How to set up your Social Media Engagement Checklist

Social Media Marketing is changing. There has been a paradigm shift for how consumers want to be reached & communicated to, and the brands that have made this shift are running circles around their competitors online.

As the number of likes and followers becomes less relevant, engagement is gaining ground. The level of participation you see with your posts can boost the ROI you see from Social. It can even affect your future marketing plans and your investment in specific platforms.

It can be challenging, though, to keep up with engagement tactics, especially if you don’t have a plan for them.

Volume Nine has created a detailed guide on how to build your engagement checklist for all social platforms.

Here is how to get started with your engagement checklist.

Content produced in collaboration with Volume Nine.

Four steps to creating a social media engagement checklist

If you are ready to create or update your social media engagement checklist, here are four steps to get you started.

1) Set up your guidelines for social media communication

An engagement strategy begins with high-level instructions that will inform your team on the best way to approach social media communications. 

The best way to get started is to review how you’re using social media and what you want to get out of it. Then, think through different scenarios to determine the most appropriate high-level guidelines for your brand.

A few tips include:

• Authenticity
• Regular community monitoring
• Setting up social media listening
• Being genuinely engaging
• Creating a consistent tone of voice

The guidelines should contribute to improving your brand’s engagement. The more you work on them, the easier it becomes for everyone in your team to understand your objectives.

2) Decide on the engagement frequency

How often should you engage with your community on social? There’s no right answer to this question, but you still need to have a plan for this.

To help answer this question, Volume Nine boils down engagement by splitting it into two main areas:

• Inbound social media engagement – This is the communication that comes to your accounts from your users (mentions, comments, direct messages).
• Outbound social media engagement – This is more proactive engagement and involves finding & joining relevant conversations.

Depending on your resources, inbound and outbound social media engagement can have very different frequency requirements. 

For example, inbound social media engagement can be the key to landing new clients or building long-term relationships. If a social media follower has a question, then you need to be able to respond to them as soon as possible. Ideally, you should add inbound social media engagement to your daily tasks.

However, outbound social media engagement is about discovering new opportunities. You may be able to improve your understanding of your target audience or jump into interesting conversations, but you don’t necessarily need to add it to your daily schedule. For many brands, setting aside even 1-2 times per week for this is a great start!

3) Develop your engagement tactics for each social media platform

Every social media platform needs different engagement tactics based on your target audience but also the platform’s best practices.

It’s useful to analyze your current engagement on all platforms to explore the areas of improvement.

Here are some examples of how to approach every channel:

Facebook

Facebook can be one of the primary channels for social media engagement. There are many ways to make the most of it. Here are some initial options for your checklist:

• Daily: Monitor the comments and mentions to maintain a consistent response rate while showing your brand’s human side
• Weekly: Invite users who like your content to follow your page
• Weekly: Use Facebook’s search to explore relevant posts and events

Instagram

Instagram is another channel that can help your brand become more engaging. Except for appealing content, here are some ideas on how to boost your engagement:

• Daily: Keep an eye on your direct messages and try to respond as frequently as possible
• Daily: Monitor your mentions, tags, and comments
• Weekly: Follow relevant hashtags that can help you discover relevant content and potential customers
• Weekly: Engage with influencers who might be interested in your brand

Twitter

Twitter can be great for customer service, but you certainly need an engagement plan to make the most of it.

Here are some ideas:

• Daily: Respond to your direct messages to maintain a good relationship with your followers
• Daily: Monitor the mentions and reply as much as possible
• Weekly: Use listening tools to follow related hashtags and conversations that your brand can join

LinkedIn

LinkedIn is a great channel for B2B brands that target professionals. Also, the LinkedIn algorithm allows engaging posts to stay longer on our feeds.

It might not be as active as other channels for many brands, but it can still help you boost your engagement.

Here are some tips to improve your LinkedIn engagement strategy:

• Daily: Respond to all your incoming messages to help your supporters as much as possible
• Daily: Monitor your company’s public comments and respond to them accordingly
• Monthly: Use LinkedIn for prospecting with tools such as LinkedIn Navigator. Start with genuine interactions before making a sales ask

4) Create more engaging content

An engagement strategy is not complete without looking at your content.

Start by looking at your most engaging posts per channel to discover any similar trends they might have.

Then, look at other brands and how they’re creating engaging posts. Be willing to experiment with new ideas to find what resonates with your audience.

Most importantly, set KPIs to get everyone on the same page on how you define success.

Takeaway

Social media engagement can be a lot easier to achieve with a simple engagement strategy and a checklist. 

If extracting better ROI from your social media efforts is a priority for your brand this year, then committing to consistent engagement might be the missing link to help achieve your goals! 

To find out more about social media engagement and access a detailed checklist, make sure you download Volume Nine’s guide here.