Nine Unconventional (But Effective) Social Media Engagement Tactics

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Whether it’s Instagram Stories, Facebook Lives, or TikTok videos, there are more ways to interact with your audience online than ever before. However, once you capture your audience’s attention, you’ll need to keep them engaged.

Because your brand is competing with the countless other accounts your audience may be following, sustaining engagement from your followers may require some unique and unconventional strategies. To help, a panel of Young Entrepreneur Council members each share their insights on audience engagement.

Q. When trying to ensure your audience is engaged (and staying engaged) with your social media, what’s one unconventional tactic you can use? Why does it work so well?

1. Ask Users to Share Their Industry Experiences

I believe that encouraging our audience to share their experiences with the industry and then helping them reach their goals helps us create loyal social media followers and, eventually, customers. How you implement this technique will vary based on your products and resources, but I believe most brands can boost engagement by asking users to share their thoughts. – Chris Christoff, MonsterInsights

2. Run With the Trends

Using trending audio and connecting your video topic to a value-add and community trend is a great way to connect with your audience! Most professionals shy away from the trends because they view them as “unprofessional,” but you can get creative. Put your own words and insights over a short lip-sync video that you create while it’s trending. And don’t forget to engage back with your audience! Build that community. – Lauren Marsicano, Marsicano + Leyva PLLC

3. Stick to Bite-Sized Content

Cut the fluff. I love sharing quick, consumable content like infographics and photos that can quickly go viral and convey a strong message in a few words. Leave the fluff and run-on sentences for your blog and instead structure your message like a tweet to drive conversations on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and more. – Ron Lieback, ContentMender

4. Provide a Peek Behind the Curtain

Go behind the scenes of your product. How was it made? What does the office actually look like? Publish your employees on your social media channels. Tell them to connect with your customers and help them understand what value your team members are bringing to them. Most customers want to connect with their favorite brands more humanly by understanding how they function. – Candice Georgiadis, Digital Day

5. Tease Upcoming Posts

It’s hard to resist a good tease, so tease upcoming posts to build excitement and keep people engaged. You can do this with partial image reveals and videos. Ask people to guess what’s coming so they join the conversation. Build the expectation that your posts will consistently be interesting and exciting, and then, deliver on the promise of your tease by giving them great content, offers, and more. – Jonathan Prichard, MattressInsider.com

6. Interact With Users’ Posts

You can’t expect engagement without being engaged yourself — even with the simplest of comments. People feel special when a brand responds to their comments because they feel like they and their opinions matter. They will be more inclined to engage with that brand than with the other brands that often ignore them. To receive engagement, start interacting with others’ posts! – Julian Hamood, Trusted Tech Team

7. Go ‘Live’ Often

Make use of livestreams and stories on Facebook and Instagram. This may not be unconventional for social media users today, but many businesses and marketers still overlook these features. You don’t have to be promoting anything. Short, casual broadcasts can be effective for building brand awareness and giving people an up-close look at your business and employees. – Kalin Kassabov, ProTexting

8. Tone Down the Editing

Avoid professional-looking videos or images that look like they’ve been heavily edited. Instead, try to use more “real” and relatable content. This could be anything from behind-the-scenes footage to unedited images or videos. Don’t be afraid to shoot videos with a casual background and little to no scripting. The goal is to show your audience that you’re a real person, not just a brand. – Syed Balkhi, WPBeginner

9. Spice Things Up

Break the monotony in your content. Things can get saturated over time, so spice them up a bit. Share something that your audience never expected you would. Be very careful though to not share something that contradicts your brand personality. Using comic relief helps to lighten things up and facilitate engagement. – Stephanie Wells, Formidable Forms

These answers are provided by Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC), an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most successful young entrepreneurs. YEC members represent nearly every industry, generate billions of dollars in revenue each year, and have created tens of thousands of jobs. Learn more at yec.co.

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