10 tips to build a highly engaged community on social media

In MARKETING
5 October 2023
Share

Today, social media play a crucial role in creating a community around your brand. Companies need not only to be present on these platforms, but also to be active on them to attract the attention of potential customers. In this article, we’ll look at different strategies for creating and maintaining a community around your brand on social networks.

How to create a community on social media?

  1. Define your target audience: to start with, it’s crucial to know who you’re targeting. Determine your target audience by analyzing the demographics, search habits and online behaviors of your current and potential customers. This will help you create targeted content that resonates with your audience.
  2. Create compelling content: once you’ve defined your target audience, create compelling content that meets their needs. Use high-quality images and videos to engage your audience. Don’t forget to post regularly to maintain engagement.
  3. Use relevant hashtags: hashtags are a great way to get your brand noticed on social media. Use hashtags relevant to your industry and your posts to reach a wider audience.
  4. Encourage interaction: encourage your followers to comment, like and share your content. Ask questions to spark conversations, and respond quickly to comments to show you’re engaged with your community.
  5. Run contests and offer exclusive deals: contests and exclusive deals are a great way to boost engagement and retain your community. Offer rewards that are linked to your brand to encourage sharing and interaction.

How do you get your community to engage with your content on social media?

  1. Respond to comments and direct messages: it’s important to be attentive to comments and direct messages from your community. Responding quickly and personally shows that you’re engaged with your audience.
  2. Use polls and questionnaires: polls and questionnaires are a great way to engage your community and get valuable feedback on your brand. Ask questions that are relevant to your business and use the results to improve your products or services.
  3. Collaborate with influencers: influencers can help expand your reach on social media by sharing your content with their own communities. Seek out influencers relevant to your industry and collaborate with them to reach a wider audience.
  4. Organize online events: online events, such as webinars or live chats, are a great way to engage your community in real time. Offer valuable content and create a space for discussion to encourage engagement.
  5. Monitor trends: stay abreast of trends and events relevant to your industry. Use this information to create content and engage your community around topics that are relevant to them.

Conclusion

Creating and engaging a community around your brand on social media takes time and effort. By following these tips, you can attract the attention of your target audience and build lasting relationships with them. Be patient and persistent, and you’ll see long-term results for your business.

Related Posts
MARKETING

Measuring “dark social” shares on Calaméo

In MARKETING
1 April 2021

Do you know the term “dark social”? Although a lot has changed about social media since the idea was first described in 2012, dark social sharing is as important as ever. In fact, this type of sharing might be even more key to understanding your content’s success today. Read on to learn why dark social matters in 2021 and how to track it for your digital publications on Calaméo.

Dark social sharing basics

All the way back in 2012, people were beginning to wonder how much content was being shared to social media networks. Or how much content was being shared in other ways. Because networks like Facebook and Twitter were growing fast, share buttons popped up all around the web to make reposting to your own feed easy—and trackable.

But while the number of shares ticked up, this new behavior couldn’t be the only way users were passing along videos, publications and posts. Despite the buzz around social feeds, research showed that plenty of people were sharing in a simple way: copying and pasting the content’s URL into email and messages. Unlike regular social shares, this kind of social activity wasn’t tracked.

As a result, it was easy to miss dark social sharing’s value. However, over the past several years sharing to social media platforms has declined. There are several reasons to explain this trend, including algorithm changes, rising interest in digital privacy and concerns about how information spreads online. Since more than a third of businesses say that “social shares” are a goal for their content, these harder-to-see forms of social sharing must be taken into account.

💡 TIP: Not sure whether social shares are a priority for your publications? Our quick checklist will help you brush up on your digital publishing strategy in no time.

How to track shares on Calaméo

So, how should you track the “dark social” sharing of your content? When it comes to your digital publications, Calaméo’s advanced statistics are a great place to start. That’s because our publication viewer’s own share button was designed with lots of different uses in mind. Take a closer look and you’ll see some options beyond the usual social networks.

Even better, the Shares section of your Calaméo statistics will show you just how many times your publication was emailed, embedded or its URL copied. And the results might surprise you. For example, we were checking the stats for our most recent issue of CALAMEO Magazine and noticed this breakdown:

  • 30% shares to social media platforms
  • 70% “dark social” shares to email, embed or copying URL

To access your publications’ Shares data, go to the Statistics section of your Calaméo account. Click on the “Shares” tab and scroll down to find the full statistics.

Also, be sure to note that these numbers only reflect “dark social” shares coming from inside the publication viewer. You can almost certainly be sure that other readers have, for instance, copied and pasted the publication URL directly from their browsers to share with their networks. Or to put it another way, public social shares may only be telling you a small part of the story.

💡 TIP: To keep digging deeper into the impact of dark social sharing for your content, consider using tracked links and Google Analytics to reveal more data.

In short, social media metrics don’t give you the whole picture when you want to measure how your content is shared online. If you’d like to start looking at complete Shares statistics for your publications on Calaméo, request your free, two-week PLATINUM demo today.

START MY FREE TRIAL

MARKETING

Content creation: 5 key trends for 2024

In MARKETING
4 January 2024

At the end of 2023, whether on Facebook, Linkedin or Instagram, many brands (and influencers) have noticed a drop in reach and engagement on their social media. A consequence of channels saturated by the amount of content published every minute. So what kind of content should be created in 2024 to keep communicating effectively? Follow the 5 key trends we’ll be presenting in this article to help you overcome the decline in your social media metrics.

1. Dark social

In 2024, it’s important to offer content that can be shared privately. To do this, your content needs to be so well matched to your target audience, that they’ll share it with their acquaintances in a private message.

You can also offer private experiences between your brand and its customers, such as exclusive groups or private discussion channels.

💡Read more on dark social and Calaméo.

2. Video

Video is still king. But by 2024, vertical videos are expected to be longer, lasting several minutes. Note, however, that even longer videos need to be well-paced. Internet users must have no time to get bored.

💡TIP: Use these formats preferably in 2024: stories, vertical videos and live broadcasts.

3. Useful content

Whether to inspire or to inform, content must be of real use to the viewer. Empty or narcissistic content is no longer interesting. You need to offer content with high added value if you want Internet users to be interested in your brand. Don’t talk about yourself, talk about your audience: their needs, their expectations, and offer them content that inspires or educates them.

💡 TIP: To create content that’s useful to your audience, you first need to clearly define your target.

4. Entertaining content

The other type of content you can offer your audience to improve your reach is entertaining content. Choosing the angle of entertainment and humor is an excellent idea in 2024 since “making people laugh” or “entertaining people” means creating an emotional bond with your audience, who will be able to remember this when choosing between you and your competitors.

💡 TIP: Be careful, not all types of humor and entertainment will suit your brand, or your target, it’s up to you to find the one that fits.

5. User-generated content (UGC)

This latest type of trendy content underlines the need for authenticity. With UGC, the consumer speaks directly to the audience. And what better way to convince a consumer than with the opinion of another consumer? Content of this type allows you to play on your audience’s identification with the creator of the UGC.

💡 TIP: There are now many freelancers specializing in UGC creation.

Conclusion

It seems clear that the basis of content trends for 2024 is the same: it’s all about knowing your target audience. With a clear idea of your target, it will be very easy for your brand to create useful, entertaining and shareable content to boost your social networks.

💡Re-read 2023’s key content trends.