7 ways social media managers boost organic engagement – without using clickbait  

How social media managers leverage their content to boost organic engagement without using clickbait.

What does organic engagement look like on social media?

Social media engagement is generally considered to be any active interaction that your audiences have with your posts and content. Some general examples of this are: 

• commenting,
• reacting (eg. with a “like”),
• sharing,
• taking part in a poll.

More passive forms of engagement, such as clicking on comment threads or clicking through an entire Instagram story could also be considered engagement, depending on how you measure a post’s success. 

When social media professionals talk about users engaging organically, they usually mean

• engagement from authentic users – not bots –
• engagement that occurs without paying to promote or “boost” the post.

From the outside, organic engagement can look effortless. But a lot of work goes in to making it a success.  

Why is organic engagement on social media important?

Companies – no matter how big or small – can and should use social media to create an image that’s distinctively recognizable. Creating more engagement is the ultimate key to growing your image on social media.

Organic engagement influences the algorithm – and vice versa
Algorithms across all platforms reward accounts that generate lots of organic engagement – whether you’re creating long-form video content on YouTube or memes and one-liners on Twitter. It works like a snowball effect: The more clicks and comments, the more visibility your page or channel will gain.

7 tips to boost organic engagement

Rheindigital’s team of social media gurus have put together some tips to help you optimize your content and increase organic engagement. 

What´s wrong with using clickbait?
Exaggerating the benefits of a new offer or misrepresenting what your product can do might help you get attention and clicks in the short term. But go too far with it, and users will stop engaging with you all together. Social media audiences are becoming more and more savvy, increasingly able to spot clickbait when they see it. Be engaging but don’t make promises you can’t keep.

Tip 1: Use interesting visuals, spark curiosity

Brands on social media should create posts that are of interest for their target audience and give them a reason to keep following the brand. One way to get people interested is by designing 

• charts,
• infographics, and 
• maps with statistics or interesting facts. 

If they look interesting enough, these posts will capture your audience’s attention and hold it for longer than a plain text post containing the same information. The more time spent looking at a post, the more you increase the opportunity for your audience to develop an opinion on the subject matter. This in turn will increase the likelihood of them engaging with your post, whether by leaving a comment or reacting in other ways, or even sharing the post with their own followers.  

Tip 2: Hold your followers´attention with video

Countless recent reports and studies show that posts with video generate a lot more organic engagement than posts without them. Video isn’t going anywhere – it’s quickly becoming the new backbone of social media.

Clean animations or videos with a professional finish can be expensive to produce. Depending on your brand and audience, videos with a touch of user -generated quality might work better. 

Consider

• your corporate design guidelines,
• your channel’s compliance rules,
• your proven brand image, 
• your target group’s expectations,
• and your motion design team’s creativity. 

Download tip: Video is such a huge megatrend right now – just take a look at our white paper, “The must-haves for any business website”.

Get more engagement by offering spontaneous, authentic video content
Audiences are now more accustomed than ever to “spontaneous” video content that has become widely popularized across all social platform thanks to TikTok, largely because it is perceived by users as being more authentic. This type of video is a lot less expensive to produce and adds great value to social media platforms, allowing you to communicate more personally with your audiences.

Tip 3: Use storytelling to get people invested in you

Building a narrative around your company, your team and your values will get your audience caring about the business. No matter how corporate your brand’s image is, there is no reason to act ‘cool’ on social media.  

Plan a strategy around the people and values that make up your company. Use them to guide how you communicate. Did a member of your team achieve a big professional milestone? Did you recently work on an interesting project that you’re proud of? Show your audience! The more they know about you, the more they’ll want to know.

Tip 4: Be funny on social media – just not offensive

It’s always refreshing when brands can find the right balance between being funny and trying too hard. You don’t have to be an expert comedian to be a successful social media creative. Yet striking the right tone with your audience is crucial when building a strong brand image that users can engage with in a positive way and, of course, remember. 

If you’re running a business account on social media, it’s best to stay away from self-deprecating humor or trying to shock your audience with borderline offensive jokes. Think first about what your brand’s message is and how you can give your brand a voice that people can relate to.

Insider tip: Yownload our free white paper “Build an authentic brand image on Facebook and get the best-value clicks on your ads”. You’ll get lots of information on how to align your creativity with compliance rules on social media.

Tip 5: Create a company hashtag for social media

Another way to strengthen your company image on social media is to come up with a unique company hashtag. Whether it’s on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, or TikTok a short hashtag that sums up your company’s mission will go a long way to help with brand recognition. What’s more, it shows your social audiences that you’re a strong team.

Tip 6: There’s no such thing as an all-purpose social media manager

Companies and recruitment managers often assume that all social media managers have the same set of skills or that those skills can be applied to every platform. But if your company is big enough, managing one or two platforms can easily be a full-time job. 

An Instagram expert won’t necessarily also be able to strike the right tone and manage B2B clients on LinkedIn. Someone with a great knack for reaching users on TikTok won’t necessarily be able to create long-form content and manage a YouTube channel.  

We always suggest making sure you have the right expertise for the platforms you want to focus on. Basically, think about what platforms most attract your target audience and look for suitable talent, whether you want experienced LinkedIn copywriters or Instagram creatives, who know how – and when – to follow the latest trends. 

Tip 7: Keep your content up to date

Last but not least, remember that social media is not a one-off project, but one that requires constant upkeep. Across the board, algorithms reward pages that post regularly. Whether that’s once a day, twice a week, or even once every two weeks.  

No matter how many hours and resources you spend building a large and – in the best case – engaged following on social media, it will all be wasted if you suddenly go months without posting anything. 

As long as you make social media a priority, you’ll keep benefiting from the voice it gives your business.    

Read more on this topic (blog posts in German):

Read this article in German

Rheindigital’s tips for copywriting on social media (German) 

User-generated content in marketing (German) 

How to find the right hashtag (German)