The document provides 7 ways to improve social media engagement: 1) Ask creative questions with multiple choice answers and graphics, 2) Organize unique contests, 3) Arrange Q&A sessions, 4) Tag people in curated content, 5) Encourage user-generated content through contests, 6) Connect with social causes, 7) Post about current events. Examples are given for each tip, such as Zomato's creative question posts, TurboTax's Instagram contest, and NASA's Google Hangouts.

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7 Ways to Improve Your Social
Media Engagement
By Ishita Ganguly
Published May 11, 2015
Do your fans interact with you on social
media?
Want to spark more engagement?
While it’s relatively easy to get people to like
and share posts, it takes creativity to drive
comments and dialog.
Here are seven ways to get your audience to talk to you on social media.
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Discover seven w ays to improve your social media engagement.
#1: Ask Questions Creatively
Asking your fans questions may get some response. But if you really want to inspire
engagement, take things up a notch.
Let’s say you’re in the food industry. A question like, “What’s your favorite dish?” could
be so basic that fans might not bother to answer. Ask a similar question with multiple-
choice answers, illustrated by an interesting graphic, and you’re likely to get plenty of
responses.
Zomato, a restaurant finder app, writes excellent and witty social media posts. They
ask questions, designed to genuinely get to know their fans, and include intriguing,
above-average graphics. As a result, their posts always get huge engagement.

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Zomato doesn’t just ask open-ended questions. They give their fans multiple-choice questions,
illustrated by a creative graphic.
Post questions your audience wants to answer. Remember, pictures and a little
humor do wonders for engagement.
#2: Organize Unique Contests
Social media contests are very common these days, so it’s important to stand out and
do something different or unusual for your brand.
TurboTax is a well-known tax-filing software, which may not seem interesting and
appealing to people. To add some fun during tax time, this year they initiated a
lighthearted Instagram contest to promote their product. People had to follow the
brand on Instagram and post a picture with three zeros and a designated hashtag,
#absolute0, for a chance to win $500. The contest received more than 730 official
entries.

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TurboTax ran an Instagram contest w here they asked their audience to post and hashtag a picture
w ith three zeros on it. Not w hat you’d expect from tax softw are, but it w as unique enough to get
lots of entries.
Don’t just create any contest. Think outside the box and come up with something fans
will want to participate in, share and discuss on your and their social sites.
#3: Arrange a Q&A Session
Your customers more than likely have questions for you, whether they’re on the
company itself or your products and services. Establish a forum where they can be
heard.
Host Google Hangouts and Twitter chats or even create a simple Facebook
post that asks your audience what they want to know about your company or
product. You can interview experts related to your industry in that type of scenario,
as well.
For example, NASA occasionally arranges Google hangouts with astronauts and
scientists, which are open to anyone interested in space exploration or work done by
NASA.

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NASA hosts occasional Google hangouts w here people can ask questions.
No matter what your business, there are things your audience wants to know. Give
them an opportunity to ask, and as a result, there will be plenty of social media
engagement.
#4: Tag People in Curated Content
There are a couple of ways to curate content that will lead to more engagement.
First, whenever you share someone else’s content, remember to tag the original
publisher. This is the easiest way to attract the eyeballs of the original content
creators. In the most likely scenario, they will post a comment thanking you for the
share.
Another method is to write curated articles. Choose a topic and reference
multiple articles, along with their authors and links. Then, tag everyone
mentioned in the post when you post socially.

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For example, Andrea Beltrami created a blog post with top articles on visual social
media marketing. When the post went live, she shared the link and mentioned the
names of all of the authors included. Andrea also gave them a shout-out on her G+
profile. The post got lots of shares and comments, many from the mentioned authors.

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Andrea Beltrami curated a post of visual resource articles, and tagged everyone mentioned in the
post w hen she shared it on social media. Many of the authors commented w ith their thanks.
People mentioned in a curated post are likely to comment with their thanks. The more
people tagged, the more comments there will be to get the conversation going on your

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page.
Tagged authors are likely to share your content on their profiles and pages as well,
and tag you back.
#5: Encourage User-Generated Content
User-generated content (UGC) is an excellent way to get your fans talking on your
page. It’s the most convenient, yet trickiest, way to get engagement. If you don’t draft
the blueprint carefully, it might go unnoticed. However, you can take ideas from brands
like GE, Belkin, Target, Warby Parker, Pepsi and Starbucks to get your creative juices
flowing.
Starbucks’ #WhiteCupContest is an excellent example of a successful UGC contest.
The coffee giant took the cue from their customers, who doodled vibrant designs on
the brand’s iconic white cup. In 2014, they launched the first #WhiteCupContest,
where customers were asked to design the cup, take a photo and share on social
media using the hashtag.
Starbucks asked customers to share their w hite cup designs on their social pages. Image: Placeit.

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The campaign received more than 4,000 entries in just three weeks. Overwhelmed by
such amazing results, Starbucks launched the campaign again this year, but this time
just for the store partners.
When your fans contribute to the content on your page, they’re likely to engage and
get their friends to join in.
#6: Connect With a Social Cause
Even if a social cause doesn’t directly relate to your brand, you can still embrace and
promote it on your page. It’s always nice to do things for others. Plus, it enhances your
branding.
Estée Lauder is a world-renowned beauty product manufacturer. When they
conducted a Breast Cancer Awareness (BCA) campaign, it made them a socially
aware and sensible brand. The call to action of the campaign was “Hear our stories.
Share yours.” And that’s what their fans did.
Social campaigns, like the one Estée Lauder did for Breast Cancer Aw areness, inspire fans to
comment.
They asked their audience to visit BCAcampaign.com to hear from breast cancer
survivors and share their own stories. When they initiated the program, hundreds of
people shared their stories on the platform.

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If there’s a cause your company supports, create a campaign or just spread the
word on your social pages. Fans are likely to engage with socially responsible
content.
#7: Post About Current Events
Being topical always brings fresh traffic to your page, whether it’s centered on a
holiday, event or live show.
For example, Papa John’s Pizza posted about the March Madness basketball finals on
their Facebook page. They asked fans to pick the winning team, and received more
than 50 comments within a few hours.
Papa John’s Pizza’s posted about the March Madness finals to spark a lot of engagement in a short
period of time.
When you create content that relates to current events that people are already talking
about, it really helps to engage your fans.
Over to You
There’s lots you can do to inspire conversation on your social media pages. You just
need to get creative and come up with unique posts that will engage your fans and get
them talking.

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What do you think? How do you engage your social media audience? What
inspires your fans to talk on your page? Please share your experience and
recommendations in the comment section below.
Starbucks #WhiteCupContest image created with Placeit.
Custom image icon made by Freepik from Flaticon.
Tips for improving your social media
engagement.
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Tags: engagement, ishita ganguly , social conv ersation, social media marketing, social media update
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR, Ishita Ganguly
Digital marketing strategist by prof ession. Currently experimenting
w ith social media and mobile content marketing at TechShu.
A nalytics is f un f or her as she gets insights to serve her readers
better. Othe r pos ts by Ishita Ganguly »
18 Comments Social Media Examiner
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• Reply •
treb072410 • 2 days ago
Great tips here Ishita.. Thanks for sharing..
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• Reply •
Ishita Ganguly • a day ago> treb072410
Thanks :)
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• Reply •
Anika Davis • a day ago
Great article Ishita. I've been searching for tips on how to get
more engagement for social media and this really helps a lot.
I've also already tried a few (around only 2 or 3) of these techniques
and got great results. I hope to master #1 though because it is very
effective (especially with image quotes). #4 though seems a little hazy
for me. I haven't yet grasped it's full potential.
Well thanks again for sharing your insight. I'll try these techniques as well.
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• Reply •
Ishita Ganguly • a day ago> Anika Davis
Sure Anika and let me know how they work for you. Cheers!
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• Reply •
Murtaza Khokhawala • a day ago
Thanx for such a Nice Article....
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• Reply •
Ishita Ganguly • a day ago> Murtaza Khokhawala
Thanks :)
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• Reply •
Alicia Mae Webb • a day ago
Great article and tips.. Giving your audience multiple choice questions definitely gets more answers from them!
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• Reply •
Ishita Ganguly • a day ago> Alicia Mae Webb
Thanks Alicia.
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Kryptonite Digital • a day ago
Great article! I will follow these tips. As we know, that social media is quickly becoming one of the most important
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• Reply •
Great article! I will follow these tips. As we know, that social media is quickly becoming one of the most important
parts of marketing strategy. It is really important that we must engage in social media regularly because it helps in
brand promotion, build loyal customer, and increase engagement between user and customer base.
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• Reply •
Ishita Ganguly • a day ago> Kryptonite Digital
Thank you for the kind words.
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• Reply •
Prince Nel R. Rentoria • a day ago
Worth spending my time reading this. Thank you :)
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• Reply •
Ishita Ganguly • a day ago> Prince Nel R. Rentoria
I'm glad it helped you.
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• Reply •
Web Outsourcing Gateway • a day ago
Hi Ishita! Another great article. I can attest that these will boost your engagement stats. We've tried most of them and
it's definitely working. Cheers, Ma'm! :)
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• Reply •
Ishita Ganguly • a day ago> Web Outsourcing Gateway
Thank you :) Cheers!
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• Reply •
Sue Anne Dunlevie • 13 hours ago
I've always liked Andrea's Google+ profile and posts. She exemplifies branding your blog!
Thanks for the great info,
Sue
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• Reply •
Cypher - Mass Planner • 11 hours ago
Interesting tips. I might use it myself. I mostly stole other peoples content for my fan pages but now I will take your
advice and credit them by tagging them. :D
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• Reply •
Ishita Ganguly • 3 hours ago> Cypher - Mass Planner
Great. Let me know how it works for you. Cheers!
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• Reply •
listworld org • 3 hours ago
interesting
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