What is community engagement and why should you do it?

Community engagement is fun and yet probably the most time-consuming task you might do when building your social media following. It's the task of actually engaging with your community.

Yes, that’s not just 'liking' but engaging with your followers! You might do this by leaving meaningful comments, asking questions, responding to stories, and so on.

Why do we do this?

Connecting with other profiles helps to increase engagement overall and on your posts. It’s the idea that if you engage with your followers, they are then more likely to engage back whenever YOU post. This is because you have created a connection and they want to interact back, similar to that of a new friend.

Now this one goes both ways. If someone comments on your post or sends you a DM, you must respond! Just think, someone has taken the time to not only read your caption but also share their thoughts. After all of that effort, it’s imperative you reach back out to them and respond. Even if it's just a fun emoji! 🤠

As your account starts to grow and you start receiving more and more comments, you may not be able to respond to everyone. But at this stage, no one expects you to. And if you do, people absolutely adore it! There are large companies that have dedicated people for this task and they respond to Every. Single. Comment. Yes, I know, this sounds daunting when you have thousands of comments but this simple 'albeit time-consuming' action can skyrocket your growth. It's really up to you at the end of the day on how much time and marketing budget you want to spend on this.

So, how much time should we spend?

For any social media platform, our golden rule is a minimum of 30 minutes to 1 hour a day. This way you can respond to as many comments and DM's (direct messages) as possible and if you still have time, reach out to your followers and engage with them. Just think, the more time you spend, the higher your engagement and growth will be so the more the merrier with this marketing activity.

If you think you would like specialist help with your Social Media accounts or want us to take over your community engagement, send us an email at hello@thesocialdeli.co