Are you struggling to keep your social media following engaged with your content?
Do you feel like you’re spending so much time actually creating content but aren’t actually getting the type of engagement you really want?
If I had to guess one reason, it’s probably because of your lack of consistency with your posting schedule.
The reason?
It’s hard to build trust and engagement with an audience when you don’t produce high-quality content on a regular basis. I know because I’ve been guilty of this inconsistency as well.
When you’re building an online business, sometimes it’s easy to push off creating new content to focus on you building out a product or spend time with your existing clients. But to retain and grow an engaged audience, you need to put out high-quality content like your business depends on it. Because it actually does.
If you don’t, then you’ll have a lower engagement rate and have a hard time growing your income or impact. Luckily, there are plenty of ways to stay consistent and keep your audience craving more of your epic content.
I talk about how to keep an audience engaged in this Youtube video.
How to Keep An Engaged Audience
Here are my best tips to keep an engaged audience, build your tribe, and grow your following on social media.
Create Content Regularly
The old saying, “Content is king” is as true today as it’s ever been. Everyone is producing content on every social media platform. But to stand out amongst the crowd, you need to create content that solves a problem for your audience.
Remember, as an entrepreneur, you’re nothing more than an expert problem solver in your specific niche. To help people with their issues, your content should:
- Remind them of a problem that they need to address.
- Then create 10-15 ideas that bring up the problem and give them an answer.
- Recycle the content on different platforms with bite-sized answers. This could include videos on Instagram, Facebook Live or blog content.
Create an Expectation for Your Audience
Once you know the type of content to focus on, then you need to create an expectation of when and where your content comes out. Consistency builds trust with your audience. And trust will lead to buyers and a more loyal following. But if you only show up once a week on Instagram or once a month on Youtube, followers might begin to doubt your commitment.
Create a Content Schedule
One of the ways I’ve found helpful to stay consistent with new content is to create a schedule and plan everything in advance. Otherwise, it’s easy to not publish stories on Instagram, engage with people on Facebook or publish a post on LinkedIn.
Whatever platform you’re using, you need a content schedule in advance. And if you’re focusing on more than one, which most of you are, it’s even more important to have a content calendar.
Having difficulties coming up with content for your blog? Use my FREE content calendar tool to help you! Just click the button to download it instantly.
Focus on One Platform
Once you have your content calendar created, it’s time to focus on which platform you want to use most. One thing I see so many entrepreneurs do is to try to appear on every platform all at once. One day you’re on Snapchat, the next day you’re on Instagram, and the next day you’re posting on Youtube.
Be careful of the Gary Vee syndrome of posting everywhere all the time. Remember, if you see big entrepreneurs posting all over and being fully omnipresent, it’s because they have a content team that is editing and producing it all. If you’re a solopreneur or startup, this content creation model isn’t going to last.
While I understand you want to have content all over, it’s better to start with one platform and go all in. While it’ll be different for every business, I think in general, Instagram has the most potential to consistently post content. You can link to your other content, share on a regular basis, and give people a behind the scenes look into your life.
Why You Should Focus on One Platform At a Time
The main reason to focus on one platform is to avoid burning out. Burning out leads to not posting anywhere and thus, not growing your following or keeping the current ones engaged.
By focusing on one platform, you are reminding followers that you are there for them. At a subconscious level, they’ll begin to recognize your posts and start to associate you with being an expert and someone who is there for them. Plus, it makes it way easier for you to stick to one platform and go all in instead of five different ones.
Batch Your Content
So, what’s the easiest way to create content for your calendar?
My recommendation … batching.
Batching makes things so much easier to stay in the zone and produce a ton of content at once.
For example, I hire a video team to come out once a quarter to L.A. and shoot all of my content for the next three months. Even if you don’t have a team or can’t afford this yet, you can still use the batching process.
You could record all of your podcasts for the month in a few days. You could write all of your blogs in a few days. Or, you could shoot 30 Instagram videos in a few hours to have awesome content for an entire month.
Find how you can best start batching content to help yourself stay consistent.
Automate, Automate, Automate
If you’re a solopreneur or someone who has a small team, automation is essential to growth. You need to focus on building systems to make it easily repeatable and scalable.
For example, you could film all your content on Tuesdays and edit it all on Wednesdays. And on Thursday, you could schedule it out using an automated scheduler. Use services like Buffer, Hootsuite or something else to get your content published for the entire week each Sunday.
Get Help
If you’re feeling overwhelmed and can’t seem to find a scalable process to automate your content, you should look into hiring a social media manager or virtual assistant. VA’s are usually much cheaper than a social media manager and can help with small tasks that take up your precious time as an entrepreneur.
My recommendation?
Outsource the tasks you hate doing.
If you’re in startup mode, your time is valuable. While it costs money to hire people, it’s still worth it as you can make more money staying in your zone of genius.
Remember to get my FREE content calendar tool if you are having difficulties coming up with content for your blog. Just click the button to download it instantly!
Final Thoughts
Remember this… If you want to keep an audience engaged, the most important rule is to stay consistent with your content. Consistency builds trust, and trust will help you monetize your following in the future.
The easiest way to stay consistent is to focus on one platform and go all in. One you find that platform, find ways to batch, automate, and schedule your content with an easy to follow content calendar.
I’m sure in no time you’ll keep an audience engaged and start to grow your social media!
