Our 5 Tips to Improve Your Social Media Engagement

Chasing followers on social media is a lame strategy. What you need to do instead is improve your social media engagement. It's better to have a smaller number of followers who are really interested in you than having tons of followers who aren't really paying attention.

So just how do you improve your social media engagement to get those active followers?

1: Give Engagement to Get Engagement

This is something that you can do better than any bot. That's because you're going to do more than say “Nice photo!” or “Good post” when you engage with your audience.

You need to be sincere. Let's presume that you're passionate about your niche. As photographers, that should't be hard. However, you don't have to limit your engagement just to other photographers.

Interact with people who are interested in your genre. That may mean interacting with models, people who own travel businesses, restaurants and caterers if you're into food photography. Your niche doesn't stop with people who press a shutter button.

Be genuine and sincere with your comments. There are thriving communities on every social media platform for your interest. If you're into dog photography, you can find plenty of dog owners who love Instagram. I'm there as @nefariouslabs and I only interact with other dog owners there. Mostly labs, but also some Golden Retrievers.

It's a community I enjoy for love of the dogs, rather than photography. However, a good pet photographer could really stand out there.

2: Acknowledge All Comments and Engagements.

At a bare minimum, give some thanks to anyone who leaves a comment on your profile or post. You'd do well to go a bit deeper, though. I check out the profile of everyone who leaves a comment or a Like on my social media. It's a good way to find new people for networking.

If I find something I like, I'll show it on their profile. Not only do we engage them on our profile, but we actively seek their accounts for some interesting, entertaining or useful posts.

Not everyone interacts with a comment. Some people are content to show their presence with a Like. The best way to interact with these folks is to acknowledge them in your post or comments with a tag. Let them know you're aware that they're paying attention to you and appreciate their support.

3: Pay Attention to the Time of Day When You Post

There are a lot of social media experts who want to tell you the best time to post on a given social media platform. It doesn't hurt to try their suggestions, but we've found that they don't always work for our audience.

For example, Lee is very engaged with the endurance running communities on Instagram and Twitter. The recommendations for those platforms didn't work out for her at all.

If she doesn't post on Instagram by 8:30 AM ET, then she knows it will cut her engagement by as much as 50%. The folks in her community are early risers because that's when they run. Then they create a post-run Instagram message to share every morning.

On Twitter, the runners gather at night for a Twitter Chat. Search for chats in your genre and you can engage in a discussion just about every day/night. Just look for a hashtag with ‘chat' in it, like #runchat.

4: Quality Matters More Than Consistency

Most social media experts warn that you have to continuously post in order to keep your audience. Some suggest posting twice each day.

We think that's bunk. If someone unfollows your social media account, it's more likely that they don't like what you're sharing than the frequency of your sharing.

You can't be all things to all people, but you can do your best at whatever you want to do. Strive for excellence over consistency.