Engage your social media tribe

Most online business owners understand the importance of consistently creating high-quality online content. However, what often comes as a surprise is that building genuine engagement with your social media tribe is just as crucial and it's something many business owners find challenging to master.

I thought it was the time that I share my proven tactics for building engagement for your brand on social media.

Ready?

4 Tips To Engage Your Social Media Tribe!

Be Visual

I recently heard that Facebook says 75% of content consumed on devices is through video. That is a huge statistic, and it highlights just how vital visual content has become for online brands. If you're not already using high-quality images and video, now is the time to get onboard.

But creating engagement goes beyond simply posting a weekend photo or showcasing your latest product. It’s about connecting with your social media tribe in meaningful and authentic ways. Here are some suggestions to help you leverage visual content and build deeper relationships with your audience:

Behind the Scenes – Share photos or videos that offer a sneak peek into your brand, or your life as the person behind it. This kind of behind-the-scenes content is excellent for building trust and engagement with your customers and nurturing your social media tribe. Whether it’s the process of creating your product, your office setup, or moments from a photoshoot, authenticity is what your audience is craving.

Caption This! – Got a great photo but unsure of the perfect caption? Let your audience decide! This is a fun way to invite interaction, especially on Facebook and Instagram—humour always helps.

Share Industry Events – Attending a conference or training session? Snap and share a few behind-the-scenes shots to give your audience insight into the effort behind your business. For example, I recently attended a Business Chicks luncheon with Kate Hudson and shared a few candid photos across social media.

Infographics – Make your graphics informative and highly shareable by creating infographics. Don’t be intimidated—platforms like Canva offer ready-to-use templates. Here’s a great example of an infographic that showcases the power of social media in a clear, engaging way.

Giveaways & Competitions

Hosting a giveaway or competition is a proven vehicle for boosting engagement with your customers. I recently ran a competition for iland co and had a fantastic response. Giveaways are also a great way to grow and energise your social media tribe, especially when the prize is something they truly value. When hosting a giveaway, try to make the competition super relevant to the platform you’re using to promote it. For example, if you’re running the competition on Facebook, you could ask people to like, comment, and follow your page to enter—helping you attract even more of your ideal social media tribe in the process.

Here is the competition post I recently ran on Facebook & Instagram:

Ask Questions

Most brands fall into the habit of providing only ‘push’ content to their customers. It’s post, post, post—with no real reason for a customer to stop and engage, simply because the brand never asked for their involvement.

Asking questions is a fantastic way to connect with your audience and spark conversations within your social media tribe. The types of questions you ask can be wide and varied, but keeping them aligned with your brand helps build authentic engagement and strengthens the relationship you’re developing with your social media tribe.

Some examples that I've used in my content strategy are:

• What is one thing you could do today to move closer to your goals?
• What is the area you are struggling with right now?
• What are you reading right now?
• What are you listening to right now?
• What topic would be most useful to you?
• What are your plans for the weekend? 

Participate

If you know your target market you will know that they are on multiple social media platforms, which is why I strongly advocate keeping your profile active and engaging across all your selected channels.

And do not post the same content on each channel. This is a big no-no and kills engagement. Customers want to follow you across multiple channels because you provide value on each channel. If you cross share the same post, that is low-value content.

Here are some examples of how to tailor content to the social media platform you are posting on:

Facebook - use native video, or images, and make sure the image is sized correctly for Facebook. Play with long-form posts but avoid sharing infographics as they don't display particularly well on this platform.

Instagram - square images are ideal, but Instagram stories is a rectangle and also a great channel for behind the scenes content, industry events, promos and sneak peaks. Use hashtags (you can have up to 30) and aim to respond to all the comments that appear on your post. This helps boost your organic reach.

Test text overlays on your graphics to see how your audience responds, and aim to create 'thumb-stopping' content as often as possible.

Pinterest - infographics do really well in this space, as does any imagery that is portrait in orientation.

The above platforms are the three main platforms that work well for brand development and engaging your social media tribe however you may also consider YouTube, Twitter, Tiktok, Snapchat, and LinkedIn.