Tips for Engaging your Audience

I harp a lot on writing content. Content is king. Content is what brings people back. But it needs to be quality content. It needs to be useful to your audience. But I have a secret. If you want more results from your new content, it also needs to be engaging. I write lots of blog posts, but I don’t get a lot of comments because most of the content I write is to provide readers with more information. I’m typically not planning to create a conversation or engagement out of my blog posts. But I could. And if you want to reap more interaction on your website, then you should. Here are my top tips for creating more interaction and engagement on your website.

Tell a personal story

There is nothing that moves a user to interact with something you’ve written like a personal story, one that touches them on an emotional level. You can share all the facts, data, stats and useful information in the world and never get a response, but a true, personal story can inspire people to engage faster than any of that.

If you’re a business owner, you probably have a lot of personal stories that are relevant to your business and will catch your users attention. The owner of Community Yoga of Lafayette routinely shares anecdotes from her yoga journey on Facebook that resonate with her audience, creating more engagement on her Facebook page.

Have Contests, Polls and Surveys

Are you interested in what your patrons have to say? If not, ask yourself why not? One way to create more engagement is by simply asking questions. What do they like? What do they dislike? Why do they come to your business? Ask questions and request answers.

Folks love a good contest! I routinely see contests on the Facebook page for my veterinarian’s office that ask people to post photos of their pets. You know what people love? Their pets. You know what they love to share photos of? Their pets. This is a huge opportunity to create great engagement with their target audience by asking them to share photos and then rewarding them with a coupon or a bag of dog treats.

It doesn’t have to be an expensive or extravagant prize to get people involved. The most motivating factor is how relevant your request is to the interests of your target audience.

(Have trouble getting people to take your surveys? I have some tips to help you get more survey engagement in another blog post.)

Share other people’s content

It doesn’t have to be all original. Lots of people post great content all the time. I’m not saying to copy and paste their content as your own. No no no, don’t do that. What I’m saying is to share, retweet, or even write a rebuttal of what other people have written. Is there a blog post, tweet, or Facebook post that’s really struck you? Why not write up a response. Even if it’s a response that agrees, if you have something to say about it, share it and add to it. Creating engagement with other content creators can increase engagement on your own website.