1. Post frequently (but don’t saturate)
When adding new interactions on social networks, we must take into account the frequency with which we publish. How often should we post? Again, it depends on your brand.
My advice is to try different options: publish daily from Monday to Friday, do it from Monday to Sunday, publish on specific days (for example, Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday), do it several times on the same day, etc. Find the ideal number of weekly posts for each social network to be present in the minds of your followers, but without saturating them.
In the case of Facebook, an average of 4 or 5 posts per week is usually recommended. Other social networks like Instagram or Twitter allow a higher frequency, even posting several times a day. On YouTube, it is important to keep a weekly record.
Please note that these data are for guidance only. In my time as Community Manager, I managed accounts that worked better on the weekend than Monday through Thursday, others that had more interactions during the week and others that did not support more than four weekly Facebook posts. Then I came to Atresmedia and saw how television channels allow higher frequency without saturating. With Antena 3 Internacional, we published two or three times a day and managed to increase interactions per post.
So do tests. Define how often you will follow and measure the results for a month. Have you increased, stayed the same, or decreased? If you have added more interactions on social networks, you are on the right track. If you have stayed the same or have dropped, it is time to try another frequency (higher or lower).
2. Adapt your message to each social network
Each social network is different and, therefore, it is not advisable to make the same publication on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. Each of these channels has specific characteristics and, adapting to them, is essential to achieve a better positioning of our brand and, therefore, to continue adding interactions on social networks.
You must know your ideal client well, in order to know how he uses each social network. On Facebook, for example, media and brand posts are mixed with those of friends and family. Most users tend to scroll down their news feed with some speed until they find an image that catches their eye. These images (or videos) are usually starring people. Our mind associates people = posts from friends and family. Therefore, use portrait or eye-catching images. Also famous quotes work very well.
On Instagram, they tend to like photographs with a careful production behind. Take advantage of the text to tell a story about yourself or your brand or reflect on a topic. If you have a personal brand, you should also include images in which you appear in relation to your sector.
On Twitter, play with the threads to tell stories and include images that accompany your texts, emojis, etc. Don’t follow other users just to follow you. Most of the users who return the follow, will do it so as not to lose yours, not because they are interested in what you tell. Having many followers and penalties adding interactions conveys a very negative image.
Never link your social networks to duplicate posts from one channel to another automatically. Your reach and engagement will decrease and it will be much more difficult to add interactions on social networks.
3. Spend time creating content
I know, time is one of our most precious resources and, for entrepreneurs, it is difficult to take time every day to create content. The solution? Don’t do it every day. Organize yourself in blocks, that is, block a morning or a whole day to take photographs, write texts, make designs, etc. So you can do it all at once.
Instead of spending an hour each day taking a photo for Instagram, spend an entire morning taking different photos that you can then reuse.
If you create a flat lay, a still life with different props, take the opportunity to photograph it from different angles. Move the objects and you will have several photos in one. If you go to a coffee shop with your laptop, take photos of yourself working, having a coffee, detailed photos of your hands, of your gaze, etc. The same when you make designs in Canva or Photoshop for your networks.
You will gain in productivity if you do all the work at once. Get organized to block the hours you need and prepare all posts for the week or month.
For example, I spend Monday afternoon scheduling posts for the entire week. One day a month, I block him to record, edit and schedule all YouTube videos. Also, I plan the hours when I am going to take photos for Instagram, taking advantage of the natural light that I have at home.
4. Launch live videos (and promote them)
Live videos are the publications with the greatest reach today, so take advantage of them to increase your interactions on social networks:
On Facebook, the social network itself is responsible for advising that you are live. In addition, it appears among the first elements of your followers’ feed. Follow their advice to be more successful in your live shows.
On Instagram, a warning also appears when you are inside the application and one of the accounts you follow has started a live video.
On YouTube, you can configure it so that a card appears in all your videos advising that you are live. In addition, it will appear highlighted on your channel.
Within the direct ones, these can be spontaneous or planned. Spontaneous emissions will provide freshness and closeness to your brand, but it is not advisable to limit yourself only to them. Plan direct with some advance and promote them on other social networks and in your newsletter. This way you will be able to increase the expectation, the scope and the interactions.
When you do a planned live, promote it in advance on different channels and invite your followers to interact. For example, you can ask them to send you questions or testimonials to mention them live or even comment during the broadcast if they have had an experience similar to the one you are telling.
What kind of content can you offer in these live shows?
Interview a relevant person for your target audience. In my Entrepreneurial Stories section on YouTube, I interview entrepreneurs every month from all over the world who can inspire us with their experience.
Questions and answers: ask your users to send them their questions about your specialization (for example, digital marketing, online advertising, image consulting …) and answer them.
Offer a free masterclass to your followers to provide them with valuable content and gain authority in your sector.
What other types of live shows do you like to watch on social networks? Share it with us in the comments on this article.
5. Be interested in your audience with questions and surveys
Both in the publications you make in advance and in your live broadcasts, it is important that you care about your followers. Ask questions frequently. You can include it within the text of the publication or use the survey options:
If you want to increase your interactions on social networks, really, ask questions. It is the best way to get answers.
At first, many of your posts may go unresponsive, and that may discourage you. It does not matter, little by little you will get more and more users to interact with you.
Comments are the most important interactions. We cannot assess a “Like” in the same way, which only requires a click by the user, as a response, which implies a greater degree of involvement and effort.
6. Define your goal for each publication
It is important that you are clear, at all times, why you make your publications. Are you looking to connect with your customers? Do you want to gain more followers? Is your goal to redirect traffic to your website or your online store?
Many publications hardly have interactions but they have managed to get a large number of clicks to our website. If we were looking to win by visiting an article on our blog, then our post has worked well.
We cannot measure the behavior of our brand on social networks, solely, based on the interactions we receive. We must be clear about what we want to achieve with each of our posts.
Specify a goal for each publication and measure the results based on what you wanted to achieve: web traffic, reach, followers or engagement, mainly.
If your objective is to increase engagement, that is, the commitment of your followers to your business, their sense of belonging to your brand, then you must go for it to get them involved and interact.
7. Connect with the experiences, interests and concerns of your audience
Finally, the last tip is closely related to Storytelling. To add interactions on social networks, we must make our followers feel identified.
For this, it is advisable to make a complete profile of Buyer Persona, which helps you to know their experiences, interests and concerns. Make publications in which you talk about these feelings, their experiences, their fears and you will make them feel represented and even want to share their story with you.
Create content with the experiences of your target audience, their interests and concerns. This will make them feel identified and more likely to comment, share or like your post.
As I said at the beginning, there is no magic formula to increase our interactions on social networks. What we can do is get to know our target audience well, be clear about our values as a brand and know what works best in each social network.
The new Facebook algorithm, for example, rewards those posts that encourage interaction and penalizes those that seek easy click. Knowing this data will help you create content adapted to these requirements.
