Social media has grown into an omnipresent aspect of people’s lives. According to the latest data, 94.5% of the world’s population is active on social media every month. And the time they spend browsing these platforms has a tremendous impact on their consumption behavior and habits.
For one, people actively use social networks to research products and brands. 76% have purchased a solution they first saw on social media. And 47% of US consumers bought something on social media in 2023.
In other words, social media content has grown into a force that has a very profound (and direct) impact on every phase of the buyer’s journey. With this in mind, your brand’s social media strategy needs to attract followers, encourage website visits, and convert new customers.
Without further ado, here’s how to produce social media content that drives engagement and clicks.
Use Snappy, Engaging Copy to Seize Attention
One of the biggest obstacles to engaging your target audience through social media is that people’s attention is hugely diluted on these platforms.
A 2023 survey discovered that 21.7% of people use social media to follow brands they’ve purchased from. And 20.2% do the same for businesses they’re considering buying from. Combine this with the ever-growing number of sponsored content on people’s feeds, and you’ll quickly discover that cutting through the noise (and outperforming your competitors) can be a genuine challenge.
So, producing content that can seize (and retain) your prospects’ attention should be one of the top priorities for your social media content strategy.
In addition to investing in high-quality visuals (which automatically attract people’s attention better than text), consider taking a closer look at your copy.
By creating creative, humorous, and meaningful captions or directly addressing your target audience’s pain points, you can effectively engage them. Furthermore, this tactic can help maximize their chances of recognizing the value your brand offers.
For example, Armra does a marvelous job in this regard on Instagram. By using either humorous or thought-provoking copy, the brand creates the perfect conditions for engrossing its audience and putting them in a state of mind where they’re willing to learn about the benefits Armra’s solutions offer.
Source: instagram.com
Accompany Text Posts With Video to Maximize Engagement Potential
Another super-easy way to maximize your social media strategy’s engagement potential is to use video as much as possible.
Over the past few years, video marketing has gained a lot of popularity. Considering that the format is one of the highest-performing types of content brands can incorporate into their digital strategies, the choice is entirely logical.
After all, video is not just engaging because it combines visual and auditory information. It’s also impressively effective at driving user action and inspiring conversions.
So, are you looking for easy-to-implement tactics to help you boost social media content engagement? Why not supplement your text posts with accompanying videos that will grab and retain your audience’s attention?
Christensen Law does this beautifully on Facebook, utilizing video to capture and engage prospects. Then, it presents viewers with detailed textual content to communicate the value they could receive by getting in touch with the brand.
Source: facebook.com
Give Existing Customers a Face (and Voice)
Getting consumers to interact (and convert) with your brand necessitates that you earn their trust. And there’s no better way to do this than with user-generated content.
According to research, UGC is not only more authentic than its branded counterparts but also more trustworthy. Plus, data shows that consumers autonomously seek out social proof during the research phase of their buyer’s journey (and many won’t buy a product if they can’t find UGC about it).
Considering these widespread shopping behaviors, it’s only natural that you need to incorporate social proof and UGC into your content marketing strategy.
By giving existing customers a face and voice — for example, by sharing video customer stories like the one by Transitions Elite below — you won’t just boost your brand’s credibility. More than that, you’ll unlock the opportunity to show future customers that your business genuinely cares about delivering a stellar CX. Furthermore, this type of content can help freshen up your value propositions by having someone other than your brand/team describe them in a new, unique, and highly personal way.
Source: facebook.com
Collaborate With the Right Industry Voices
Another exceptional way to make your social media content more effective at generating visibility and engaging new (and existing) prospects is to leverage the power of influencer content.
After all, influencer marketing is a great way to add a dose of versatility to your brand’s online presence. Moreover, new research shows that 69% of people trust influencers, and 74% have made purchases in the past based on influencer recommendations.
Of course, the key to sourcing effective and engaging influencer content that benefits your business is to choose the right collaborators.
In general, micro-influencer posts tend to yield higher engagement rates than content published by celebrities. But you could also opt to collaborate with other well-established industry voices.
For example, knowing that current consumer trends indicate a growth in trust toward scientists and brand experts, perhaps it’s time to include such voices in your social media strategy. This is what Olay does with video content starring its in-house scientists, who share the secrets behind how specific active ingredients work and address skin problems.
Source: instagram.com
Use Video to Add More Punch to Product Announcements
If you look at some of the biggest challenges of engaging and converting customers in a digital setting, you’ll find that ad/banner blindness plays a major role in preventing you from reaching your goals.
Essentially, the average person sees around 100 online ads every day. And if you factor in well-camouflaged influencer posts that are also vying for people’s attention (and trying to get them to spend their hard-earned money on products they don’t need), it comes as no surprise that people need a break from commercially-oriented social media content.
What this means for brands is that their social media strategy must prioritize audience wants and needs.
But, it also shows that getting people to care about commercial content requires a content-production approach that’s engaging and effective at immediately communicating value.
Fortunately, this is another challenge you can solve by incorporating video content into your social media strategy.
By its nature, video is engaging. And data suggests that it’s people’s preferred way to learn about new products.
So, if you’re looking for ways to make your product announcements cut through the noise, consider introducing new solutions via video, similar to what TopView AI does on YouTube. This can allow you to engage followers long enough to present the benefits you offer, increasing their chances of recognizing your products’ value as relevant to their needs.
The World’s First AI Avatar That Can Hold Products Is Here!
Source: youtube.com
Highlight Your Content’s Visible Educational Value
Considering that many people’s primary reason for using the internet is to find information and learn new things, highlighting your content’s educational value is another exceptional engagement-boosting strategy for social media.
After all, educational social media content won’t just give your target audience something they (very likely) want from your business. Research also shows that educational resources directly boost engagement, loyalty, and even conversions.
To get the most out of this social media content strategy, you need to highlight the educational value your posts offer.
One way to do this is to simply point out anything your prospects can learn by interacting with your posts.
For inspiration on how to do this, check out Real Estate Skills. By aligning its social media strategy with its prospects’ aspirations — the hunger for knowledge — this brand doesn’t just manage to engage its target audience. Moreover, the posts are exceptionally effective at driving website visits and building brand trust, contributing to the company’s mission of becoming the industry leader in the arena of real estate education.
Source: instagram.com
Use Ephemeral Content to Encourage Interactions
In some cases, the best way to use your social media to drive consumer engagement is to create mechanisms that will invite followers to interact with your brand.
Most social media platforms have pre-made tools allowing you to do this. Polls, quizzes, ask boxes, etc, can all be great conversation starters that can help you build stronger relationships with your prospects. And they can be an important first step toward building a prominent and resilient brand — especially if you consider the fact that 68% of consumers are willing to spend more money with brands they love.
What’s great about this type of content is that producing it can be super easy — as you can see in the Instagram Story example from Fine’ry Fragrance below.
Source: instagram.com
Additionally, don’t underestimate the potential of this content format in terms of audience research, seeing that it offers the perfect opportunity to find out what your prospects want, need, and expect from your brand.
Tap Into the Power of Incentive
Sometimes, the best social media marketing strategy is to allow your audience to discover your brand and products in an organic way.
By opting for this tactic, you can ensure that your solutions appear to your audience when they are genuinely relevant to their position in the buyer’s journey. Plus, leaving the discovery process to them can help you avoid the common faux pas of putting consumers under too much sales pressure (that can discourage conversions).
Nonetheless, presenting your audience with an attractive incentive for engaging your brand can also be a productive approach.
According to a 2022 survey, 40% of US consumers have been encouraged to interact with a brand due to an incentive (such as a giveaway, discount code, or free gifts).
So, if your primary social media marketing goals include boosting reach and engagement, it might be a good idea to create these types of campaigns.
Remember, incentive-based content doesn’t have to mean sacrificing profits. On the contrary, even something as simple as a small goodie bag to mark a company milestone — like Stenders‘ birthday giveaway on TikTok — can be more than enough to generate engagement and excitement about the products in your offer.
Source: tiktok.com
Provide Additional Windows Into Your Social Content
Lastly, as you explore ways to create social media content that supports your business goals, don’t forget to align your strategy with the typical buyer’s journey.
Ultimately, a single touch — no matter how engaging — won’t be enough to move a new prospect from the awareness to the purchase stage of the sales funnel.
It’s a good idea to create mechanisms that will encourage your audience to engage with your brand on social media — especially as it can be a great way to nurture leads into loyal customers.
One way to do this is to create windows on your website that provide a glimpse into your social content. For instance, something as simple as embedding your feed on your website — which is what EE Buyers Agent does below — is a marvelous way to encourage leads to continue interacting with your brand.
Source: eebuyersagent.com.au
Don’t forget that social media content strategy won’t just help you reach new followers but also play a significant role in converting new customers. It can even help you boost loyalty among existing clients.
Ecommerce brands regularly embed social posts on their product pages. More importantly, they actively encourage buyers to share photos of themselves using the solutions in question (or use specific hashtags), as Converse did below. This is an effective way to boost social engagement and collect social proof you can share throughout your digital channels.
Source: converse.com
Final Thoughts on Crafting Posts That Drive Engagement and Clicks
The effectiveness of your social media strategy depends on your ability to attract and engage your target audience.
Fortunately, this doesn’t require you to reinvent the wheel. On the contrary — all you have to do is produce social content that aligns with your target audience’s wants, needs, and expectations.
The tactics outlined in this deep dive are all easy to implement. Yet, you’ll find that they deliver impressive results, regardless of whether you adopt just one or incorporate all of them into your social media strategy.
