, you can post your links and content right on your feed. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, and LinkedIn offer the best communities for sharing blog content.

You’ll want to discover where your audience gets their content before committing to all of these channels. In many cases, brands stick to 1 to 3 channels to share blog content unless they use a social media scheduling tool like Hootsuite or Tailwind.

6. Create Eye-Catching Media

Research shows that video is the best format for engagement on social media. In many cases, videos automatically play, catching a user's attention scrolling their feed, which leads to more extended plays and clicks on the platform. If they like the video, they may even share it with their friends.

This should be your goal with all visuals on your social media pages. Your content should elicit a response at first glance. What are you saying with the imagery and color palette? Does your messaging match the tone and voice that your audience likes? Are you using carousel slider posts, videos, or just doing single image posts?

While single-image posts aren’t necessarily harmful, it’s the bare minimum to get engagement these days. Unless you already have a lot of followers or you’re using Twitter, posting an image on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn with your post is vital to getting more engagement.

You should also add moving images and emojis to your posts. This is a great way to interact with social media users, and it also makes your post stand out. There are also various tools to help you create your custom brand GIFs and stickers to use on your Instagram Story.

7. Start an Industry News Series

So maybe you are just starting with content and don’t have a blog of your own. It’s about time to start planning for one, but in the meantime, you can create industry news posts to generate easy engagement for your company’s page.

Industry news posts work best on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook. It’s content that specific audiences want to consume who are familiar with your industry. You’ll want to find breaking news stories or interesting facts to post that your audience will like and share because it’s relevant to their industry.

8. Contests and Giveaways

Giveaway post with gifts and confetti

As we mentioned in our influencer section, contests are a great way to get quick engagement, especially when you partner with a famous influencer your audience already follows and likes.

You can host a contest or giveaway on social media at any time. Not only will this method help you gain new followers and likes right away, but you can also have entrants share the post with friends to bring in more engagement.

One thing to keep in mind is that you’ll need to post your rules and guidelines. These should guide how to enter the contest, but you also want to abide by any laws. For example, you may need to specify that only those over 13 may enter the contest.

9. Fill Up Your Event Calendar

Your event calendar is shared whenever someone likes or plans to attend an event. Everyone on their feed can see them signing up to attend your event as well. This is why having events, even if virtual, can boost your engagement tenfold.

Social media is probably the best platform for promoting events, whether it’s a podcast, webinar, or in-person soiree. If you are hosting an event, you should add it to your event calendar on Facebook and promote it with a post.

10. Happy Holidays

You’ll always see brands posting graphics on holidays, wishing audiences a Happy 4th of July or Merry Christmas. However, there are many holidays in between, and in many cases, these may be relevant to your company. For example, did you know there’s a science fiction day? If you run a bookstore or movie review page, you should know about this holiday and post something fun to honor.

People like engaging on holidays because it relates to their interests, is fun, and is easy to share with friends. These posts also have an emotional appeal. People are more likely to interact with your posts on holidays, which is why it’s an excellent opportunity to post 1 or 2-holiday posts per month.

11. Career Opportunities

Colorful job opportunity post - Join our team with lollipops

Are you hiring? Some quick, easy engagement can come from job opportunity posts. You only have to create a graphic with exciting messaging to entice people to join your team. It’s also a great way to find dedicated employees if you have followers. You could find someone who has always wanted to work with your brand and knows all about your business.

12. Start a Content Series

You can combine several post formats into a content series, like videos, images, infographics, and podcasts. Your followers will get used to seeing this content pop up on their feed every two weeks, in which you share some new information or behind-the-scenes content.

Perhaps your series is about inviting guests on your podcast or YouTube show to answer questions about a specific topic. This type of content works well to initiate new interest with social media viewers, specifically if you have influencers, experts, and other enthusiasts invited to host the series with you from week to week.

Attract and Engage New Followers Easily

It’s time to build your engagement and start earning more followers. If you need help with a content marketing strategy and social media engagement, the experts at EMA Marketing have lots of creative ways to boost your traffic and get more likes. How will you kick off your social marketing strategy? Let us take care of the research and launch the perfect social media strategy for your business.

Ready to Grow Your Business?