Social Media Engagement: Achieving More Success on Social Media Through Interactions

1. What is social media engagement?
2. Why is social media engagement important?
3. What strategy is there for social media engagement?
4. What KPIs can be used to measure social media engagement?
5. How can social media engagement be increased?
6. Which tools can support you in improving social media engagement?
7. Conclusion

Everyone talks about engagement, everyone wants more of it. But what exactly is social media engagement and why is it so important? We clarify that quickly and then get to the really exciting topics. In this article, you will learn how you can strategically approach social media engagement and boost engagement. With the right KPIs for Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, you can measure your success and start off right!

Table of Contents

1. What is social media engagement?

2. Why is social media engagement important?

3. What strategy is there for social media engagement?

4. What KPIs can be used to measure social media engagement?

5. How can social media engagement be increased?

6. Which tools can support you in improving social media engagement?

7. Conclusion

What is social media engagement?

Before we look at how social media engagement works, we start with a definition. Social media engagement refers to the interaction of social media users with your content on social media channels. What interactions are possible, depends on the social media platform:

• Facebook: Likes, reactions, shares, clicks, comments
• Instagram: Likes, saves, comments, replies
• Twitter: Follows, retweets, favorites, replies, clicks, tweet expansions

If you divide the total number of daily interactions by the number of your followers, you get your engagement rate.

Why is social media engagement important?

Engagement is the criterion for success - for humans and machines. The more interaction there is, the more valuable the algorithm rates your content. Your content is shown to more people, your reach increases. More reach leads to more followers, more followers leads to more customers.

Engagement helps you find out which content is particularly popular. Little interaction shows little interest from your followers. If there is a lot of sharing, saving or commenting, this is a clear sign to produce more such content.

Further advantages of social media engagement:

• More intensive customer relationships: Social media engagement is direct and offers the opportunity to quickly enter into personal exchange.
• Higher sales: Likes do not have a direct impact on your sales, but they do have an indirect impact. A positive appearance on social media platforms builds trust and increases the likelihood of the target group making a purchase.
• More website traffic: It's easy to refer to external content on social media.

What strategy is there for social media engagement?

A social media engagement strategy is a plan that connects your social media goals with specific actions. If you do not yet have a social media strategy and no goals, there is more information in our article on how you can set up your social media strategy in 7 steps.

Here are a few examples of social media goals:

• Increase reach
• Increase brand awareness
• Build a community
• Promote products and services

If you want to increase brand awareness, focus on shares and retweets. If you want to build trust, provide content with valuable tips and allow your followers to ask questions. In the comments, a valuable exchange can arise. As you can see, different goals lead to different engagement priorities. You should formulate your goals according to the S.M.A.R.T. principle in order to make successes measurable. You can set different goals for each platform.

The prerequisite for interactions with your content is always interest in your posts. This in turn presupposes that you know your target group. You need to know what questions they are dealing with. However, just releasing this content into the WWW is not enough. This is where the goals come in: Posts with questions get more comments, competitions get more reach, etc. The content format also plays a role. Does your target group prefer text, videos, or nice photos?

Social media is very fast-paced. This means: For example, users expect quick feedback on comments and questions. You have to determine how much time you can and want to invest. This also depends on your goals.

What KPIs can be used to measure social media engagement?

Relevant key figures form the basis of your analysis. How engagement is measured depends on the social media platform. The average engagement rate also varies depending on the platform. According to a study by Rival IQ the average engagement rate per post on Facebook is 0.08%.

Average Facebook engagement rate by industry, Source: Rival IQ, Social Media Industry Benchmark Report

Compared to the previous year, the average engagement rate of Instagram has dropped by approximately 25%. In contrast to Facebook, it is still high at 0.98%.

Average Instagram engagement rate by industry, Source: Rival IQ, Social Media Industry Benchmark Report

Taking a look at Twitter, we see the lowest average engagement rate with 0.045%.

Average Twitter engagement rate by industry, Source: Rival IQ, Social Media Industry Benchmark Report

For you, benchmarks are important to have a guide value for your engagement rates. If you want to read more about the results of the study, check out the article „Platform trio Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter: Where do you get the best engagement rate?“.

These are the most important engagement KPIs

1. Shares and retweets
2. Likes, reactions, and favorites
3. Comments and replies
4. Link clicks

We now go into the individual platforms and look at where you can find these key figures.

Twitter

On Twitter, you see all reactions directly under the posts: comments, retweets, and likes.

Tweet from ZEIT ONLINE with overview of engagement

For an overall view of interactions, click on the three dots „More“ in the navigation on the left and then on „Analytics“. If you have already activated the statistics, you will now see interactions such as clicks, retweets, and „likes“ as well as the engagement rate for the selected period.

Facebook

On Facebook, you can see all reactions including the number under each post:

Excerpt of engagement under a Facebook post

For an overview of all reactions, there are the page insights. To do this, simply navigate to your Facebook page and take a look at the page insights. If you select „Posts“, you will see all published posts in a table with type, target group, range, and interactions.

Overview on Facebook in the page insights on posts and engagement

Instagram

On Instagram, users can interact with posts and stories. Stories can't be liked. Story interactions are instead enabled by replies such as messages and „quick reactions“ with smileys. With story stickers, you can encourage users to take action: ratings, polls, question stickers, and more.

You can access insights via the burger menu in the app. With another tap on „Insights“ you are right in the middle. Choose the period and in the next step „Accounts that have interacted“. Scroll down a bit and you'll find „Content Interactions“: „Likes“, comments, saved content. Each post can also be viewed individually. You cannot see how often your post was shared.

Facebook Business Suite: Everything at a glance

If you link your Facebook page to your Instagram account, you will see a joint overview in the Facebook Business Suite. You need to set up a Business Suite account separately. Once you are logged in, you will find „Posts and Stories“ in the navigation on the left. With one click you will see an overview of all interactions on Facebook and Instagram.

Overview of engagement in the Facebook Business Suite

Interested in more KPIs for social media analysis? Then read the post „These 5 game changer KPIs should not be missing in any social media analysis“.

How can social media engagement be increased?

As already mentioned in the strategy, the content must fit your target group. Here you can find the best ideas for social media content. Good content alone is not enough, however. When scrolling on the platform, your post must stand out. Depending on the platform, you need an appealing picture and a strong headline for this. The headline must make users curious. Only then will they take the time for your post. On Twitter, it's even more difficult. You have a maximum of 280 characters to convince users. Once you have gained their attention, the engagement follows.

There are different strategies for different types of engagement. In addition, it is important to consider when your target group is most active. There are several studies that make recommendations. This is a nice orientation, but look at your own statistics. Facebook and Instagram offer you deep insights into the behavior of your target audience. With Twitter, you need to observe yourself or use an additional social media tool for the evaluation.

More likes, reactions, and favorites

These interactions are the easiest to get. With a quick click, users have left a heart or expressed their feeling with the appropriate emoji. For more reactions, analyze your own posts. More of what goes down well, less of what is hardly noticed. Also, let competitors inspire you. What do users particularly like? Important: Inspire, not copy.

More shares and retweets

To get your content shared, you have to understand what motivates users. To this end, the Customer Insight Group conducted the study “The Psychology of Sharing: Why do people share online?” on behalf of the New York Times. This resulted in the following:

We share content when…

... it's valuable and entertaining.

... it fits their self-image.

... they contribute to building and maintaining relationships with others.

... they are part of their self-realization.

... they want to attract more attention to certain topics.

All reasons have the aspect of relationships in common. Create content that is not only interesting to your target group. Help them to entertain, support, or inform others with your posts.

More comments

To get more comments, there are three surefire methods:

1. Share your opinion and position yourself clearly. Contradictions guaranteed and wanted!
2. Arouse emotions. If you resonate with one side of users, they will be happy to share their feelings.
3. Give food for thought and ask for the opinion of your audience. Every person likes to be heard.

Once you have started the conversation, also reply to the comments. Use the opportunity to get even more engagement from users.

More clicks

Posts on Twitter, called tweets, are very short and can quickly disappear in the crowd. So here you can definitely tweet the same link several times. The situation is different on Facebook. Even older posts can be played out multiple times at different locations by the algorithm. Instead of posting the same link frequently, direct users' attention to the link with a call to action. Symbols and emojis can also be helpful. On Instagram, links are only possible in stories. In posts, however, like on Facebook, you can attract attention.

Also rely on the law of reciprocity when it comes to engagement. In general, it says the following: if you give something, you get something back. If you interact with others, they will feel obliged to also come by and interact with you.

Which tools can support you in improving social media engagement?

Keeping an eye on all social media channels can be difficult. Luckily, there are software and tools that can assist you! These help you in different areas. You can decide if you want tools for social media management, monitoring, analysis, or all in one. The complete package is called a social media suite. At OMR Reviews you'll find a selection of Social Media Suites including reviews.

Hootsuite is one of the best-known providers. With it, you can plan, create, and analyze cross-platform social media campaigns. You can also process all messages in your social networks centrally.

Sprout Social  is ideal if you focus on growing your community. Sprout Social offers you, besides capturing and analyzing your KPIs, a listening function. With this function, you won't miss any industry trends and can see what is currently moving your target group.

Fanpage Karma must also be mentioned here. It's a complete solution for social media management with real-time communication, Excel reports, trend research, and more. The benchmark comparison and analysis possibilities are particularly praised in the reviews on OMR.

If you focus strongly on Twitter, it's a good idea to use Twitter Analytics. The tool is specifically designed for Twitter and gives you deeper insights than tools for cross-platform use.

Do you want to discover more tools? Click here for the 7 best social media tools in comparison.

Every tool and software has different focuses. What suits you best depends on your needs. So think about what you need and then try out suitable tools. You can also find real user experiences and reviews on our software review platform, OMR Reviews.

Conclusion

Understanding your target audience and defining your goals are the two most important points for your social media engagement strategy. Based on these, you decide what kind of engagement you want to promote.

Interaction is the relationship between at least two people. This is no different in the social network. Despite strategy and goals, don't forget that it's about people. People with whom you are in contact. Social media engagement requires you to build relationships with people.

By monitoring and analyzing your KPIs, you can find out what works well and what doesn't. Adapt your activities according to the results and your social media engagement will constantly improve.