The Importance of Social Media Engagement
WRITTEN BY DEDE WRIGHT-DEMARIAN, SOCIAL MEDIA COORDINATOR
In the wake of social media, companies can not expect to breeze by with one-way communication anymore.
Social media is meant to be social, it’s right in the name!
Consumers are not looking for a one-way experience, they are looking for relationships and a way of access to companies. These two consumer needs are directly related to social media engagement. Social media engagement is important for a companies’ success in the digital space, and if you are not putting efforts to keep a positive level of engagement on your channels, it can be detrimental to your brand.
What is Social Media Engagement?
Social media engagement is the measurement of users’ interactions with a company’s social media content and includes a variety of actions. These actions can include:
Saves and shares
Retweets
Mentions
Comments
Likes and favourites
Social media is driven more by data than most realize. The best way to gauge whether your content is resonating and reaching your target audience is through your engagement analytics.
The Importance of Social Media Engagement Rates
As stated previously, the engagement your company receives on social media can be detrimental to your success in the digital space. There are a variety of reason as to why engagement rates are important, but let’s look at three main reasons.
Brand Awareness is Boosted by Engagement
When someone likes, comments, or shares your social media post, your brand awareness is automatically increased. How exactly is this possible? Well, for many social media platforms, users can see certain activity by those they follow/are friends with on their timeline/feed. For example, Twitter spreads out several posts on one’s timeline to be directly related to two or more of the people they are following, liking the post as well as what tweets they are replying to. When it comes to likes on Instagram, a user can scroll through their feed or their explore page and will first see the username and profile pictures of whom they follow if they have liked the post they are currently looking at. People are interested in what their friends, family, and influencers they follow are interacting with, therefore your social media engagement is in direct relation to extending your reach to more audiences.
Engagement Builds Relationships and Offers Social Proof
A company’s social media will have weight as to how prospective customers will perceive the brand, as well as how current customers will feel tied to it. Building a relationship with both new and returning customers is important, and the best way to go about this is through interaction. Like their comments, engage with tagged posts, answer questions, and simply respond back.
Having a conversation with them overall will help maintain your relationship and make your content something they enjoy viewing and engaging with. With the positive relationship you are building with them, these consumers will leave positive feedback in the comments. Prospective customers will see these positive comments and engagement and have a good first impression of the brand and be more inclined to buy products or services.
Engagement Powers Many Social Media Platforms’ Algorithms
Algorithms are created based on technical elements and user analytics that are analyzed and used to provide the best content to individuals. Your brand’s visibility on these platforms relies on the algorithm. So when more people are engaging with your posts, the algorithm will push out your content as a priority. Your content will show up more on feeds, explore/discovery pages, as a suggestion to follow, and possibly prioritized on platforms’ story features to be shown first. Although every platform is different, where they are the same is that they crave engagement, and it will always be a priority.
Social media engagement is important because it boosts brand awareness, builds relationships and offers social proof, and allows your company’s accounts to be prioritized by the algorithm. As a brand, you must put in efforts towards increasing your engagement positively. Without positive engagement, it is nearly impossible to be successful in the digital space.
