How to Make Your Audience Feel Seen
A large audience count, high likes/shares and impactful content are all great milestones to strive for when building your marketing presence. But, when working towards those high numbers and impactful images and copy, also be sure to keep one of the most important things in mind: your audience. In most cases, people turn straight to social media for information, inspiration, and advice. So, whether you’re a brand selling goods, a business offering your services, or a creative displaying your work — be sure to make your audience feel seen. Thus, be sure to make audience engagement a key priority within your marketing strategy. Keep reading for simple tips to increase your audience engagement.
Audience Engagement Tips:
Respond to Your Direct Messages: Ah, yes, cluttered DM’s. Although your inbox may seem to be inundated with endless and repetitive messages, answer them! Your audience trusts you and has directly reached out with questions, comments, and concerns. As a business manager, or creative, be sure to address your audience and show them that they’re valued.
Reply to Comments:
Another source for audience engagement is within your social comments. Whether they’re asking questions, providing feedback, or giving props – make your audience seen by replying or liking their comments. A simple “thumbs up” will show your audience that you’re truly looking into the content you create and the reactions it elicits.
Reshare Your Audience’s Content:
See your audience tagging you, showing off your product/service, or giving a shout-out? Use those to your advantage for some killer user-generated content. Not only will this help with your own social content needs, but your audience will also love seeing their own posts leveraged by you!
Ask Questions:
You’ve built a strong, engaged audience on your social platforms, now leverage it! A key tactic to make sure your audience feels seen is to directly reach out to your audience with questions. Perhaps you’re launching a new product. Or would like feedback during a creative process. Directly reach out to your audience and see what they think. Not only will they value this action, but it can also reap great benefits for you.
Pivot Your Own Content:
First, look to your audience for feedback/advice. Second, pivot your content from those results. A great way to show your audience that they’ve been seen and you’re listening is to pivot your content and your products to match what your audience is seeking. In no way should your audience dictate exactly what you should produce, but, if your audience is clearly liking something – give them more! Through social analytics, it’s extremely easy to see what works, and what doesn’t and to make changes from there.
Host a Q&A:
Audience engagement doesn’t need to be a one-way street. By hosting a live Q&A on your social channels, you can open the floor to your audience and give them in-depth answers to all of their burning questions. To help cut back on that cluttered inbox, perhaps begin a weekly Q&A. This way, your audience will know exactly when and where they can ask and receive answers.
