Do you ever feel like you post something to Facebook or Instagram, and sometimes it’s just like crickets? Like nobody’s listening? There’s nothing worse, right? I’m going to give you three big tips on how to increase your engagement on any social media platform.
Tip number one, be interested in other people. If you find you’re posting and no one’s clicking like, you’re hardly getting any engagement, I would ask yourself, when is the last time you’ve been proactive? I’m a big believer in Focus Five. Every day, if I’m going to be on Snapchat or Facebook or whatever platform it is I want to engage on that day, I’m going to be proactive and engage with at least five people.
Now, that doesn’t just mean going through my newsfeed and clicking like on five people. That means being really proactive and thinking about who can I reach out to, and leave a meaningful comment. Maybe it’s someone’s birthday. Maybe someone’s going through something really meaningful, positive or not so positive in their life. Maybe something really exciting happened. Whatever it might be, how can I be interested in other people? Not just click like, but maybe click like and then also leave a personalized comment and use their name. People love the sound of their own name. Or maybe even better, reach out personally and send a private message and connect. If you want other people to be interested in you, you have got to be interested in them.
Tip number two is tag other people and bring them into the conversation. Now, I’m saying this carefully, because I don’t want you to go tag crazy and start tagging 65 people on every single one of your posts. We all know people like that. Please do not be that person. When appropriate, tag people and bring them into the conversation. I do this all the time. If I post a link to a really interesting video, I might say, “P.S., I’m tagging a few of you who I think will really like it.” That’s the key. You want to be proactive and actually think about people who would really actually like this.
I did this recently. I found a really amazing Broadway video, and I thought to myself, you know, there’s a handful of people who I know are just Broadway geeks like me and I tagged those five or six people right in the post, and that simple act brings them into the conversation, because let’s face it, there is so much noise on social media that we just miss things. Tagging people in the conversation, I do that very often on Facebook.
I also do that on Instagram stories, so if you’re using Instagram stories and loving Instagram stories, I think it’s a big thing we’re going to continue to see over the next 12 to 18 months is people creating stories. Bring people into the conversation. If you’re in a great coffee shop, tag that coffee shop in your Instagram story. If you are reading a great book, tag the author. If you are with a dear friend, tag that person in the Instagram stories.
We do a lot of tagging in Facebook naturally, but if you’re active on Instagram, what a great opportunity to do that as well. By the way, you can do that on Snapchat. You can’t necessarily tag people on Snapchat, at least as of right now when I’m publishing this video. Who knows, that might change. If you’re doing a Snapchat about somebody else, share that snap to your story, but also share it to them personally. That way, they know that they were in your story, that you were giving them a shout out.
My last tip is, I want you to think about what gets you to like, comment, or share, because it’s one thing for someone to like. It’s a whole other thing for somebody to comment, and then it’s a whole other thing for someone to share. Psychologically speaking, most people like, comment, or share when something is funny, when it’s poignant, when it’s interesting, and think about just the culture of what Facebook is all about.
If you’re feeling you’re not getting a whole lot of engagement, look at the content of how you’re sharing things. If you’re trying to build your business on social media, think about doing that more on your business page and then investing in things like Facebook Live Video, and Facebook ads to really drive that message home, right, versus being maybe super sales-y or super business-y, so to speak, on your personal profile.
Those are just a few things to increase engagement. At the end of the day, that’s what it’s all about.
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