Much like everything else, social media strategies have their ups and downs, too. There will be phases of high engagement and phases where your content just seems to stall. When that happens, instead of panicking, here are a few things you can do to get your content moving back up again.
If you plot the graph of social media engagement over time, it will NOT be a straight line. This is because engagement doesn’t just keep increasing constantly over time. There are going to be some days, some bad days, and some worse days when your content completely stalls.
So, what do you do when that happens? When, no matter what you do, your engagement just doesn’t seem to get better?
You can’t really stop your content from stalling sometimes. But, there are things that you can do to try and get your engagement back on track again.
#1 Analyze your content strategy to find the problem
There are many reasons why your content could be stalling. But in order to find a solution, you need to diagnose the problem first. So, you need to head to your Instagram analytics dashboard and conduct a complete audit of your Instagram account as well as your content.
Understand your audience: Take stock of your follower demographics. What is the percentage of male versus female audience? What is the typical age range? For example, are most of your followers between 18-25 years old, or are they older?
This will help you revamp your content strategy according to your audience. If your message doesn’t align with the demographic, then your engagement will be low. For example, if you are targeting Gen Z folks, but most of your followers are millennials, it might be time to change some things.
Check your followers and hashtags:Fake followers can bring down your engagement rates, and so can using banned or irrelevant hashtags. There are several tools that help you identify and weed out spam followers as well as give you a list of relevant hashtags to use. So, clean up your account!
Check the best times to post: In your analytics dashboard, you will have information regarding when most of your followers are more active. If you post during that time, you are likely to get more engagement.
Look for trends: As a brand, if you want to stay relevant, you need to keep up with the latest trends. For example, if there is a new social media challenge going around, taking part in it by putting your own twist will get more people to engage with your content.
Looking for trends also means keeping up with the times. Sometimes, things just happen – like the pandemic – and certain industries slow down. So, if something like that is happening to you, sit tight till it passes. In the meantime, you can try to have real conversations with your followers and try to build your relationship.
Two other reasons your content may be stalling:
Instagram has changed its algorithm and standards.
#2 Experiment with different content strategies and track the results
One other problem could be the type of content itself. Take a look at your engagement rates and see which posts outperformed your expectations and which ones didn’t perform as well as you thought they would. It may be time to tweak the latter. What did the better performing posts have that the others lacked?
If you have only been posting a certain type of content, switch things up a bit!
Post different types of content and make them interactive: Make use of reels and stories to interact with your followers. You can take part in fun trends, start a new challenge, ask questions or post polls on your stories. Making brand-related memes is also a great option!
In short, do things that appeal to your audience. There are no limitations to the type of content you can create. Also include call-to-actions wherever possible.
Go live:Live streaming is a great way to interact with your audience in real-time and boost your engagement!
Host contests/ giveaways: Who doesn’t love free products, right? But instead of just asking people to like, follow, and comment, you can try to make the giveaway/ contest a little more fun and get people to really engage with your brand!
For example, if you are a clothing brand, you could ask your audience to create a new #OOTD look with their clothes and then select a few people as winners. This will raise awareness about your products as well. Don’t forget to use a dedicated hashtag!
Share user generated content: This is one of the best ways to boost your engagement and increase brand awareness. Even Starbucks does it!
You can host this as a limited-period campaign. Give your followers a theme and ask them to create content around it using a dedicated hashtag. You can feature a few favorites on your page and maybe even use it for your next advertising strategy (with their permission, of course).
Since this gives other content creators a chance to get featured on a brand page, you are likely to get a large number of participants.
Test everything and analyze the results: Analyze the results of your new content strategies and see how they are affecting your engagement. If they seem to be working? Great. Otherwise, try something else.
#3 Get feedback from your followers
The whole point of tweaking your content strategy is to get your followers to engage with your brand more. So, who better to ask for feedback than your followers themselves?
Ask them what kind of content that would like to see. Get suggestions from them for new products. You can even host some type of contest and invite the winners to take part in the creation process.
Bottom line: by getting feedback from your audience directly, you show them that you care about their opinions. This makes them feel valued, which, in turn, increases their rate of engagement with you. Of course, the important thing is to actually incorporate their suggestions as much as possible!
#4 Improve your Instagram SEO
Search engine optimization is not just for blogs. By improving your Instagram SEO, you increase your discoverability by ranking higher on lists. This will lead new people to find your brand.
Are your engagement rates falling while that of your competitors’ keeps increasing? That means they are doing something right; something that is missing in your own strategy.
Take a look at what they are doing differently from you. Obviously, you don’t want to copy their strategy. But you can use it to figure out what your target audience really wants. Then, incorporate this information into your own strategy and see if your results change.
Social media platforms and trends are ever changing. That means you need to periodically revisit your content strategy.
When your content stalls, the most important thing is to not panic. Use the tips above and try to figure out a solution. Eventually, you will get there!
Karina Gandola was born and raised outside the city of Charleston, in the beautiful mountain state of West Virginia. Karina loves writing about the influencer marketing space and an area she is passionate about. She considers her faith and family to be most important to her. If she isn’t spending time with her friends and family, you can almost always find her around her sweet yellow Labrador retriever, Poshna.
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If you plot the graph of social media engagement over time, it will NOT be a straight line. This is because engagement doesn’t just keep increasing constantly over time. There are going to be some days, some bad days, and some worse days when your content completely stalls.
So, what do you do when that happens? When, no matter what you do, your engagement just doesn’t seem to get better?
Read on to find out!
[Unsplash]
5 Things To Do When Your Content Stalls
You can’t really stop your content from stalling sometimes. But, there are things that you can do to try and get your engagement back on track again.
#1 Analyze your content strategy to find the problem
There are many reasons why your content could be stalling. But in order to find a solution, you need to diagnose the problem first. So, you need to head to your Instagram analytics dashboard and conduct a complete audit of your Instagram account as well as your content.
Understand your audience: Take stock of your follower demographics. What is the percentage of male versus female audience? What is the typical age range? For example, are most of your followers between 18-25 years old, or are they older?
This will help you revamp your content strategy according to your audience. If your message doesn’t align with the demographic, then your engagement will be low. For example, if you are targeting Gen Z folks, but most of your followers are millennials, it might be time to change some things.
Check your followers and hashtags: Fake followers can bring down your engagement rates, and so can using banned or irrelevant hashtags. There are several tools that help you identify and weed out spam followers as well as give you a list of relevant hashtags to use. So, clean up your account!
Check the best times to post: In your analytics dashboard, you will have information regarding when most of your followers are more active. If you post during that time, you are likely to get more engagement.
[Unsplash]
Look for trends: As a brand, if you want to stay relevant, you need to keep up with the latest trends. For example, if there is a new social media challenge going around, taking part in it by putting your own twist will get more people to engage with your content.
Looking for trends also means keeping up with the times. Sometimes, things just happen – like the pandemic – and certain industries slow down. So, if something like that is happening to you, sit tight till it passes. In the meantime, you can try to have real conversations with your followers and try to build your relationship.
Two other reasons your content may be stalling:
In these cases, you should focus on creating authentic content that resonates with your audience as Instagram places a lot of emphasis on that.
[Unsplash]
#2 Experiment with different content strategies and track the results
One other problem could be the type of content itself. Take a look at your engagement rates and see which posts outperformed your expectations and which ones didn’t perform as well as you thought they would. It may be time to tweak the latter. What did the better performing posts have that the others lacked?
If you have only been posting a certain type of content, switch things up a bit!
Post different types of content and make them interactive: Make use of reels and stories to interact with your followers. You can take part in fun trends, start a new challenge, ask questions or post polls on your stories. Making brand-related memes is also a great option!
In short, do things that appeal to your audience. There are no limitations to the type of content you can create. Also include call-to-actions wherever possible.
Go live: Live streaming is a great way to interact with your audience in real-time and boost your engagement!
[Unsplash]
Host contests/ giveaways: Who doesn’t love free products, right? But instead of just asking people to like, follow, and comment, you can try to make the giveaway/ contest a little more fun and get people to really engage with your brand!
For example, if you are a clothing brand, you could ask your audience to create a new #OOTD look with their clothes and then select a few people as winners. This will raise awareness about your products as well. Don’t forget to use a dedicated hashtag!
Share user generated content: This is one of the best ways to boost your engagement and increase brand awareness. Even Starbucks does it!
You can host this as a limited-period campaign. Give your followers a theme and ask them to create content around it using a dedicated hashtag. You can feature a few favorites on your page and maybe even use it for your next advertising strategy (with their permission, of course).
Since this gives other content creators a chance to get featured on a brand page, you are likely to get a large number of participants.
Test everything and analyze the results: Analyze the results of your new content strategies and see how they are affecting your engagement. If they seem to be working? Great. Otherwise, try something else.
#3 Get feedback from your followers
The whole point of tweaking your content strategy is to get your followers to engage with your brand more. So, who better to ask for feedback than your followers themselves?
Ask them what kind of content that would like to see. Get suggestions from them for new products. You can even host some type of contest and invite the winners to take part in the creation process.
[Unsplash]
Bottom line: by getting feedback from your audience directly, you show them that you care about their opinions. This makes them feel valued, which, in turn, increases their rate of engagement with you. Of course, the important thing is to actually incorporate their suggestions as much as possible!
#4 Improve your Instagram SEO
Search engine optimization is not just for blogs. By improving your Instagram SEO, you increase your discoverability by ranking higher on lists. This will lead new people to find your brand.
Here is a comprehensive guide on how to improve your Instagram SEO to boost your engagement.
#5 Look at what your competitors are doing
Are your engagement rates falling while that of your competitors’ keeps increasing? That means they are doing something right; something that is missing in your own strategy.
Take a look at what they are doing differently from you. Obviously, you don’t want to copy their strategy. But you can use it to figure out what your target audience really wants. Then, incorporate this information into your own strategy and see if your results change.
Social media platforms and trends are ever changing. That means you need to periodically revisit your content strategy.
When your content stalls, the most important thing is to not panic. Use the tips above and try to figure out a solution. Eventually, you will get there!