There are 3.48 billion active social media accounts in the world, and the number of people using social media accounts via mobile devices has risen by 297 million new users year-over-year.
With continuous algorithm updates and dwindling attention spans, how can your brand generate more engagement?
More from PostFunnel on marketing on social media:
Asking the Experts: How Social Networking Services Impact your Marketing Strategy
How Social Media Marketing Works in 2019
How to Optimize Your Social Media Post
Here’s a 10-point checklist to get you started.
1. Channels: Are the Fish Biting?
Knowing which social networks your customers use is as important as knowing their preferred devices. Even more important is knowing what type of engagement they want on each network.
Start by monitoring in-network engagement against those networks’ mobile-usage rates. It culminates in tracking social-media traffic through Google Analytics and applying device filters to draw out acquisition and conversion insights.
The point isn’t to simply go where your audience is and spend money. Rather, the point is to find the sources that generate profitable traffic and invest in those places.\
2. Profiles: Is It Clear?
Regardless of the platform, profile pages must: (1) showcase your brand’s personality and (2) prompt the customer to take action. Unfortunately, many sacrifice the latter for the former.
In eCommerce, clarity comes first: what your brand does, whom it serves, and how social media users (many of which browse on mobile) can find you and make a purchase.
Barkbox’s Instagram bio checks a host of must-do boxes: a dead-simple product description, plenty of personality, and a URL that tells visitors exactly what’s next: “BARKBOX-BEHIND-SCENES.”
3. Continuity: Where Should They Go?
Similar to Barkbox, THINX does an excellent job aligning its aesthetics and messaging to its audience: “For people with periods.”
Notice the clear CTA and URL: “Find out how our period-proof undies work” at “howTHINXworks.”
Rather than drive mobile visitors to product pages, THINX drives them to mobile-optimized educational content. This is vital for THINX as it’s still a relatively new category.
4. Differentiate: What Makes You Special?
At first glance, Pura Vida’s bio link appears somewhat underwhelming: rather than a landing page or special collection, the company leads visitors straight to the homepage. While the site is certainly optimized for mobile, this can feel like a missed opportunity.
Where Pura Vida shines is in its use of swipeable stories.
For example, the brand’s recent ‘7 Days of Giveaways’ campaign sent IG users to a Pura Vida post that took advantage of their co-branded promotion with Coconut Waikiki Hotel as well as IG model Eryn Krouse and popular photographer @heyman23:
5. Content: Can You ‘Break’ the Pattern?
The best way to get attention online is to post shareable content, produced both by other people (especially influencers) as well as yourself.
Knowing this, most eCommerce brands create posts around popular content tailored to the channels they use: videos, infographics, images, top ten lists, how-to guides, etc.
Use popular content as templates, yes. But don’t feel pressured to conform to the norm.
Some brands succeed because they go against the grain. For example, Australian beauty brand Frank Body doesn’t look for inspiration in the beauty space. Instead, it turns to its team and micro-influencers as content generators.
6. Response: When Are You Getting Back?
80% of people who contact a brand on social media expect a response within 24 hours. 28% expect a response within an hour and 18% expect one immediately.
This means monitoring your feeds and notifications, responding quickly to problems and questions, and following through to resolution.
Some brands set specific expectations by including operating hours in their bio or header image, along with a number for 24-hour support if a person needs urgent help. Facebook in particular monitors brands and their response times and gives ratings accordingly:
7. Questions: Are You Even Asking?
Responding to conversation initiators is a start, but there’s a lot more you can do to engage in meaningful discussions.
To truly develop an active and supportive community, proactively seek out and engage in conversations. How? Ask questions that spark genuine dialogue and productive debates.
Instead of just talking about your business and posting links on Facebook, for example, ask a question about your industry or matters that affect your audience. Actively encourage discussion in the comments.
8. Start a Poll: Be Creative With Engaging Your Followers
The opportunities here are endless:
- Ask your followers a ‘this or that’ question and find out which style or product they like most
- Ask questions directly in the caption of your post
- Use the emoji slider on Instagram stories to encourage followers to rank a photo or video
- Ask direct questions about a particular product. Things like ‘Do you like..?’ ‘Would you buy…?’ ‘What’s your favorite color…?’ or ‘Have you seen our latest…’
- Use polls to understand what kind of content your followers want
- Ask your followers how you can be more helpful
Use this information to curate original content and better plan how you can best speak to and engage with your followers.
9. Competitions: What’s In It for Them?
If you’re struggling to gain traction, social media competitions and giveaways can be a great way to boost online engagement, build your email list, and inspire virality.
There’s no right or wrong way to set these up, but you should consider your objectives and the types of actions that you want your followers to take.
Some reasons why you might want to run a competition:
- To launch a product or service
- Engage existing followers
- Gain new followers
- Expand to a new target audience
- Create brand awareness
- Encourage user generated content
…and the list goes on.
But remember, if you don’t devise a strategy and execute it properly, you could quickly end up with a bunch of followers who only wanted to win the prize and don’t really care about your service or product.
10. Speed: Anticipate the Click
No matter how valuable the content you share with your audience, if they are clicking through to your content from a mobile device but can’t access it or read it properly, you’ve lost.
It’s important to ensure that your website and content are mobile friendly. This isn’t just about website responsiveness, but also includes the speed at which your content loads and the visual layout of your pages.
A great way to test mobile friendliness is to use Google’s own Mobile-Friendly Test and .
If you’re selling online, you need a mobile-first approach. But how can you capture your audience’s attention with constantly evolving algorithms? Use this 10-point checklist to keep your shoppers interested and connect your online experience with those on social networks.
