Having a social media engagement strategy can mean the difference between seeing significant results from your social media efforts or failing to gain any traction on social media despite posting on a regular basis. There are several reasons engagement is so important on social media. One is that it allows you to stand out above the noise.

Social media platforms can be very busy, and unless you have ways to actively engage with your audience, it’s easy for your content to get lost. Another reason engagement is so important is it’s a good way to measure what’s working on your social media channels, as well as what’s falling flat.

Because there’s a lot to gain from making engagement a priority, we want to cover five creative social media engagement ideas that you can start using:

Ask Questions (with a Twist)

One of the most common social media engagement techniques is asking questions. Since this technique is so widespread, people may not pay attention if a question is really basic. That’s why we recommend putting a twist on this strategy. Whether that means asking a funny or multiple-choice question, the key is to post questions that your audience actually wants to answer.

Curate Content and Tag Relevant People

Content curation has become a popular social media marketing strategy in recent years. One of the elements that determines the effectiveness of curating content is involving the original sources. Whether you’re sharing a post or writing your own curated post, be sure to tag everyone that you mention. This will put your curated content on their radar. And as long as what you created is good, chances are many of the people you tag will share it.

Encourage User-Generated Content

Coming up with new content all the time can be a significant challenge. That’s why user-generated content (UGC) is so great. Not only is this type of content produced by fans and customers for you, but it has a level of authenticity that’s really appealing. So be sure to actively ask your social followings to share this type of content with you.

Be Current

Social media is all about conversation, which is why jumping into current events with your own unique angle can be a great way to get people engaged. Just make sure that the events you engage about make sense in the context of your brand.

Run the Right Kind of Contests

Like questions, contests are so widely used that they may be ignored if they’re too generic. That’s why it’s worth taking the time to come up with a contest idea that will be truly fun and engaging for your audience.

If you’re looking for the best way to track your engagement as you put the different strategies we covered above into action, learn more about how our social media engagement dashboard can help.