With everyone being on social media, and businesses bombarding their audiences with fancy shmancy social media strategies, you may wonder as a beginner or an advanced social media marketer:

How can I create social media content that gets seen, liked and shared?

While the obvious solutions like using the correct hashtags and creating the right content strategy for social media are helpful in their own right, they won't by themselves provide you with the success you want.

Rather, you need to get the basics right.

Because let's face it: we can't build a house without laying the foundation. The same goes for social media content creation.

So let us now give you 7 simple ways that you can create engaging social media content that gets seen, liked and shared. 

Use even one or three of these ways and you should start seeing a noticeable difference in your analytics in no time!

#1: Make Visuals People Want to Stare At

The first thing for more engaging content is not actually about engagement, but rather attraction. 

You see, engagement in social media is when a follower or a user likes, comments or shares a content post that your social media page has shared on the profile. 

But if you do not attract people to engage with your posts, well… then you won't go anywhere, right?

So that is why it is important to create images and videos for social media that grab the attention of followers and non-followers.

Think of it as dating, you need to be attracted to someone before you actually go and strike up a conversation or go on a date.

Here is an example of a great attention getting social media post by DBrand. 

Notice the sentence in the picture that makes you stop and focus:

https://www.instagram.com/p/Ck2NVLjOOWr/

Action Step:

To create better images that catch the attention of your audience, use images or videos that look like they have been made by a regular person with an iPhone. 

People have now gotten used to avoiding heavily branded and edited content because of all the ads we see on social media every day. “If it looks professional, it means they are out to get my money!” 

#2: Tell Stories People Can't Help But Remember

Great, you now have an image that grabs attention. What now?

The next step for creating engaging social media content is to keep them reading. The easiest and best way to do so is with storytelling.

Now, storytelling might sound like a scary word and only for high production and budget companies, but it is not the case at all! 

Everyone tells stories. A dinner table talk is a story.

Take a look at this story from a personal favourite Theo & Harris: 

Why I'll Only Wear Gold Rolex From Now On.

Action step:

For your next social media post, tell a story using the Hero's Journey storytelling method. We will leave you with a link that explains it in depth here (click on me). 

Don't think you have a story to tell? The easiest story to tell is the story of why you got started. Or an experience your customer had using your product or service. Read here about storytelling that creates a brand that your audience will remember (link to own blog).

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Alright you got your audience's attention and got them hooked by reading your kickass story, now it is time for the part that takes most effort and time, but is very important to social media marketing. Because it says it in the name, it is social media.

#3: Become A Best Friend With Your Audience (Engage but don't stalk!)

The third way to create more social media engagement is to engage with others yourself.

Just posting and avoiding the comments and replies you get is no way to create more engagement. It does the opposite in fact.

Replying to comments on your posts or someone else's is a great way to get more attention, but also showing that you are active on social media and can be reached easily.

Look how Ryanair is engaging with their audience in a funny way:

The key with becoming a bestie with your audience is to be you: open, transparent and real.

Action step 

For the next 30 days, make it a habit to respond to one post and/or one comment of your choosing. This is made to be super simple and for you to develop a habit of constantly being there to provide for your audience on social media.

Following the first three tips we have shared will get you further than 80% of content creators and social media marketers.

But if you want to climb to the top 10% of content creators, or even top 1%, use the next four hacks to create massive change in your social media content marketing:

#4: Use Trends To Your Advantage and Stay Relevant Forever

It is a bad idea to jump on a bandwagon, a page about dogs should not be posting TikTok dance videos to create engagement (unless they are dancing dogs). 

But using social media trends as inspiration for creative content is a sure way to create more engagement and get the word out. 

What do we mean about this? Well, listen carefully:

A trend is a trend because a lot of people are putting their own flavour onto something that people want to watch more and more of.

“It is gossip, but just with more class” said one of our team members and we can't see it any other way now. 

Here is how Bumble used a social media trend (the Barbie movie) to get inspiration and put their own twist on it:

Action step:

Look at what is hot today. And no, we don't mean the weather. 

Find something that inspires you from the trend and create a social media post of it.

Is there a meme that you see every time? Great, that is your inspiration!

But what if you have limited time and not enough resources to really take your social media content creation game to the next level? Look to the next step along the path of creating engaging content.

#5: Let Others Create Content For You, Without Spending a Dime

There is a way that you can grow and create more engagement and brand loyalty by not spending a single cent on marketing. 

With user generated content, your audience becomes your content creator, making posts and getting your product/service recognised.

The best example of this is Apple with its #shotoniphone social media content:

Letting your audience do the marketing for you is the best way to increase your credibility and trust, because here the idea of “herd mentality” comes into play: people will follow/join other people if it seems like something they would enjoy doing too.

Action step:

Think of ways your customers and audience can share their stories, experiences or advice on your product and find a way to reward them for taking the time to promote your product/service.

If you have the right incentives in place, people will be more open to creating content.

#6: Keep It Simple and Avoid Academic Writing

How annoyed and confused are you when reading something you just don't understand?

Well, avoid it happening to your followers with your content by writing in simple language that your audience can understand.

Social media content is designed to be quickly consumed, not to be an in-depth 200 page report with the latest academic research on shampoo bottle effectiveness.

You can bore your audience real fast if you write in a customer language that they have to spend energy on trying to understand. 

Here is an example of writing that is too complicated:

(For anyone wondering, it is Romeo and Juliet by Shakespeare)

And here is another example but this time with easy language:

As you can see and probably tell, this hack for more engaging content really comes down to who your audience is. If you have doctors as your audience type, then your language will be quite different from stay at home soccer moms.

Action step:

Use online tools to check how readable your text or message is for your audience. Social media marketing relies on simple and effective writing, so as a rule of thumb, keep it at a minimum of 3rd grade reading level. 

While the previous 6 ways of creating engaging social media content are more focused on creativity and are not easy to measure the success of, our next point is something you have to nail down in order to get more engagement.

#7: Time Your Posts Right When Your Audience Is Most Active

Ready….. Set……Go!

The final way for creating engagement on your social media is to publish your posts during the time that your audience is most active.

This helps you be shown on their feed more and get more likes, which if you remember from earlier on is a form of engagement.

So how do you know when is the best time to post? Or how can you find that out?

With Instagram it is quite easy to see peak active time on your followers. For other platforms it is trickier but luckily we found a guide for you to follow (click here).

Now, while this step is crucial for getting more engagement, it is not something you should go crazy over. Focus on the quality first before playing around with more specific tools like this.

Action step:

Go to your business/professional Instagram account, into the analytics and see what time your audience is most effective the next time you plan to post. Then schedule your post to go live during peak hour for your audience.

Bonus: Share Your Reviews Like You Share Memes with Your Friends

Because you have made it this far, we wanted to give you a bonus tip as a thank you.

This will work great if you already have a few customers and their reviews on hand.

The easiest way to earn social proof and get customers to trust you more is by showing the amazing results you have provided for your other clients.

Here is an example of RED using their customer reviews for creating engaging social media content:

Action step:

Ask your current customers if anyone is willing to write a review/testimonial so you can feature it on your social media. After you receive one, post it online and start engaging with others!

Conclusion: Taking the Next Steps

You now have all the knowledge you need to create engaging content. So what are you waiting for? Go create! 

And if you enjoyed this blog, share it with your friends. They will thank you!

Frequently asked questions:

What are the 7 ways to create engaging social media content?

The seven best practices for engaging social media content:

• Make visuals people want to stare at

• Tell stories people can't help but remember

• Become a best friend with your audience (engage but don't stalk)

• Use social media trends to your advantage

• Let others create content for you, without spending a dime

• Keep it simple and avoid academic writing

• Time your posts right when your audience is most active

How long should I expect to wait before I see results?

This comes down to how many posts you share per week and how good the posts are and etc. But you should see some noticeable difference in your social media analytics in the next 30 days.

What is the Best First Step To Take?

If you are a social media creator looking to supercharge your content creation and create engaging content, then you can use Bupple. 

With Bupple, you can store all your inspiring ideas and let AI create the perfect posts for all your social media platforms (results vary depending on the instructions you give it).

Then just share them and ready you are!

Click here to learn more and try it out for free!.