10 Ways to Increase Your Community's Engagement

1. What is Community Engagement?
2. 10 ways to increase the engagement rate on Instagram and Co.
3. 6 mistakes you should avoid in community management 
4. Changed user behavior: More private conversations
5. Which tools help me with community management?
6. Conclusion

Do you know this? You have uploaded a post on Instagram or LinkedIn again and no one reacts? This doesn't have to be the case! In this article, you'll learn the best tips on how to get more interaction from your community on your posts, which mistakes you should definitely avoid in community management, and how user behavior on social media has changed since the pandemic.

What is Community Engagement?

Community engagement in the field of social media refers to the interaction, participation, and collaboration between a social media account and its community. This includes the active involvement and dialogue with followers, fans, and customers in order to develop a closer relationship and a stronger bond.

Community engagement on social media can be, for example:

• Communication and interaction such as sharing relevant content, answering questions, responding to comments and messages, and initiating discussions.
• Listening and Feedback such as active monitoring of mentions, hashtags, and conversations in order to recognize feedback from the community at an early stage and be able to react to it. This way you learn more about the needs and opinions of the target group and can recognize shitstorms in time.
• Cooperation and Co-Creation such as involving the community in content creation. This can be achieved, for example, by encouraging the generation of content, submitting ideas, or running competitions.
• Customer Support such as solving problems or answering questions. This enables direct and effective communication with customers.
• Community Building: The goal is to build a loyal and sustainable community in the long term, in which members can also interact with each other. This can happen by sharing inspiring stories, celebrating successes, or encouraging networking among each other.

What exactly does interaction on social media mean?

On social networks, all the buttons with which one can participate in a post are collectively referred to as interaction. These include, for example, likes, comments, saves, shares, and clicks on further platform-specific buttons.

What is Engaging Content?

Engaging content refers to the content that is supposed to activate and maintain the interest, attention, and participation of the target group on social media. Engaging Content is appealing, relevant, and offers added value. Such content motivates the community to stay active, to interact and, in the best case, even to share or spread the word.

It is therefore important to question even during the idea development process whether it is engaging content. By creating appealing content, organizations can increase their brand awareness, increase their reach, and gain or maintain the interest of the target group, thus building a long-term bond.

10 ways to increase the engagement rate on Instagram and Co.

1. Tell Inspiring Stories: We all love stories - and we have since the Stone Age. Just think about cave painting. Stories were already being told and knowledge passed on this way back then. Stories evoke emotions in us. Therefore, use storytelling for yourself and your engaging content. Tell, for example, inspiring stories of people who have overcome challenges or achieved successes. 
2. Interactive Content: Create content that actively includes the target group, such as polls, quizzes, competitions, or interactive videos. Such content allows users to actively participate and showcase their opinions or knowledge.
3. Visually Appealing Content: Images, infographics, and videos that are visually appealing can draw and hold the attention of the target group. The use of aesthetically pleasing visual elements can enhance the impact of the content. You don't need to have graphic design skills for this. The Tool Canva also offers templates for beginners. You can start with the free version and experiment. Important: Always adjust the templates to your own corporate design!
4. Useful Tips and Instructions: Content that offers practical advice, instructions, or tips is often very popular. The target group appreciates receiving concrete solutions or information that help them solve problems or improve their skills. Tip: Learn to differentiate which information you can give away for free and which belong to your paid offer. You don't have to reveal everything for free!
5. Recent Trends and News: Content that references current events or trends can spark the target group's interest. By picking up on current topics, a good reference to your own topics can be made. This way, you can stimulate discussion and promote engagement. Important: Always question twice whether the current trend or news really fits you, your topics, or your company.
6. Include Call-to-Actions: If you want users to interact with your content, you should tell them what to do next. You can incorporate targeted Call-to-Actions (CTA), or prompts, into your posts, such as "Click here and sign up" or "Tell me your opinion on topic XY". By asking targeted questions, you actively prompt your community to respond. Nowadays, people also talk about Call-to-Discuss (CTD) and Call-to-Feel (CTF).
7. Solve Problems: It's very important to build an active community by addressing the topics that move the community. For example, what problems and challenges they have, current pain points, or deeply rooted beliefs that you can resolve. You will get a lot of interaction on your posts if you show them a solution.
8. Humor and Entertainment: It doesn't always have to be information or knowledge. Most people are on social media to be entertained. So also think about humor in your content. Emotions of any kind always evoke interactions.
9. Clear Opinion: There's plenty of vague content on the net, reproduced a thousand times. If you really want to stand out and get a lot of interactions, you should share a clear opinion on your topic. But always choose carefully. Such heated discussions can quickly get out of hand. Here you need good community management and a lot of time. Tip: Always formulate the controversy in such a way that you yourself are not personally vulnerable - this is easier on the nerves.
10. Relatable Content: Any content that your community can identify with (e.g., the current POV trend) will lead to more engagement. So try as accurately as possible to put yourself in your target group's shoes and create content that speaks to their soul.

6 mistakes you should avoid in community management 

If you want more user engagement on Facebook or TikTok, don't forget the best community management tips. There are some mistakes you can avoid right away:

1. You forget the "social" in Social Media
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   ⁠Your networks are not a place to just shout into the woods. The community wants a place where an exchange can take place. Give them a space to voice their opinion or ask their questions.
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2. You don't respond to questions, direct messages, or comments
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   ⁠If you receive questions, direct messages, or comments, you should always answer them if possible. Of course, this always depends on the number of messages the account receives per day. You can also try to answer with a counter-question to get more comments.
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3. You only write automated responses
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   ⁠The community hopes to have a direct line to you and your company via social media. Therefore, always try to reply with a personal address and address the issues or problems individually. If your account receives too many messages, you can use an automatic reply like this one: "Thank you for your message. We are currently receiving a large number of messages. We will answer your request as soon as possible!"
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   ⁠This way, users already feel heard. It is then important that you keep your promise and write a response as soon as possible.
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4. You are not active yourself
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   ⁠Good community management means not only answering concerns on your own account but also becoming active yourself and commenting on others. This also increases the visibility of your account. 
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5. You respond too late
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   ⁠Social media users expect an answer within 24 hours - in most cases even faster. Therefore, try to answer all requests promptly. If you need to inquire with a specialist department first, it's enough to communicate this openly, for example: "Thank you for your request. I will look internally with the appropriate colleagues and get back to you with the answer as soon as possible!"
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6. You lack a community engagement strategy
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   ⁠A strategy is also needed for community management. These points are important:

• Who will take over community management when? Is there a Community Engagement Manager?
• What times are generally answered?
• In what tonality is written or spoken?
• Which topics may community managers answer on their own?
• When does it need expertise from colleagues?
• How do we deal with negative comments?
• What happens in crisis situations?

Changed user behavior: More private conversations

The user behavior on social media has changed significantly since the pandemic. More and more people are not sharing their experiences "publicly", for example through stories, but are moving their conversations into the private sphere, e.g., into the messengers of the platforms. This is probably related to the fact that certain activities were forbidden over lockdown and we have all become more cautious about what we share with whom.

What does this mean for your brand-community-engagement?

1. Try to move the interaction into the private
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   ⁠There are a lot of quiet readers on social media. Therefore, they do not like to publicly comment anywhere. So try to move the engagement into the private whenever possible. This can be done, for example, through Call-to-Actions in the post that then enable a private conversation.
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   ⁠⁠Example:
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   ⁠Post: Comment with "Info" and I will send you the link to the registration page via message.
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   ⁠Story: Send me a "heart" and I'll send you the link to the registration page.
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2. Offer lower-threshold ways of interaction
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   ⁠We all have little time and are usually just on social media in between. In rare cases, we have time and desire to write novels in the comment columns. To still get engagement, you should offer lower-threshold interaction options.
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   ⁠This means that the interaction can be easily executed and may not be publicly viewable.
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   ⁠Example:
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   ⁠Create informative content that gets saved a lot. Saves on Instagram are not publicly displayed. Or create Instagram Stories with stickers e.g. surveys that are also quickly clicked and not publicly visible. Write transparently if you want to share the results afterwards and also say whether this will be done anonymously.
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3. Encourage participation
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   ⁠You can share private conversations with permission (anonymously) to encourage other members of your community to participate. On the one hand, you show that you are approachable and answer questions, comments, and direct messages and that it is worthwhile writing to you. On the other hand, maybe another perspective on a topic is displayed in the messages, which in turn provides more food for discussion.
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4. Surveys that want to be answered
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   ⁠Nobody fills out your surveys e.g. in your Instagram Story? Then rethink your question the next time. Try to formulate it in such a way that the community absolutely wants to know how the results turn out or whether they are alone with their opinion or not. To see the result, they must first vote.
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   ⁠Examples:
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   ⁠Are you in a relationship and in love with someone else?
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   ⁠Is your community interacting less than before?
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   ⁠Are your follower numbers currently declining?

Which tools help me with community management?

Here's some important information in advance: Please don't use any community engagement tools with which you can drive automated community management to increase engagement or your visibility. There are tools that allow you to automatically comment under posts with certain hashtags (this is called a Bot). Not only is this highly unprofessional, but it also goes against the terms and conditions of social networks. What's more, you may have to expect consequences in case of violations, for example, your account being locked.

However, there are some social media tools that help you to get a better overview of the messages and comments received - especially if you are working for more than one account. Here, you can look at an overview of different social media suites to find the right tool for you. 

I have personally worked with the following tools:

Hootsuite

Facebook Creator Studio

SocialHub

Facelift

Falcon.io

Conclusion

In the end, the topic of community engagement can be summed up quite simply: Be ultra-close to your target group, stay authentic, and respond to incoming questions and messages personally and promptly. With the tips mentioned above, you will certainly be able to notice more engagement on your channels very quickly.