Stop. Look. Engage? How often do you engage with a brand’s post on social media? What got you to follow that brand in the first place? And why are you still following them? Social media is cluttered with content fighting for your precious time and attention. You’ve become an expert in scrolling past all the noise only to stop for the information you actually want to engage with. Among all the hilarious memes, lifestyle blog posts and baking tutorials, how do you get your brand’s social content to stand out? Why should your ideal consumer stop, look and engage? Overdone catchy sayings and redundant call-to-actions won’t do the trick anymore. Here are 6 tips you can utilize to create compelling social content that will encourage engagement and establish brand loyalty.

Define your target audience and utilize their preferred social platforms

Before writing any content for your social pages, you need to determine your target audience. Gathering details on your ideal consumer will help you write content that will successfully resonate with them. Where your audience spends their time should inform where you post your content. Facebook, Instagram and Twitter are essential channels to include. How much time do you spend on these platforms? Yeah, me too. Depending on your consumer and the type of content you want to share, you will want to consider adding YouTube, SlideShare or LinkedIn to the mix. Creating video content? You must YouTube. Sharing business insights? LinkedIn it is!

Stick to your brand voice while remaining personal and authentic

Your brand voice is what keeps all your marketing communications consistent. You’ll want to maintain that consistency at all touchpoints, including social media posts. This will help your brand build trust, which will lead to brand loyalty. It is just as important to remember your platform – you will have to adapt your brand voice to social media. Users on social media want to interact personally and informally. Business rhetoric will get scrolled away. An easy way to express your approachability and authenticity is to utilize first-person words like “we” or “us.”

Utilize Imagery

Images grab your audience’s attention. Readers are more inclined to stop at a post that contains an image versus a post that just contains text. There are several different options when considering what kind of imagery to use. Infographics help visualize data that will make statistics memorable and easy to understand. Photos will bring life to an otherwise static post. GIFs are a fun way to express your brand’s personality. And videos are great to share tutorials or how-to’s. Always ensure that your image clearly relates to your post.

Be brief. Focus on the headline

Attention spans are short. If your audience can’t immediately grasp how your post will benefit them, they will keep scrolling. Twitter automatically limits your words, but other social platforms don’t. Get to the point! If you are asking your audience to click “see more” to get the whole story, you are asking for too much. Shorter posts produce higher click-through rates over long complicated ones.

If you are sharing a blog post from your company, focus on the headline. More people will read the headline than will read the entire article. Communicate the point immediately and effectively by focusing on what you are offering and why it is important to your audience. If your user doesn’t feel compelled to click on the link after reading the headline, they won’t read the article and they won’t share your post.

Ask a question

Asking questions or creating polls are great ways to encourage engagement by getting your followers to interact with your brand. To gain audience insights, ask your followers about their interests. For example, you could ask “What’s your favorite topic to read about?” On a casual, fun level, you could ask questions like, “How do you pronounce GIF?” This will start a long debate in the comments section, guaranteed.

Avoid solely pushing your product

“Our product is the best in the universe!” “Our product will save the world.” “Get our product NOW!” “50% off our product!” When post after post only focuses on your product, your social pages will start to feel like a desperate salesman. Alternate between posts that focus on your product and posts that entertain or cater to your audience’s interests. Sharing an incentive is a great way to gain a follower but what keeps them from clicking “unfollow” once the promotion is over? Share information that relates to their personal interests. This also includes sharing and retweeting content from other sources.

Social media is a crucial touchpoint for your company that will make or break your brand loyalty. Let us give your followers a reason to stop, look and engage. To learn more, contact us today.