We live in a world riddled with shiny objects to steal our attention — especially when it comes to all of the information available in our social networks. Even while reading a post, it’s not unusual to be interrupted by another. Notifications pop in at every second. Feeds update with a quick pull. How do you prevent your posts from being buried the minute you launch them? Don’t hit that boost button to pay for traffic just yet — the solutions are pretty straightforward.
Share great content
In order to gain and hold attention, your content needs to be worthy of your audience’s time. Producing thoughtless content and click bait simply to post something can actually do your brand more harm than good. Neil Patel recommends as many as 15 types of content that are sure to boost your traffic. His list includes infographics, memes, videos, guides and much more. The trade off? Most of them aren’t instant. They’ll take a little bit of time to produce, but will have an awesome payoff.
In addition to choosing the right type of content, aim to use high-quality graphics with entertaining, interesting and funny teasers and comments. Content that entertains and content with great images are among the top performing pieces on every network.
Use a call to action
A call to action can remind your audience to act and often boosts engagement significantly. Simply asking for retweets, shares, likes, and more guides your audience to act in the manner you’d prefer.
We’re gifting one physical copy of Adele’s new album ’25’ with three extra songs! Just retweet if you’d like to win. pic.twitter.com/S43sB86sIq
— Shady Music Facts (@musicnews_shade) November 2, 2015
Stay positive
In past studies, Facebook has found that users become less engaged when delivered negative content. Similar trends have also been seen on Twitter — users with higher follower counts tend to regularly post positive messages.
The fact of the matter is that being positive simply reflects better on your brand. You want your audience to experience your brand in a positive light and that can begin with a simple post. Besides, your social networks are never the place to badmouth, rant or argue with customers.
An example: my local animal shelter deals with pretty negative situations daily. However, their social media presence is delightfully positive — and they’re very proactive in keeping it so. While they may post an injured or abandoned animal regularly to ask for help, they always emphasize their joy to be able to help this animal. Even when animals are surrendered to the shelter, the team turns the conversation toward helping the animal and supporting the “right” decision to give the animal to a better home instead of letting audiences criticize the family that turned it in.
Perfect your timing
Timing is everything — and the old adage certainly rings true in social media. Each network has its own influx of great posting times, but it’s also important that you know what time of day is best for your audience. Using social posting tools like Sprout Social, Hootsuite, or more can give you some data and insight into when your audience is most likely to engage. If you follow the trends in your data, you’ll be able to post efficiently while maximizing your engagement.
This post originally appeared on MARKETMOX.
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