Increase Reach and Engagement on Social Media

Maximizing Your Social Media Presence: The Reach and Engagement Factor

I frequently meet people at networking events or through coaching inquiries that believe social media is vital for their business and yet they scoff at it for personal use.  They believe they can increase reach and engagement without actually using the platform themselves. Let me just say right off, if you don’t believe in something and you try it anyway because society says it is good, it won’t work out. Period. Mic drop.

You can’t dislike social media and then try and use it for your business and expect to succeed. Sure, there are ways around this by hiring an employee or a company to post.  But energetically you are working against yourself. The Laws of Attraction won’t allow the same exposure, reach, engagement, etc.

As a solopreneur or small business owner where you are the Brand, realizing the value of social media both personally and professionally will go a long way to improving the results of your efforts. Social media has become an essential tool of marketing (of which there are many) and gives you a unique and immediate connection to your audience to showcase your brand, products, knowledge, and relevancy.

So how DO you get seen more?

Let’s talk about Reach vs Engagement

Reach is the overall number of accounts or people that see your content.

Engagement is all the interaction people have with your content: likes, comments, shares, views of a video, image views, hyperlink clicks, saves, and length of time on content.

The initial reach your content has is much smaller than your follower base. MUCH SMALLER.

Based on my clients and my own social media, initial reach can be as small as 2 – 5% of your total followers.

100 Followers = 2 – 5

500 Followers = 10 – 25

1500 Followers = 10 – 25

These numbers greatly depend on a number of factors so your initial reach could be more or less.  And remember, this is just the initial reach.  Depending on what happens with your content, the platform will show your content to more people.

Disclaimer:

I am referring to your initial reach in terms of the number of followers you have, however, your reach will be to followers and people the platform thinks might like your content. So don’t get too hung up on the specificity of the percentage numbers, just know that you must get engagement to increase your exposure.

Improving Initial Reach

The most important thing to increase your visibility is to have interesting and engageable content. That sounds simple right? It is and it isn’t. The real challenge for most people is understanding what interesting and engageable content IS.

I am famous (at least in my own mind) for breaking down social media as if it were dating. If you saw someone from across the room, went up to them, looked them in the eye and they started telling you why they are awesome, you would likely walk away. This is the same in social media. If a person is scrolling and stops on your content and all you do is profess why you are the best, they will likely keep scrolling.

Social media is meant to be social. Write content that people find interesting enough to engage.

• Write compelling, interesting, and engageable content.
  • Create opportunities in your text to inspire people to write a comment or at least give you a like
  • Ask questions that people can respond to in the comments.
  • Read How to Write a Social Media Post for Engagement
• Write inspiring, motivational, and educational content.
  • Writing in different ways about your content pillars and how you help others creates a much better atmosphere for engagement.
  • Create content people find compelled to share with others.
  • Use Interesting Days and Holidays when they add value to your content. Check out my Resources for a free calendar.
• People connect in different ways, use keywords that resonate with multiple learning styles, and connect with more people.
• Add a Call to Action (CTA)
  • In the absence of a CTA, many will do nothing.
  • CTA’s can be strong (book now) or soft (give a thumbs up if you agree)
• Use hashtags
  • Use relevant hashtags to help non-followers discover you.
  • Use branded hashtags to help people find your other content.
  • Dominate in a hashtag to have your content appear first in the hashtag search.

How to Grow Your Reach

Once your post is out there, the platform will evaluate the progress of engagement. If it does well (according to their magical algorithm) they will push your content to more people/users. This is why posting at the right time can make or break your content visibility. Great content will fall short if posted at a time when your followers are not online.

First, you must have interesting and compelling content that people want to engage with. Then you must post at the best time possible to gain views and engagement. Once you gain comments, be sure to reply to them! Level up your replies by replying in a way that inspires the person to reply back! Every comment/reply/engagement helps your post get seen more!

Here are a few other things you can do to increase your reach/engagement:

• Know when to post
  • Check your insights. Some platforms will give you the times when you followers are online. For those that don’t provide that data, look through previous posts at times of day, day of the week and engagement for the best times to post.
  • Check insights regularly throughout the year, things can change!
• Collaborate
  • Tag other businesses/people to boost your exposure.
• Mix it up!
  • Mix up the format you use and the type of content to add variety and interest to your posts.
  • Use videos (reels) and images.
  • Write content in an inspiring, motivational, and educational way.
• Be consistent
  • Post content on a regular schedule. This can be 2 – 3 times per week.
  • Don’t ghost your viewers. If you find you don’t have time to post, work on scheduling and batching content so you stay more consistent even in down times.

Tip:

After you have posted your content, wait a few hours and then add to Stories (if the platform has this feature). This will boost your exposure for free!

Use this essential tool of marketing, social media, to connect with your current customers and potential customers. Create interesting and compelling content that showcases your brand, keeps you relevant, and, shows you are the expert in your industry. Remember, social media is designed to be social! This means the more you put into it, the more it will give you. Write from the heart, share to your audience authentic and helpful content and watch your tribe grow.

Happy marketing!

---