A Beginner’s Guide to Social Media Interactivity

What is social media interactivity?

Why would brands want to increase their interactivity?

If you’re thinking that it seems like a lot of work… Well, you’d be right, but it’s work that is definitely worth it if you can do it well. Here are some quick benefits that come with increased social media engagement.

• • Having good social media interactivity humanises the brand. Humanising the brand is very important. It’s a good way to help make your business seem more relatable, approachable, among other things. For example, let’s say there are two businesses. One of them does not interact with people on their social media and only posts content related to promotional deals, while the other posts surveys and responds jokingly to people in the comments. Out of these two businesses, which would you trust more? For most people, the answer would be the second, because you can see the human side of the brand.
  • Social media interactivity is a good way to learn more about your audience. In the past, as a business, finding out more about your audience used to be quite a lengthy process. However, social media has revolutionised the way businesses interact with audiences, allowing businesses to find out about their demographics quickly and efficiently. Of course, in order to maximise the information that can be gathered, businesses must first encourage interaction from it’s audience.
  • It’s easy market research. In relation to the last point about learning about your audience, not only does increased social media interactivity help boost a business’ understanding of who their audience is, but also what their preferences are. It goes without saying that knowing what your audience’s preferences are is extremely important for any business; knowing this sort of information allows businesses to better cater to audience expectations and decide what is working and how to improve things that aren’t.
  • Increasing interactivity also boosts a business’ place in the algorithm. It’s no secret that social media relies on an algorithm to determine posts that appear on your feeds, the frequency they appear, and other important things; all things that you definitely want as a business. When audiences are more encouraged to interact with your business’ posts, not only does it help you gather information, but it also helps tell the algorithm that your business should be appearing more frequently; being interactive on social media can start a beneficial loop where the more interactions you get, the more you appear on people’s feeds, and so on!
  • Good social media interactivity is expected of brands now. The digital age has reached a point where customer support through social media has become a leading preference for consumers; is the expectation for businesses to respond quickly. According to Twitter research back in 2016, a whopping 71% of the respondents felt as though brands should be responding to DMs within the hour. If you have high social media interactivity and also use your social media for customer service related activities, your audience will find you to be even more trustworthy.

What are some ways I can interact with my audience?

After reading all the ways having good social media interactivity can help your business, we don’t blame you at all for wanting to get in on the action online! Here are some ways your business can interact with your audience for you to consider.

• • Respond to comments! If your business posts something interesting, people may leave a comment on the post sharing their thoughts. It will always be good to respond to their thoughts, since this will make them feel like they are being heard by the brand. For example, let’s say someone leaves a positive comment on a new post. Thanking them would be a good idea; who doesn’t like their comments being appreciated? On the other hand, imagine someone leaves a negative comment. This is also valuable feedback; taking the time to respond to their concern can be a good way to build trust in the company. In this situation though, it’s important to remember to not be defensive or negative in return; always be concerned and helpful.
  • Post some polls! While not every social media supports polls, there are also many large platforms that do, such as Facebook and X (formerly Twitter). Polls are a great way for your audience to feel like their voices are being heard. When a brand is asking for their opinion directly, like in a poll, it shows your audience that your brand cares about what they think. Posting polls benefits the brand too, since polls are a great way to do some direct market research on audience preferences. Not only that, but if your poll receives a lot of engagement, you’ll be boosted in the algorithm!
  • Host a contest! It’s quite a popular social media strategy for businesses to host contests. These contests don’t have to be complex; in fact, many contests revolve around social media interactivity, where a business’ audience can enter a raffle simply by engaging with a post in a specified way. For example, a bakery company may host a Christmas cake giveaway, where people can enter simply by following and sharing the post announcing the giveaway. Not only does this build excitement among people who already enjoy your business, but it also introduces new people to the business, too. On top of that, it’s an easy way to gain more traction in the algorithm!
  • Interact with posts from your audience! Sometimes, you’ll see brands sharing content that was posted by their audience; maybe it will be a quote retweet, or a repost on facebook. This is a great way to interact with your audience; it shows that you’re paying attention to them and care that they’re enjoying your products. By sharing their content, it’s like you’re part of the community. Also keep in mind that interacting with posts can also simply be liking the post.

Some extra tips

All the methods listed above are great ways to earn some engagement from your audience and build up hype from your brand, but first, we’ll let you in on some quick tips and tricks to social media interactivity that make sure you do it well!

• • Be timely! Like we mentioned before, consumers have come to expect timely responses from social media. It would be ideal to respond to direct messages within the hour. If you can be timely, you’ll show your audience that you value their time and experience with your business. You’ll be so much more trustworthy in their eyes!
  • Know the algorithm well. When it comes to algorithms, there are a lot of things to consider: what time should you be posting, and what sort of posts should you be making? Depending on the algorithm of the social media you’re using, different posts and different times all change how much you’ll be shown on people’s feeds. If you have great posts that encourage social media interaction, and yet, you post it at a time where no one is online to see it, you’re limiting how much the algorithm can boost you.
  • Monitor your engagement. Of course, to actually gain information about your business from your social media page, you actually need to be monitoring it. Take the time to go through your followers, look at your statistics for each post. This will give you the further insight you need to really have your business make a bang!

We hope this guide to social media interactivity helped you figure out a bit more about running a social media page. Make posts that encourage interaction, and don’t just stop there; interact back with your audience! Form a community around your business and the results will speak for itself.