A No-BS Guide To Creating *Really* Engaging Content for Social Media Posts

Why do people use social media? The key reason why men and women spend their time on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter is that they try to entertain themselves.

They are looking for content that is fresh, fun, relatable, and useful. And if you want to engage your social media followers, you should create content that meets these criteria.

In this article, you will find a few brilliant ideas for social media posts. Feel free to use them in your content marketing strategy 2020.

Challenge your followers

The simplest, yet one of the most effective ways to engage social media users is to challenge them. Human beings are competitive by nature. And they tend to accept challenges just to show everyone else that they are “good enough”.

To challenge followers means to ask them to perform a specific task: to answer a sophisticated question, to calculate the number of items shown in the picture, to guess where the shot was taken, etc.

Here is an example of such a social media post. Jordan Hammond, a photographer, published a photograph of Belgium houses and asked his followers to count the number of windows. The question grabbed the users’ attention and the post generated high engagement.

Screenshot source: https://www.instagram.com/p/B68SBzPHhh_/

Another way to challenge your followers is to ask them to caption your picture. This approach works well not only for social media blogs but also for businesses that are trying to grow their social media presence.

If you want to generate even higher engagement, you should promise your followers to feature the best captions in your next post or Stories. This kind of “intangible reward” will motivate users to participate in the caption contest more actively.

Screenshot source: https://www.instagram.com/p/B5YAlRVpw5x/

Write about people behind your brand

If you want to promote your business on social media, you should take into account one important thing. Your customers want to learn more not only about your products and services but also about people behind your brand. So feel free to write posts about the key employees and founders of your company.

Screenshot source: https://twitter.com/lyft/status/1212462250092613637

Screenshot source: https://www.instagram.com/p/B2ohy4NoRZX/

If storytelling is not your cup of tea, and you don’t know how to introduce your team members to a wide audience, feel free to get professional assistance. Hire freelance writers at platforms like Fiverr and PeoplePerHour, or use writing services like WritingJudge and GrabMyEssay.

Show how your company contributes to society

If your company (or you personally) is involved in any charity or non-profit work, don’t feel ashamed to share this fact with your customers. Create social media posts that explain in which way you contribute to society and inspire others to do good things.

If you don’t like to write such posts because it feels like you’re bragging about your company’s volunteer work, you can do the following. You can share relatable posts published by news websites, customers, or bloggers. It’s a more “humble” way to tell your followers about your contribution.

Here is a good example to follow. Airbnb offers emergency housing to thousands fleeing Australia Wildfire. But instead of writing dozens of tweets on this topic and trying to exaggerate its contribution, Airbnb has only retweeted one tweet written by Newsweek.

Screenshot source: https://twitter.com/Newsweek/status/1213138043072331776

Share user-generated content

Today, user-generated content engage social media users much better than content produced by brands. And you should take it into account when crafting your content marketing strategy 2020. You should think about ways in which you can encourage your customers to generate more content.

The first essential step you should take is to ask your customers to use your branded hashtag. You can ask for that in your bio, or pinned post.

Screenshot source: https://www.instagram.com/americaneagle/

The next step you should take is to analyze your target audience and to try to think outside the box. You should come up with an idea of how to impress your customers so they will want to write a positive review of your products.

Take a look at the following screenshot. It’s an example of how a company can use a sophisticated strategy to boost customer loyalty and get more user-generated content.

Screenshot source: https://twitter.com/Delta/status/1207707178842427392

Delta Airlines returns lost items to their owners in a very original way. The company writes a personalized letter on behalf of the captain of the aircraft. The letter explains how the lost item was found and how it was sent back home.

When a customer gets the lost item and the letter, he feels gratitude towards the captain and Delta Airlines. And those strong feelings encourage a customer to write a “thank you” post on social media.

Show your sense of humor

No matter whether your products are excellent in quality or not, you get negative comments on social media. And it’s not your fault. Unfortunately, some people just enjoy being angry and writing negative reviews, and you can do nothing with that.

The only thing that’s left for you is to use your sense of humor to protect your brand. If you want to engage your followers, try to do the following: find inadequate, negative reviews of your products online, and then provide witty responses on your profile.

To understand how it works, take a look at Wendy’s Twitter account. Every time the company gets a mean tweet, it replies sarcastically. And that works.

For instance, the tweet shown below got 11.6 retweets and 104.7 likes in four days. Not that many international brands can boast with such high engagement on Twitter.

Screenshot source: https://twitter.com/Wendys/status/1212819812331720705

Make your social media posts accessible for non-English speakers

You will probably be surprised to know that not all people who follow you on social media can read in English. Some of your followers do not engage with your posts simply because they have no idea what your posts are all about.

And if you want to engage non-English speakers, you should adjust your content marketing strategy accordingly. For instance, if most of your customers come from the United States and Brazil, you should make your posts accessible for Portuguese-speaking users.

To boost your marketing efforts, you can create two separate profiles in different languages. And you can use Postfity to schedule up your posts across multiple time zones.

Or, you can keep using your current profile but write captions in both English and Portuguese. You can add flag emojis to make it clear which part of the text is written in which language.

Screenshot source: https://www.instagram.com/explorerssaurus_/

“If you target non-English speakers, consider using hashtags in local languages. It will allow you to reach a wider audience and boost engagement,” says Jack Wheeler, a reviewer at IsAccurate.

Screenshot source: https://www.facebook.com/NescafeCAM/photos/a.624596590892462/2949934438358654/?type=3&theater

Use Instagram stories stickers

Do you focus your marketing efforts on Instagram? If your answer is “yes”, you should create Instagram Stories using interactive stickers (Quiz, Poll, Questions). It will allow you to boost interactions with your target audience and increase engagement.

Here is an example of how you can use the Questions sticker to engage your customers on Instagram. Amanda Oleander, an artist and entrepreneur, asks her followers what drawings they would like to see on new tote bags.

Screenshot source: https://www.instagram.com/stories/amandaoleander/

And with the help of this question, she hits two birds with one stone. Amanda shows her followers that she values their opinion. And also, she collects the data necessary for sales optimization. The answers she gets allow her to forecast the demand for her products and adjust the production plan accordingly.

Create quotes

Social media users do love quotes even more than you can imagine. And if you have never used this type of content before, you should post a few picture quotes on your profile and see how your followers will react.

But keep in mind that famous sayings and phrases that your followers have heard dozens of times will not work here. To engage your audience, you should use brand new quotes.

You may quote the words of your employees, your customers, your suppliers, or the experts in your niche. The quotes can be inspirational, motivational, educational, sarcastic, or fun. You can choose any tone of voice that fits your brand the best.

Screenshot source: https://www.instagram.com/p/B6n2bAbFXrM/

If you want someone to edit your quotes, you may use writing services like TrustMyPaper and Studicus. If you want to create a picture quote online, you may use apps like PixTeller and QuotesCover.

Say what people want to hear

Here is one more tip for you. If you want to get more comments and likes on social media, write the statements that your followers most likely will agree with.

Have you heard about Dude With Sign? It’s a guy who posts pictures of himself holding hilarious protest signs.

Screenshot source: https://www.instagram.com/p/B5Q32hdl8PQ/

Screenshot source: https://www.instagram.com/p/B5_G6x0lmsC/

These “protests” resonate with the things that annoy modern people in real life. And that explains why these posts have gone viral online and why Dude With Sign gained over 2.5 million followers in three months.

If you choose the same strategy and focus on the topics that resonate with your target audience, you will be amazed at the results. You will achieve maximum engagement and take your business to the next level.

Bottom line

Look through this article one more time and choose a few content ideas that you like the most. Think about when and how you could try them out.

Revisits your current content marketing strategy, and then bring your new ideas to life.

Bio:

Marques Coleman is a blog writer and specializes in marketing and marketing and copywriting. Moreover, he is an avid traveler and always tries to learn something new.