Nine social media strategies to increase engagement and stand out

You may be the number one show on air in your market; however successfully engaging with your audience online is just as important for building station loyalty.

There are so many different ways to engage listeners, but in this day and age you not only have to connect, but also interact and obtain their trust in order to ensure brand credibility. A high number of views, likes, comments, shares and clicks allows you to capitalise on this connection.

While I’ve listed a few great examples of how to boost your engagement before (such as using emojis and sharing video content), below are nine of my favourite tactics that ensure content stands out in cluttered social media feeds.

Captivating storytelling

Your posts should tell a story or have a running theme. Think outside the box and reveal information and updates in a creative, unique way to grab your listeners’ attention. Don’t deliver messages in the most obvious, direct way.

Post newsworthy content

There’s no point in posting news content if it doesn’t interest your audience on social media. Be savvy, study your audience online and assess what works best, and then formulate what news content to post from that data.

Use humour

Lighten up – it’s not all doom, gloom and radio promotion. Post your own branded memes, images, articles or videos that your target demographic will value. But don’t go overboard – too much of a good thing can occur, even when it comes to comical content on social media. This type of content gets stale and it’s hard for the audience to take some brands seriously after a while.

Prompt an emotional response

It’s important to generate content that triggers a highly emotional response. You’ve got to ensure that your post outlines a unique message that pushes people to respond. Push their emotional buttons and you’ve triggered them to want to react to, and hopefully share, posts.

Maintain a constant presence

Your audience wants to be acknowledged and heard. Therefore it’s extremely important to respond to inbox messages and comments – even if they are negative. Keep your social media engagement high by contributing to the online conversation. As soon as you take your foot off the accelerator in this area of social media, your traffic and engagement will drop too.

Variety is the key

Don’t always play it safe, keep your audience guessing and interested. Change your formula up – it’s going to ineffective to constantly push a call-to-action like clicking through to a page on your website. Experiment with what works best with your audience – from topical posts and different tones of voice, to switching up your visuals, text and overall imagery.

Take a stance on topics…

Audiences don’t just want to see viral videos and fluff. There’s nothing wrong with raising hot topics across your social media platforms. You’ll drum up comments from users who want to voice both negative and positive comments – which translate to great user engagement.

… but ask your target audience relevant questions

There is nothing worse that seeing a post asking a question just to be seen as being topical, only to have the post miss the mark. Find out what matters or interests your target demographic, then ask open-ended questions, post polls or run competitions. Don’t be lazy and post something for the sake of it. Your audience is smarter than you realise and can see right through it.

Post a call-to-action

Let’s not go overboard, but if you want your audience to do something, tell them! Make it simple and don’t beg – just put it out there.  Ensure whatever the action is, that you are providing something interesting enough to comment on.

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Social Scorecard is compiled exclusively for Radio Today by Jess Frangelli and is brought to you by Social News Desk.