By Hussain Mandviwala
Statistically 59.41% of social media posts has no engagement, which means no likes, shares, nothing…
What’s the problem
- Wrong Social Platform
- Lack of targeting / personalization
- Wrong type of content
- Content not engaging
- Content overload / competition
- Wrong posting time
- Wrong posting frequency
- Over reliance on organic content
One of the most important goal for your business is choosing the right platform which means looking beyond user counts and focusing on platforms that will generate high engagement.
How do you compete for your content when over 1.2 Billion new pieces of content is published each day.
Choosing the right social media platform to attract your audience
- Facebook and Youtube offers the most diverse demographics across all age groups, gender and ethnicities. It is ideal for reaching broad audience and targeted advertising.
- Instagram and Tiktok attracts more youth and adults under 30, especially minority groups and women. It ideal for creative short-form video campaigns.
- LinkedIn looks for content creators and is highest used among 30-49 age group, all genders, Asians mostly. Ideal for B2B marketing, thought leadership and employer branding.
- X is highest used among 18-29 age group, its highly influential because it is mostly used by politicans, celebrities, influencers, news channel, news anchor, CEO’s, businesses and broader audience and is more popular with men and Asians. It is the only platform that does not penalize for underwhelming content and is great for testing new strategies and using those successes into blog post or webinars.
How to create content that gets results
Type of content that generates the most engagement
- TOFU : Top of Funnel (Awareness Stage – widest audience, most general, least ready to convert) Focus on sharing your knowledge and context about a problem you know how to solve, by doing this you will educate strangers who become leads – then qualify those leads. Do not push sales, it is for information gathering.
- MOFU : Middle of the Funnel (Consideration Stage – targeted audience, buyer persona, may already be a lead) Leads are qualified prospects, they have clearly defined their problem or challenge. Engage with them to understand their needs and provide context related to specific solution and approaches. Be careful – they aren’t ready to make a decision.
- BOFU : Bottom of the Funnel (Decision Stage – narrow audience, ready to buy) Prospects become sales opportunities, you have explored their needs and you have qualified the potential lead to become a customer. They are now ready to make a buying decision.
Do not post tons of content on social media and see what hits with your audience
Test new topics and strategies on X platform first to see whats works and once you find content that people like, repurpose it for other social networks. Don’t focus on views more, rather focus on more comments, because the first thing that people do is read comments
Post content 1-2 times/day. Don’t post low quality content that doesn’t get engagement. It hurts your overall organic reach
Understand the cues from social networks. This is the easiest way to get more engagement with users
- Original personal photos is more likely to get 1.9x more likes and 2.9x more comments than videos on average. The number of likes increases the post popularity, the algorithms of each social media will rank it higher and it will most likely be shared with their user base. Social posts with 10 or more comments have 194% more enagement and when people leave a comment, reply back, that will maximize your reach into their network by 13%. Leverage the subconscious mind, take a picture of your product infront of Niagara falls, you know in reality I have no use for your product, but you took a great picture of Niagara falls in the background. I haven’t been there in a while, now subconsciously I will remember a bit about a post of your product near Niagara falls.
- Post fresh content that haven’t been seen : Think about topics that want to hear or people to know about. Use AI such as Chatgpt or Copilot to get ideas.
- Express you opinion : bold statements capture attention and it helps brand you as an expert in your business for e.g you’re wasting your time if you are not doing this.
- Provide value : provide stats or a call to action (most important)
you shared amazing pictures of your bakery items, floral, services, products etc… what do you want me to do. Give a hug :), like, comment, buy, visit your website, visit your store / booth, offering me deals, discounts etc. What is the value proposition here?, why should I visit your store/booth etc.?. Make it known visibly what the expectation is and what do you want people to do?, make sure people walk away with something they need to do or take away from the post, unless and until you’re just branding – that’s a different thing; but you’re in a business to grow your sales, not like Coke which at this point does not need that kind of interaction.
- Leverage Trends Strategically : Use websites like Google trends, AnswerThePublic or Exploding topics to understand your industry trends or focus on relevant trends within your industry. Create content that highlights your expertise, can go viral and drives revenue.
- Leverage social media right : You are recognizing your employee on Instagram, wrong platform because when people are looking for jobs, company and employee engagement, its LinkedIn.. Instagram or facebook will do no justice. Another example is if posting from a business account, you are asking for personal feedback like comment on what you are wearing for Halloween, you’re a business, not a friend, why should anyone – unless it’s a personal account. If business, talk more about the services, products or deals you are offering for e.g spooky deals that scare us as well 25% off from this date to this date. Your business may lose money on the first transaction but you’ll convert a potential lead into a recurring customer (if done right) who is interested in your product base or change the platform to what is best suited for it (if need be) and make it casual, not with your company logo on it – bottom line don’t deviate from your core product offering.
- Collaborate with Others in your space : This amplifies your reach even if you don’t have a lot of following. Use Influencers or people in your industry who has a huge following and work with them to give you a shoutout for your business, partner with others professionals on podcasts or livestreams. Use influencer marketing like Upfluence or TheShelf to find suitable influencers in your space.
- Get Personal : Sharing your own personal experiences is guaranteed to be unique content and that is what most social media algorithm will use to rank you higher. It’s hard to replicate personal content (AI and other people won’t be able to do it).
- Utilize WhatsApp: Facebook and Instagram ads that leads to whatsapp chat (use Business App if you are selling services or products).
What time to post your content
Timing is based on what time the users are most engaged on the platform and how likely your post will have the most interactions with users along the week as the platform optimizes it for you and organically expands based on comments (focus on making more engaging content that user can comment on as it is likely to reach to audiences in their network).
Tools you can use for Social Media Growth
- HeyGen : Increases your reach by dubbing your social content in other languages.
- ChatGPT / CoPilot : Increase accessibility by creating or helping you creating social captions for your content. This is not a one-liner/sentence or paragraph. the power is in the prompt, write a detailed one.
- Answer The Public : Get more views by choosing trending keywords and find upcoming keywords that aren’t competitive.
- Taplio : Find out what’s trending and popular on LinkedIn.
- Google Trends / Exploding Topics : Understand what people are searching for in your industry or by keywords and calibrate how likely will it get you more traction for your business.
- Ahrefs.com : Understand how well your website is doing with SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
- Canva: Generate design and images for your post.
- Biteable: Generate videos for your post.
- Mixkit: Get free assets for your next video project.