Want to engage your audience? Consistency is key.

When you’re looking for strategies on how to increase traffic to website, social media marketing is an excellent option that doesn’t cost you a dime. To drive traffic to your site, it’s not enough to simply get on social media networks, though. You must engage with your audience.

Learn more about social media engagement, from how to get more followers on social media to how to engage audience, with the information below.

What Does It Mean to Engage Your Audience?

Engagement occurs when you and an audience member interact, and although it can vary depending on the platform you’re using, most social networks have similar features.

An engagement could involve an audience member clicking on a link you posted, which means it can be a method for how to increase traffic to website. It could also involve an audience member liking or commenting on a post of yours.

For how to engage audience, you have several options. Posting content that stands out to your audience helps boost engagement. You can also like or comment on audience member posts.

How Often Should You Engage with Your Audience

The more you can engage with your audience, the better, but obviously time is limited and you can’t devote every moment to a social media account.

Engaging with audience members should be something that you do every day, and for the best results, it’s smart to set up an engagement schedule. For example, you could check your social media account at 9 a.m., 12 p.m., 3 p.m. and 6 p.m. If an audience member engages with you, you should try to get back to them as quickly as possible.

Optimum Days and Times for Each Platform

You’ll have better results with your social media marketing if you time your engagements for periods when the social network is at its most active.

Here are suggested posting times for the major social networks:

• On Facebook, weekdays between about 1 to 4 p.m. tend to be best, with activity peaking towards the end of the week.
• On Twitter, weekdays between noon and 5 p.m. work well.
• On LinkedIn, Tuesday through Thursday in the mornings from 7 to 9 a.m. and the late afternoon from 5 to 7 p.m. are the most active time periods.
• Pinterest is unique in that it has more activity on the weekends and in the evenings, with Friday from 3 to 6 p.m. and Saturday from 7 p.m. to midnight both being very popular.
• Instagram has less defined peaks and valleys, which means you can use it just about any time and get good results.

Do’s and Don’ts of Building Relationships with Audience Members

Many social media marketers focus primarily on how to get more followers on social media but fail to build relationships with their followers.

By following some easy do’s and don’ts, you can connect better with your audience.

Do:

1. Post content that grabs people’s attention with catchy headlines and high-quality images.
2. Interact naturally with your audience through comments and likes.
3. Respond to audience members who message you or comment on your posts.
4. Share other people’s content – this makes them more likely to share yours.

Don’t:

1. Only post content linking back to your site. People ignore social media accounts that are solely there for self-promotion.
2. Spam your followers with multiple posts related to the same content.
3. Ignore audience members who get in touch with you.
4. Be generic. Avoid sending form letter greetings every time you get a new follower.

Find out more about improving your business’s social media presence and other business topics on the Due Blog.