3 Ways to Make More Friends on Social Media

Daily Real Estate News | Monday, May 11, 2015

You need quality content to increase social media engagement for your business, but there may be a few additional things you can do to better connect with prospects, clients, and peers.

Forbes.com contributor John Rampton recently highlighted several unusual ways to increase social media engagement by “sharing, connecting, and reciprocating.” Among his ideas for increasing social media engagement:

1. Don’t forget about Facebook groups.

Once Facebook created Pages, groups were mostly forgotten by businesses, Rampton notes. But Facebook groups are still popular among consumers. You can use them to find out what your target market has to say and participate in conversations. “Groups function much like online discussion boards or forums, giving each member an equal voice in the conversation,” he notes. “While Page admins can broadcast a message, Group admins act more as moderators to conversations started by members (with the added advantage of being able to pin important posts to the top of the group).”

2. Post less often.

A new study by Hubspot shows no correlation between the number of weekly posts and the amount of engagement, and in some cases, more posts on your social media accounts could equal less engagement. The study notes: “As the average number of posts published per week decreases from the 1-10 company size group to the 11-50 group, the average number of interactions per post increases. And when posts per week increase slightly from the 11-50 group to the 51-200 group, interactions per post decrease significantly.” Posting less often won’t necessarily lead to more engagement but this study does note that posting frequently is not a stronger indicator of engagement. “As always, your best bet is to test out a variety of frequencies to see what works best with your audience,” Rampton writes.

3. Link to already viral content.

In social media, you want your message to go viral. When something goes viral, you get loads of engagement, particularly on Facebook. By consistently posting viral images and posts – whether it’s from you or someone else – you’re able to heighten your engagement, reach, and visibility of all your content on your Facebook Pages. Rampton recommends using PostPlanner, which helps you locate and use images and updates that have already gone viral on Facebook. “This means you don’t have to guess at which posts might get engagement, but instead choose posts that are relevant to your audience and that have been proven popular in the past,” Rampton says.

Source: “5 Unusual Ways to Increase Social Media Engagement,” Forbes.com (May 6, 2015)