Looking for ways to boost your social media engagement? We've gathered 15 effective strategies from founders, CEOs, digital marketers, and other experts in the field. From leveraging compelling visual content to hosting "Ask Me Anything" sessions, discover the top strategies these professionals recommend.
Leverage Compelling Visual Content
Stimulate Discussion with Contrarian Views
Include Industry Influencers
Optimize Ad Spend Based on Performance
Spark Conversations with Interactive Stories
Foster Community with Online Polls
Research Trending, Relevant Keywords
Boost Engagement through Collaborations
Ask Questions to Encourage Interaction
Practice Reciprocity in Engagement
Create Valuable, Audience-Focused Content
Prioritize Quality and Relevance
Launch a User-Generated Content Campaign
Maximize Algorithms with Engagement Pods
Host "Ask Me Anything" Sessions
Leverage Compelling Visual Content
One effective strategy to increase engagement on social media platforms is to create and share compelling visual content. Visuals have a significant impact on capturing attention and encouraging interaction from users.
The considerations to implement this strategy effectively include using high-resolution, visually appealing images and videos that are relevant to your content and brand. Invest in professional photography or graphic design if necessary to ensure the visual assets are visually stunning. The key is to create visually captivating content that aligns with your brand and resonates with your target audience.
By implementing these strategies and continuously refining your approach, you can increase engagement on social media platforms effectively.
Georgi Todorov, Founder, ThriveMyWay
Stimulate Discussion with Contrarian Views
Posting agreeable content will garner a handful of likes and a few comments, but people love to engage with content where you are aligning with or presenting a contrarian point of view.
As a brand development agency for CPG brands, our consumer testing often presents data that disagree with the general opinion. By showcasing this data, we position ourselves in a contrarian stance, and it creates some great conversations.
Jason Vaught, Director of Content, SmashBrand
Include Industry Influencers
One effective strategy to increase engagement on social media platforms would be to include relevant influencers on prominent social media campaigns.
Influencers will help improve engagement since they are acknowledged by social media users to be “experts” on certain topics, so their insight will be appreciated and followed. Their honest reactions will be relatable to regular viewers of your social media page and also help connect viewers of the influencer’s page to your brand.
And perhaps most importantly, influencers will bring with them their own audience to view your content—if you can engage the influencer’s audience and get them to follow your brand, this can increase engagement on both your initial post and future posts as well.
Ved Muthusamy, Marketing Coordinator, Achievable
Optimize Ad Spend Based on Performance
Post on all platforms for free. The first thing to do is to post on all platforms, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and TikTok. Try 5-10 different things for each platform and monitor the engagement on each of these posts.
Then after a few weeks, start putting ad spend behind the ads that are performing the best organically. This way, you're putting ad spend behind content that you know is speaking to your audience. This strategy ensures that you are maximizing the platform and putting money only into the content that is bringing you visitors and customers.
Jeff Moore, CEO, Everyday Power
Spark Conversations with Interactive Stories
One very effective (and quick) strategy to increase engagement is to post on your stories. The reason is that if anyone responds to what you just posted, it goes directly into your DMs and this can be the start of a very good conversation.
The question is however, how do you get them to respond? And the answer is to ask them questions. Better yet, ask them questions that won’t prompt them to just say yes or no, but really a meaningful response.
You can start with a poll, or really with anything that can attract their attention, but the trick is to start the engagement yourself.
Robert Burns, Marketing Director, Oxygen Plus
Foster Community with Online Polls
Organizing online polls is a powerful strategy to boost engagement on social media platforms. At Stratosphere, we experienced firsthand the impact of this approach in the Insurance Marketing field. For instance, we ran a poll where we asked participants that “What percent of Insurance agencies don't have a website to build a reputation online?”
The results were outstanding. We witnessed a significant increase in likes, comments, and shares across our social media platforms.
The poll generated a buzz among our target audience, encouraging users to share their opinions, sparking conversations, and fostering a sense of community. Not only did the poll enhance our brand visibility, but it also attracted new followers and increased overall engagement metrics
Online polls powerfully engage audiences, fortifying brand presence and fostering industry authority. This strategy deepens connections, establishes trust, and nurtures a vibrant community.
Casey Preston, CRO and Founder, Stratosphere
Research Trending, Relevant Keywords
From my experience, one powerful approach to boosting engagement on social media platforms involves the use of relevant keywords. I believe that tailoring your content with well-researched, trending keywords creates a magnetic effect, drawing more eyes to your posts.
For instance, let's consider a scenario where you are posting about the “benefits of yoga.” If you incorporate popular, relevant keywords such as “yoga for stress relief” or “yoga for beginners,” you're likely to attract a wider audience interested in these specifics.
This simple yet effective strategy broadens your post's visibility and invites more interactions, comments, and shares, ultimately leading to an increase in engagement.
Nadzeya Sankovich, Senior Journalist, Health Reporter
Boost Engagement through Collaborations
Our best-performing posts on social media tend to be ones that are part of a collaboration with other businesses and people. For example, I was in a video for Ecologi, a platform for carbon offsetting and tree-planting for businesses, and we shared the video together.
We also took part in DoNation's campaign for B Corp month, publishing our pledges and commenting on social posts from fellow participants. It felt like a challenge that we were all coming together to do. Rather than posting about yourself all the time, it helps to boost others, share third-party content, and collaborate. Put the “social” back in “social media,” I say!
Ask Questions to Encourage Interaction
Ask questions. One of the best ways to get people to interact with your social media posts is to ask them questions. This can be anything from simple polls to open-ended prompts. When you ask questions, you're giving people a chance to share their thoughts and opinions, which can lead to more engagement.
Brenton Thomas, CEO, Twibi
Practice Reciprocity in Engagement
If you want to increase engagement on your social profiles, then start by engaging others first. Most people know intuitively that sometimes you have to give before you receive.
So, do that. Like other people's posts. Leave relevant and thoughtful comments. Share their posts with your network. Then, craft individual posts targeted specifically toward the kinds of people you've been engaging. If done well, you will experience reciprocity from their end and your engagement will go up.
Dennis Consorte, Digital Marketing and Leadership Consultant for Startups, Snackable Solutions
Create Valuable, Audience-Focused Content
Increasing engagement on social media platforms requires a well-planned and strategic approach. One effective strategy I have found is to create and share valuable content that resonates with my target audience.
To implement this, I create informative and educational content that directly addresses the needs and offers solutions to the problems my audience faces. I utilize various content formats such as blog posts, videos, infographics, or interactive posts to deliver high-quality content consistently.
Once the content gets posted, I make sure to respond to comments, questions, and direct messages in a timely manner to demonstrate that I value my audience and encourage ongoing conversations. I also engage with my followers' posts, and share user-generated content to boost engagement, but it all starts with producing good content that speaks to their interests, pain points, and preferences.
Prioritize Quality and Relevance
One effective strategy to increase engagement on social media platforms is focusing on creating and posting relevant content. In the rat race of social media, most people focus on quantity and ignore quality.
This takes their energy, time, and efforts and in return, they don't get anything. So it's important to post high-quality, relevant, and engaging content that your audience loves to watch. Make sure that your content is informative and entertaining at the same time to prove yourself in the world of tough competition.
Try to add vibrant visuals to your content because they are more entertaining and engaging. Post videos or images regularly and always give importance to your followers and reply to their queries and comments as soon as possible.
Sherry Xue, Digital Marketer, VAZASILK
Launch a User-Generated Content Campaign
The key to increasing engagement on social media platforms lies in harnessing the power of authentic user-generated content (UGC). By encouraging and showcasing content created by our audience, we've witnessed a significant surge in engagement.
According to a study by Stackla, UGC drives 4x higher click-through rates and 9.8x higher engagement than branded content. For instance, we launched a UGC campaign where we invited our followers to share their favorite moments using our product. We featured the best submissions on our social media channels and rewarded participants with exclusive discounts.
This not only sparked a sense of community but also resulted in a 30% increase in overall engagement and a 20% growth in brand loyalty.
Himanshu Sharma, CEO and Founder, Academy of Digital Marketing
Maximize Algorithms with Engagement Pods
All social platforms have algorithms that, if understood correctly, can boost your content. One rule that applies to pretty much all social algorithms is that the more engagement you get within the first hour of posting, the more your post will be boosted. That leaves you with the question, “How do you increase the engagement you get within the first hour?”
There are many ways of achieving this, but the strategy that has been most effective for me is engagement pods. The way they work is that you get put into a “pod” with other people who have the same goal of getting as much engagement as possible. There are many different types of pods, but you can find/create ones with rules that ensure the engagement is within the first hour.
One thing to be wary of with pods is that the engagement provided needs to be meaningful, so check the rules and make sure that the comments need to provide value. Comments like “great post” won't add much.
Robin Francis, Digital Marketing Executive, Growthlabs
Host "Ask Me Anything" Sessions
One effective strategy to increase engagement on social media platforms is hosting an "Ask Me Anything" (AMA) session. These interactive events allow a figurehead or expert from your organization to answer questions from your followers in real time. By doing so, you are not just pushing content toward your audience, but you're pulling them into a dialogue.
An AMA encourages your followers to actively participate in the conversation, giving them a sense of involvement and direct connection with your brand. This is particularly effective as it shows your audience that their opinions and questions matter to you. It also offers an opportunity for your brand to show authenticity, transparency, and willingness to engage at a deeper level.
Furthermore, AMAs can help you gain valuable insights into your audience's interests, concerns, and questions. These insights can later inform your content creation strategy, product development, and overall business strategy.
Will Gill, Event Entertainer, DJ Will Gill