5 Steps for Creating Engaging Social Media Content

5 Steps for Creating Engaging Social Media Content. For small businesses.

What posts create the most engagement on social media? Isn't this the million dollar question? Are the engaging posts always about cute pets, attractive people and inspiring quotes? What will make your small business connections, fans or followers to respond and engage with your posts? Here are 5 steps that can jumpstart your social media engagement and content marketing.

1. Define your target audience

A. Customers
B. Prospects
C. Interested

2. Answer key questions for each audience type

Before you start sharing spontaneous content on social media, it's best to answer these key questions. What is interesting to your audience? What are their likes and dislikes? What will get them excited enough to respond to your messages? How are you helping them? How are you inspiring your audience? Does your audience look at you as a subject matter expert or an authority? How is your competition sharing on social media? 

3. Create a powerful content strategy

What engaging content will you share for each of your audiences? This is easier said than done. Lots of experiments are needed to find out what content sticks for each audience type. Some of the content that gets most likes and comments on social include posting photos (although I wouldn't share cute pets for business), adding fill in the blank type posts, asking questions, running contests, and sharing what's going on in your community (stories about your non-profit work also resonate). Besides creating great content, you will need to figure out when and how often to post your content. Also, it's always a good idea to re-purpose your engaging content for your blog, website, emails and more to give it extra life. Above all, staying authentic and different certainly helps!

4. Don't forget - It's a numbers game

You need thousands of real connections so that people take action from what you post. Typically, a few percentage of folks act or react to your posts. So for instance, if you have 1,000 real connections, expect fewer than 50 or 5% to respond to your post (assuming it's engaging to begin with). You need to build out your audience first to gain some traction. Invite your business contacts to connect with you on social, add links to your social media channels in your emails and on your blog or website, and remind folks who haven't connected yet. A little bit of hustling to gain more following in the early goings is a must.

5. Advertise a little in the beginning

Try boosting some of your social media posts for $5 to $10 or an amount that you can afford, and see if are you are able to get better visibility and response. If the ROI of spending little generates five to ten times higher responses and increased engagement, it definitely makes sense to advertise. Social media networks can provide the most affordable online exposure per 1,000 impressions than most established ad networks.

When people do respond to your posts, make sure you follow up with them!

What are your thoughts on how to create engagement on social media, and get people to respond?
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