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5 Secrets to Writing Engaging Social Media Posts for Your Business

Tips for Writing Social Media Posts

Are you a business owner who is struggling to write compelling social media posts for your business? Don’t worry, you’re not alone! Many business owners find themselves spending hours crafting posts that end up with no engagement or comments. It can be frustrating and disheartening, especially when you’re already juggling the demands of running a business.

But here’s the good news: writing compelling social media posts is a skill that can be learned and refined. In this blog post, we’ll share practical tips, strategies, and techniques to help you captivate your audience, increase engagement, and achieve tangible results.

 

 

Use your casual voice

Social media offers a fun and relaxed environment. It’s all about connecting with your audience on a personal level. People visit different social media sites in their free time to communicate with family and friends or simply for entertainment purposes. Using a friendly and conversational tone can make a world of difference in capturing their attention and keeping them engaged.

Gone are the days of stiff and boring corporate jargon. Today’s social media users crave authenticity and relatability. They want to feel like they’re interacting with a real person, not a faceless entity. By infusing your posts with a casual tone, you can create a sense of familiarity and build stronger connections with your audience.

Think about it: when you’re scrolling through your social media feed, what catches your eye? It’s likely posts that sound like they’re coming from a friend or someone you can relate to. Using a conversational tone allows you to break down barriers and establish a sense of trust and rapport with your followers.

Craft share-worthy posts

Getting as many likes, comments, or shares on your posts is a goal for a lot of business owners. After all, the more engagement the post gets, the wider the reach is. However, you can’t expect people to do that if your posts are boring and uninteresting.

Relatability is a key ingredient in crafting share-worthy posts. People love to connect with content that resonates with their own experiences, emotions, and aspirations. By understanding your target audience and tapping into their needs, desires, or pain points, you can create content that strikes a chord with them.

Make sure that the information you offer is worth passing along. Offer some valuable information. Also, think about your audience when creating social media posts. Know what their questions and concerns are and provide the answers. Remember, the goal is not just to create great content but to make it shareable. Put yourself in your audience’s shoes and ask yourself, “Would I share this with my friends or followers?” If the answer is a resounding yes, then you’re on the right track.

Crafting share-worthy posts takes time, research, and a deep understanding of your audience, but the rewards in terms of increased reach, brand visibility, and engagement are well worth the effort.

Use images, animated images, infographics, and videos

Visual appeal is also crucial in capturing attention and encouraging sharing. Humans are highly visual beings, and eye-catching images or videos can be the driving force behind the decision to share a post. Invest in high-quality visuals that align with your brand and are visually appealing to your target audience.

A striking image or a well-crafted video thumbnail can make a significant difference in attracting attention and enticing others to share your content. In fact, one study revealed that Facebook posts with images have an increase of 104% in comments and a 53% increase in shares than the average posts. Make sure that the images are of high quality and relevant to your post.

Content-Length

The ideal length for social media posts can vary depending on the platform and the content you’re sharing. For instance, shorter posts (around 40-80 characters) tend to receive higher engagement. Concise and attention-grabbing posts can capture users’ interest quickly. However, longer posts (up to 80-120 characters) can also perform well, especially if they provide valuable or intriguing information that encourages users to read more.

For Instagram, users tend to prefer shorter, visually-driven content. Captions that are around 125 to 150 characters tend to work well since they’re easily digestible without overshadowing the visual content. However, there may be instances where longer captions are necessary for storytelling or conveying detailed information.

So try to test out longer and shorter content on each platform. Monitor engagement metrics and gather feedback from your audience to refine your approach. Strive to provide valuable, engaging content that aligns with the platform’s dynamics and your audience’s expectations.

Stay relevant

While it’s a good idea to write about things your followers are interested in, you also need to make sure that the posts are relevant to your business. Remember, people, followed you because they are interested in the products, services, and information you provide.

By crafting content that speaks directly to your audience’s pain points, challenges, or desires, you demonstrate that you genuinely understand and care about their needs. When your posts address their specific concerns or offer solutions to their problems, you position yourself as a trusted resource and valuable partner.

Asking questions on social media is a powerful way to increase engagement with your audience. Questions spark conversations, encourage interaction, and make your audience feel valued and involved. So don’t hesitate to ask questions in your social media posts and watch as engagement levels soar.

Final thoughts

Writing social media posts that captivate your audience and drive engagement doesn’t have to be a daunting task. By following the tips and strategies shared in this blog post, you can simplify the process and achieve tangible results. Remember to use a casual and conversational tone, craft share-worthy content that resonates with your audience, and leverage high-quality visuals to enhance the appeal of your posts

If you still find the task of writing social media posts frustrating or overwhelming, don’t worry. We’re here to help! Our team specializes in creating compelling content tailored to your audience and business goals. Let us handle the task of crafting engaging social media posts for you, so you can focus on more important aspects of your business.

Reach out to us today to discuss how we can take your social media presence to the next level.

Tips for Writing Social Media Posts

Tips for Writing Social Media Posts for Your Nutrition PracticeTips for Writing Social Media Posts for Your Mental Health Practice

Tips for Writing Social Media Posts for Your Health and Wellness Practice

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6 Common Facebook Ads Mistakes That Are Destroying Your Campaigns

Facebook Ads Mistakes Blog

With over 2.6 billion monthly active users and a sophisticated algorithm that understands intent and behavior, there is no doubt that Facebook is an excellent platform for advertising.

By placing an ad on the platform, your chances of reaching your target audience skyrocket. This is why it’s no surprise that businesses, big and small, continue to devote substantial marketing budget to Facebook ads.

Facebook advertising requires a bit of a learning curve. Many of us tend to make a lot of mistakes, especially when we’re starting out. Understanding some of the most common Facebook ads mistakes will help you get more bang for your advertising buck.

Here are 6 common Facebook ads mistakes that are destroying your campaign.

Choosing the wrong objective

If you’re running ads and you don’t know what an objective is, then that would be big problem. In this case, you’re probably just boosting the post (we can talk about that in a separate blog post).

Choosing the right objective is vital to the success of your advertising campaign. Facebook has 11 objects, and each of them helps get you closer to your goals.

Basically, you’re telling Facebook what you expect to gain for this specific campaign. Let’s say you want to make your video viral, then an engagement campaign would be a great option. If you want to generate leads, then choose lead generation as your objective. If you’re running an e-commerce business and you’re looking to get more purchases, then choose conversion as your objective.

Choosing the wrong objective will not only give you unfavorable results, you’ll also be wasting money.

Poor targeting

There are billions of people on Facebook. Showing your ads to all of them doesn’t make sense. That’s why it’s important that you know who your target audience is before you start creating a campaign.

Targeting is a vital element when creating an ads campaign. Try to be as detailed as possible with your targeting. Narrow down your audience by targeting by gender, age ranges, geographic areas, and interests. The more specific you can get with your targeting, the better results you’ll see.

Forgetting about Facebook Pixel

Pixel provides a way to track interactions that are happening with your ad. By installing it on your website, it would be easier for you to track your visitor’s behaviors and gather data.

From the data you have collected, you can learn how your audience engages with you off of the Facebook platform. It also provides a way to measure your ads effectiveness in driving results.

Without Pixel, how else are you going to prove that what you are doing to drive opportunity to your business is working?

Sticking to one type of media

The primary goal of creating ads is to get people to take notice and take action. But since most people aren’t on Facebook to shop or checkout ads, it can be extremely difficult to get people to do that.

It takes an intriguing, creative, and a compelling ad copy to capture the attention of your audience. Video ads are one of the most powerful ways to capture the attention of your audience. But if you’re using videos on all your FB ads campaign, it can start to feel a bit stale after a while.

Consider using a variety of media – videos, photos, animated photos etc. Also, create a variety of ad copies and test them out. This way, you can determine which one resonates best with your audience and provides the best results for your business.

Impatience

Like any other digital marketing campaign, it takes time to create and optimize a Facebook ads campaign. Your Facebook Pixel is smart, but you need to give it time to learn and gather data.

The problem is that some people get impatient, thinking that they are losing money but still not getting results.

For instance, if your Pixel is fresh and you set your campaign objective to conversion, Facebook may not even know what a “purchasing” customer will look like, especially when you’ve never had any sales before. You’ll have to wait until you’ve gathered enough data before making any decisions on your ads like pausing or tweaking them.

Don’t think of it as an expense. Rather, think of it as an investment. Remember, you’re paying Facebook for the data.

Set it and forget it mindset

This is one of the biggest mistakes we’ve seen over the years. While it’s important to be patient and allow Facebook to do the work, it’s also important to check your ad campaign once in a while.

If you leave the ad campaign as is after it went live, there’s a good chance that the results will diminish over time. Why? It’s because of ad fatigue.

Let’s say you’ve been running the same ad for a month and you didn’t make any changes since it went live. Chances are the same people will be seeing the same ad over and over again. Not only will people find it annoying, you’re also losing money in the process. Read the data and make the necessary changes to get better results.

Running a remarketing campaign can be an effective way to re-engage potential customers who may have shown interest in your product or service, but did not convert during their initial visit.

Final thoughts

It’s important to be aware of the six common Facebook Ads mistakes so that you can avoid them and have a successful campaign. A good way to start is by understanding your target audience, setting clear goals and objectives, and creating high-quality ads.

All the tips mentioned above will help ensure your campaigns are successful and are getting the results you desire.

6 Common Facebook Ads Mistakes That Are Destroying Your Campaigns

6 Common Facebook Ads Mistakes That Are Destroying Your Campaigns6 Common Facebook Ads Mistakes That Are Destroying Your Campaigns

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Blogging Benefits that Will Change Your Business Forever

Blogging Benefits that Will Change Your Business Forever

In the early days of the internet, blogging was one of the most popular ways to share information and connect with others. Today, social media has taken over as the primary platform for online communication, and many people have questioned whether blogging is still relevant.

While it is true that social media has eclipsed blogging in terms of popularity, it is still a powerful tool that can help you reach your goals.

If you’re thinking it might be time to start blogging, but you’re not sure if it’s worth the time and effort, then we urge you to keep reading. Here are 6 blogging benefits that will change your business forever.

Boost search engine optimization

SEO is extremely important for any business operating on the web. Every time you write a blog post, more pages from your domain become indexed in search engines. This gives you another opportunity to be found by people.

Search engines don’t want to send users to abandoned websites with outdated content. By regularly publishing contents to your website, you stand a better chance of being found by your target audience.

Drive traffic to your website

Blogging is an inexpensive way to attract more potential customers and drive traffic to your website. Studies suggest that companies who blog get 67% more leads as compared to those who don’t. In order to do that, you first need to know your target audience and create contents that will be of value to them.

Position your brand as an industry leader

Blogging is especially beneficial for small businesses looking to gain credibility. Majority of people go online to because they want information. By providing fresh, valuable information in your blog posts, you can build trust and clout within your industry. Over time, people will come to you for informative, helpful content and will be seen as an industry leader.

Convert traffic into customers

Now that you have captured the attention of your target audience, you want them to keep coming back to your site. To do that, you need to provide them with fresh, interesting and informative content on a regular basis. Once you have built an audience of loyal and trusting readers, it will be a lot easier to sell to them. In fact, studies show that 67% of American buyers have made a purchase based on blog posts.

Building your personal brand

Blogs are a great way to share your thoughts and ideas with the world. You can blog about anything, from your personal life to your professional journey. And unlike social media, blogs allow you to control the narrative. You can decide what information you want to share, and how you want to share it. As a result, blogs can be a powerful tool for building your personal brand. In addition, blogs can help you to connect with like-minded people and create a sense of community.

Differentiate your brand from the competition

Blogs are a powerful tool that can help businesses to differentiate their brands from the competition. This is essential in business; it’s what sets you apart from the competition and drives customers to your door. When used effectively, blogs can provide insights into your company culture, values and vision. They can also be used to share news and announcements, showcase customer testimonials, and promote special offers.

In addition, a blog can help humanize your brand, making it more relatable and approachable. By sharing the story of your brand, you can connect with potential customers on a personal level and build trust. So if you’re looking to differentiate your brand from the competition, consider starting a blog. It could just be the thing that sets you apart and helps you attract more business.

Final thoughts

A blog can be a powerful asset for your business. It can help you drive traffic to your site, position yourself as an industry leader, and convert traffic into customers. If you need help starting a business blog, we’re here to help. We’ll work with you to create content that is relevant to your target audience and helps you achieve your marketing goals. Schedule a free consultation today to get started.

Blogging Benefits that Will Change Your Business Forever

Blogging Benefits that Will Change Your Business ForeverBlogging Benefits that Will Change Your Business Forever

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How to Create an Effective Content Calendar for Your Business

How to Create an Effective Content Calendar for Your Business

As a business owner, it is important to provide your audience with a steady supply of interesting and engaging content. But let’s face it. There will come a time when you’ll run out of ideas and don’t know what to write about. If you find yourself in this situation, then a content calendar may be just what you need.

Creating a content calendar allows you to plan your content in advance and schedule them across multiple channels at once. This allows business owners to come up with well-researched and valuable pieces of content and then schedule them on multiple platforms in one go. Plus, it will spare you the trouble of having to come up with a topic just before the deadline.

You may not realize it, but creating posts and content on the fly is more prone to mistakes and typos. With a content calendar, you’ll have enough time to write your content and proofread them before publishing.

Ready to create your own content calendar? Here are 4 tips to help you get started.

1. What content does your tribe want?

It is important to know what your audience is looking for before you just start posting. What do they like? What are they engaging on, sharing, talking about? Look at your past social media posts if you have them or your competitor’s posts and see what is working. One way to do this is looking at your social media analytics to get a good idea of what posts people have engaged in. What if you are just starting out and you don’t know what your audience is looking for yet? This is where your competition comes in, take a look at a good competitor and see what are they talking about, what type of posts are getting the most engagement?

Be sure to mix up your content, have posts with just text, articles, blogs, images, videos, gifs, to make sure you are grabbing their attention. Once you have a good idea of what type of content your tribe/audience likes then you can start creating!

2. How often should you be posting to each platform?

This is a question we get asked all the time! Each platform is different. As a business owner, you will have Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn and maybe even more than that. It is important to keep your audience in mind when posting. Meaning, how often should you post and what times should you post. When you were doing your research in step one, also check out the times that people were engaging.

You do not want to bombard your audience by posting too much and you don’t want to post too little so they forget about you. It’s kinda like Goldilocks and the Three Bears, you don’t want your porridge to be too hot, too cold, but just perfect!  

Here is the common rule of thumb for posting to the social media platforms:

  • Facebook: 1 time per day and 3 on the high-end
  • Twitter: 3 times a day on the low-end and 30 on the high-end
  • LinkedIn: 2-5 times per week
  • Google+: 3-5 times per week
  • Pinterest: 5-10 times per day
  • Instagram: at least once per day

Each platform is going to be different for you, some you will have more engagement so you can post more and some you will have less engagement so you may need to only post a few times per week.

Remember to use the analytics to look at the numbers and see what they are reflecting so you can stay top of mind to your tribe/audience!

3. Time to Create Your Content

Once you know what your tribe/audience is looking for and how often you should be posting, it is then time to create!

Remember to keep it fresh and mix it up. Here are a few different content ideas for you:

  • Create a custom image through Canva, WordSwag, Typorama, Prisma, etc.
  • Create a video through Ripl, iMovie, Videorama, Animoto
  • Post your blog post from your website to social media
  • Find outside sources, articles, other blogs and videos you like, that align with your brand to share
  • Gifs to increase engagement

Here are a few tools we use to help keep our outside sources organized:

Feedly

The content you need to accelerate your research, marketing, and sales.  Stay ahead of the curve. The content you need to accelerate your research, marketing, and sales.

Stumbleupon

Discover the best of the web, one click at a time.

4. Time to fill in your calendar

Now that you have put your plan together and figured out the type of content you are going to write, where you are posting it and how often, you can fill out your calendar.

We have found that there are a few tools to help you with that content calendar. Everyone is different, some people like more of a visual calendar and others like more of an excel type of calendar. We love creating the content calendar in Google Sheets then using Trello to write the content and copy from there to our platforms. Others like to use Google Calendar for their topics and then put the posts directly into Buffer or Hootsuite to schedule them at one time to the correct social media networks.

You have to explore each option to see which one resonates with you the best! So we wanted to give you some to choose from:

Trello

Trello is a project management tool that’s very popular with bloggers, marketers and social media managers. It’s a good way to keep track of your content ideas and even has an additional calendar add-on you can use to get a monthly view of your planned content.

Google Calendar

If you want to keep it simple, you could always just create a new Google calendar for the process and invite everyone on the team to view it. Those teammates could also add all of their own posts and ideas to the same calendar.

Google Sheets

We have created our clients content calendars into here for topics and it will look like this:

Or this is how our Social Speak Content Calendar looks, you can be as general or as detailed as you want:

Buffer

Buffer is a new and smarter way to share what you want to share on Social Media. People have called it great names before, like your Social Media Assistant or the Siri of Social Media.

What it does is simple. Posts in your queue will be sent out automatically by Buffer, according to the posting schedule that you put in place.

Select the social account you’d like to customize the posting schedule for, select the Settings tab at the top, and then select Posting Schedule. From here, you can choose which timezone is best for this account and customize the days and times your posts should go out. Select the days you’d like to include and add the individual times you’d like your content to be shared.

Hootsuite

Manage all your social media in one place. From finding prospects to serving customers, Hootsuite helps you do more with your social media. Save time by scheduling your social posts. Keep your social presence active 24/7 by automatically scheduling hundreds of social media posts at once, across your social accounts.

How to Create an Effective Content Calendar for Your Business

How to Create an Effective Content Calendar for Your BusinessHow to Create an Effective Content Calendar for Your Business

 

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45 Social Media Questions That Will Get Your Audience Talking

45 Social Media Questions That Will Get Your Audience Talking

Social media is an excellent platform for promoting your business and reaching your audience.

With billions of users logging in on their accounts almost every day, there is no doubt that social media can help you grow and scale your brand over time.

But the truth is that having an audience isn’t enough. If you want to grow a fanbase, you need to interact with your audience and keep them engaged. One of the best ways to get the conversation started is by asking questions.

Asking questions will not only help you genuinely connect with your audience, but it can also help you improve your organic reach.

But before we give you a list of social media questions, here are some tips to further pump up your engagement when asking questions.

Ask questions that are easy to answer

This is supposed to be a fun activity, so don’t let your audience think too hard. The easier it is for your audience to answer the questions, the more likely will they participate.

While some may not always engage, but fun and easy questions may encourage people to stop and be interested enough to read the comments.

Make use of visuals  

Studies suggest that social media posts with images get 2.3 times more engagement than those without. So if you want to grab people’s attention, we highly suggest that you include a visually appealing image with it. But make sure that it is relevant to your content.

Post when your audience are most active

Just like any other social media content, you want to post the questions when your audience are actively engaging on the platform. Keep in mind, though, that the best time varies from platform to platform. So be sure to do some research.

Choose relevant and on-trend topics

If you’re struggling to find questions to ask your audience, just hop on to Google and do some research. There are also lots of tools available that can help you find trending topics in your industry.

Questions to ask on social media

Just for fun questions

Social media is a great place to ask just for fun question. The answers people give you aren’t really important. What matter most is that you’re

  1. If you were planning a dream vacation where would you be going?
  2. What movie would be the most fun to live in?
  3. If you got offered a reset button for your life would you push it?
  4. What movie have you watched more than five times?
  5. If you could only have one snack for the rest of your life what would you pick?
  6. If you were stuck on a deserted island, what three items would you bring?
  7. What job would your pet have it was human?
  8. What would the title of your autobiography be?.
  9. What weird talent do you possess?
  10. What shows are you binging on Netflix right now?

Business-specific questions

Asking business-related questions is not only a great way to engage your customers, but also helps you get insights from your customers. 

  1. If we gave you $100 to spend in our shop, which products or services would you stock up on?
  2. Which do you prefer, [product A] or [product B]?
  3. What kind of [industry] content would you like to learn about?
  4. Do you prefer podcasts, videos, or blog posts?
  5. What’s the #1 thing you struggle with when it comes to [industry]?
  6. What’s one product/service you’d like us to start offering?
  7. What deal would you prefer to get? 15% off or free shipping?
  8. What’s the #1 thing you look for in a [your product or service]?
  9. Would you be sad if we discontinued [product]?
  10. What questions do you have about [product-related topic]?

Food-related questions

People love food. In fact, most people enjoy taking a snap of their food and posting them on social media. Asking food-related question will surely get them talking.

  1. What’s your favorite food?
  2. What’s your specialty dish?
  3. If you could only eat at one fast-food restaurant for the rest of your life, which one would it be?
  4. If you could cook with any celebrity chef, who would it be?
  5. What’s your favorite healthy snack/food?
  6. What’s the most adventurous meal you’ve ever eaten?
  7. What’s the best meal you’ve ever eaten?
  8. If you could only eat one meal for the rest of your life, what would it be?
  9. If you could buy any type of food right now, what would you buy?
  10. What was your favorite food as a kid?

Gratitude-related or motivation questions

More and more people are being drawn to the idea on reflecting on their lives. As such, people are more open to talking about what motivates them, what they’re grateful for, and other positive thoughts. Asking these types of questions are sure to boost your social media engagement.

  1. What’s one thoughtful thing someone did for you recently?
  2. What are you grateful for today?
  3. What’s a difficult lesson that you were grateful to learn?
  4. What’s the nicest thing someone has ever done for you? (Tag that person)
  5. Who is someone that really listens when you talk? (Tag them below)
  6. What was the last thing you got really excited about?
  7. What’s one thing you hope to accomplish this week?
  8. What’s your #1 goal for this year?
  9. What kinds of things motivate you in life?
  10. When was the last time you felt truly motivated

Would you rather questions

Would you rather questions are fun. They’re great for long road trips and are equally as good on social media. You can post them as regular content or post them as stories to drive engagement.

  1. Would you rather be unable to use search engines or unable to use social media?
  2. Would you rather live alone in a beautiful countryside or work hard and live in the city around the people you love?
  3. Would you rather receive a free world tour opportunity or never have to pay for food at restaurants?
  4. Would you rather know all of someone’s darkest secrets or have the ability to read minds
  5. Would you rather travel to the past or travel to the future

45 Social Media Questions That Will Get Your Audience Talking

45 Social Media Questions That Will Get Your Audience Talking45 Social Media Questions That Will Get Your Audience Talking

 

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6 Social Media Content Ideas to Increase Engagement

6 Social Media Content Ideas to Increase Engagement

Social media remains to be one of the best ways to reach out and engage with your audience. You already know who your target market is and social media platform they’re using. Now, you just have to come up with interesting posts that can get their attention and join on the conversation.

Here are 6 social media content ideas for boosting engagement on your social media pages.

Video content

People love video content. In fact, videos get more shares than photos or plain text contents. It’s no surprise why Tiktok rose to popularity over the last few year.

Go ahead and try to be as creative as you can with your videos. You can share behind the scenes videos, do a product demo, create how-to videos, or host an AMA. The possibilities are endless.

Ask questions

Questions are a fun way to get to know your followers. Plus, it gives you a better understanding of what they want.

You can ask random questions about your industry just to get the conversation started. Or you can ask for your audience’s opinions about your products or services.

While asking questions is a powerful strategy, be sure to use it sparingly.

Fill-in-the-blanks

Fill-in-the-blanks posts is another fun way to get comments and responses from your audience.

Get creative with it, and see what you can come up with. Make sure, thought, that it’s something easy to answer. You can ask about random stuff or get people talking about your brand.

Here’s an example:

Fill in the blank: My favorite thing about [BRAND] is ________.

Trending topics

One of the easiest ways to boost your engagement rate is to post about trending topics. People are already talking about it, so try to join in on the conversation. While this can be a great strategy, be sure to only post about topics that are relevant to your niche.

Tease a new product

Everyone loves being the first to see new products. If you’re planning to launch a new product, try to consistently give your audience sneak peek of the product. Not only can it help generate buzz around the launch, but it also helps boost engagement.

Challenges

People love a challenge, especially when everyone else is doing it. Today, more and more brands are using challenges to engage with their audience and further grow their community.

Challenge your audience to do things, but make sure it runs for a short period only. 5 to 7-day challenges are ideal. Also, make sure that the challenge is easy enough for participants to complete. After all, the goal is to help them gain quick wins.

Final thoughts

Social media marketing can be challenging. It takes time. It requires a lot of effort. But once you find what works best for your audience, you’ll be able to grow your fanbase and build a relationship with them.

If you need help writing social media posts that will capture the attention of your target audience and boost your engagement rate, we’re here to help. Schedule a free 30-minute call with us and we’ll help you fill your social media content calendar with quality posts.

6 Social Media Content Ideas to Increase Engagement

6 Social Media Content Ideas to Increase Engagement6 Social Media Content Ideas to Increase Engagement

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5 Reasons Why Social Media Contests Should be a Part of Your Marketing Strategy

5 Reasons Why Social Media Contests Should be a Part of Your Marketing Strategy

With the digital space getting saturated by different brands trying to capture the attention of their target audience, social media contests provide an excellent way to generate buzz around their brand and re-engage their audience. When done properly and effectively, social media contests can bring a number of benefits to your brand. In fact, businesses, both big and small, are using this tactic to generate more leads,  promote their products and services, and increase brand awareness?

While your brand might not garner the same level of enthusiasm that game shows get, you can certainly benefit from hosting a contest or a giveaway on social media.

Here are 5 reasons why contests should be a part of your
marketing strategy.

Give people a reason to follow your brand

Most brands would share interesting and informative content in the hopes of capturing the attention of their audience. But despite their efforts, many of them are having a hard time standing out from the competition. If you want to have more followers and expand your reach, consider hosting a contest on social media.

When running a contest, most brands would ask people to like their social media accounts and share their content. Knowing that they’ll get an opportunity to win something, most people would gladly do as they are asked. This is a win-win for both the brand and consumers. You get the opportunity to reach more people while they get the chance to win something – a gift, a discount voucher, a gift certificate or a free period of service.

If you’re looking to grow your fan base, contests and giveaways are a great way to do it. We’ve seen brands grow their following from 100 to 1,ooo or 10,000 to 25,000 in a matter of days or weeks. While some may argue that follower count is just a vanity metric, having more followers will certainly be beneficial for you if you can keep your engagement rate high. So don’t just stop at running a contest. Make sure that you keep your audience engaged and you’ll reap all the benefits soon enough.

Improve brand awareness

Most people aren’t aware that your business exists until they hear it from their family and friends. Social media contests allows you to get the word out about your business without directly promoting it.

Regardless of how well established your brand is, contests can be a simple yet effective way to improve brand awareness. If your contest includes a voting component, people would tag their family and friends for support. This strategy helps generate buzz around your brand. People are already talking about your brand and promoting your business on your behalf. People get to join in on the fun. Some even walks away with a prize, and you get to reach a wider audience. It’s a win-win for everyone.

Collect data

Often, people are hesitant to share their information for the fear of identity theft. Social media contests provide an easy way to grow your email list and collect data. People will be more willing to provide you with their personal information, knowing that they get something in return.

You can ask people to leave their name, contact number, and email address to enter the contest. Also, think of the type of information you need for your future marketing campaigns. Want to know how many of them went to the local university? How many of them have kids? Now is your chance to find out.

Increase engagement

Contests are one of the best ways to boost your engagement. When you host a social media contest, your post is likely to get a lot of likes, shares, and comments. It’s a fun and interactive way to get people to interact with your brand.

More than the number of fans and followers, engagement is the most important element in social media. The engagement rate represents the number of people who are talking about your brand. The higher the engagement rate is, the higher the reach rate. That means, your content will be viewed by a wider audience. In addition to that, hosting a contest gives you more opportunity to interact with your audience and deepen the connection as well.

Collect user-generated content

Let’s face it. Most customers won’t leave  a review unless you ask them to. And if you’re looking for a way get tons of reviews and user-generated content fast, contests are the way to do it. Simply ask your audience to provide their photos to enter, and you’ll be flooded with user-generated content in no time.

Not only will you have lots of photos to use for your future marketing campaigns, but it will also give your target audience the perception that people love your brand. After all, those who submitted their photos are already invested in your brand.

 

Why social media contests are a good idea

Holding contests and campaigns

on social media is more popular than ever, and we don’t see that changing anytime soon. Any company can give out free gift cards or electronics, so that really is not enough to hold the attention of social media users anymore. What is taking your contest to the next level? If you are running a contest, you must make sure your contest stands out from the rest.

As we know, consumers are constantly interacting with social media on their mobile phones. This means it is vital to take advantage of location. Urge users to check-in on social media when they are interacting with your company’s physical location. Offer some sort of incentive such as a discount, a charitable donation, a few points in a contest, etc. Getting social media users to check in not only allows you to generate more traffic but also creates a deeper user interaction (physical and digital).

Do your users have a reason to keep coming back to your page? Include your fans and contest participants in every possible step of the contest. Brands often do this by allowing the fans to vote on a winner, respond to a question, or answer a poll. Get creative here and choose what seems most relevant to your brand and product.

Although your contest is Facebook based, ask yourself if other social media platforms would enhance your contest. For example, say you are the marketer for a line of gluten-free butter and your Facebook contest asked users to post pictures and recipes of things they made with your butter. In this case, it would make sense to start a Pinterest board, displaying the recipes.  Using more than one social media platform can allow you to reach a larger audience. The key here is to make sure your second social media platform is relevant to your contest.

The general goal of Facebook contests is to allow users to interact with your brand. Anybody can make a Facebook contest, but your goal is to expand that user interaction as far as possible. Think of ways to take your contests to other social media platforms, physical locations, and beyond.

5 Reasons Why Social Media Contests Should be a Part of Your Marketing Strategy

5 Reasons Why Social Media Contests Should be a Part of Your Marketing Strategy5 Reasons Why Social Media Contests Should be a Part of Your Marketing Strategy

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