Engaging Your Audience

There are several ways to engage your audience on different platforms. The biggest challenge most companies are having is figuring out how to engage with millennials that follow them and how to keep their short attention spans long enough to get their message across. 

To do that, you must engage with the millennials you’re targeting on social media and keep up with the latest social media trends. 

Attract readers’ attention to a point in your content – When you post content, make sure you point out something specific in the article that is interesting. This is similar to the first sentence in every paper you write and what makes the reader turn the page. In this case we are getting your audience to click on your content and getting them to engage and interact with your content. 

Balance various types of content – To get your audience involved you need to post different types of content and it cannot all look the same. If it all looks the same most of your audience will believe they are going to be viewing the same exact content over and over and eventually that will get old. Your audience will get bored with what you are posting and your interactions will slowly decline.

Create posts that drive ‘click-throughs’ – Get your audience to click! When you’re not getting any interaction with your posts, it means that you are not creating content that will promise the reader anything. They want to know that there is a benefit with what they are clicking on. All audiences have become very conscious of their time and believe in spending it wisely and if they feel that they have wasted their time on something on your site, then they will not return. For example, Lowe’s has constantly used content such as quizzes to get their audience to interact with them and they give something to their audience in return.

Use hashtags! – #hashtagsarebeneficial because they bring your audience into a discussion. Using hashtags that are relevant can drive people to your content and show that you are ‘with the times’ and automatically gain awareness.

Engaging your audience can be difficult but there are several resources on how to be creative in doing so. The biggest thing about engaging your audience is to stay with the trends, and follow what is working for others. Taking ideas from similar companies isn’t bad as long as it is tailored for your brand and represents your brand in a new and exciting way.

Lauren Benda is a senior account associate studying Advertising and Public Relations. She was born and raised in Illinois, and has always been a huge baseball fan. Currently she is living out her dream working in the community relations department for the West Michigan Whitecaps. After she graduates in April she hopes to find a job in the community relations department of any professional or minor league baseball team. If you can’t find her at Fifth Third Ballpark she is probably on a running trail or watching McDreamy save some lives in Grey’s Anatomy.