Managing social media daily requires to find new ideas and ways to catch your audience’s attention. Luckily, social media platforms are regularly launching new features that you can take advantage of.
If you’re looking to increase social media engagement, check out these 3 experiment ideas!
Run a LinkedIn Poll
Following the footsteps of Twitter, LinkedIn launched earlier this year its polls feature.
It’s a nice way to get insights from your network. As users just have to click instead of writing, it usually generates more feedback than when you’re asking for comments.
You can leverage this tool to :
- Run a survey: polls allow to make a survey quite easily and share the results. A few months ago, I ran one about the most used messaging apps during the confinement. I got 49 answers, including many people from my 2nd or 3rd degree network. I then shared the results in the post below.
- Initiate conversation: one of the best parts is that you can see individual results. You will access a “Message” button next to each respondent’s name, encouraging you to start a conversation. A trend I’ve seen is polls with 2 options (Yes or No), inviting users to complete their answer with a comment.
- Adjust your content: polls are an opportunity to better know your audience and their preferences. For example, you can ask what is their favorite topic for your next article, or which format they prefer (article, video, newsletter…).
Polls can be created from personal profiles, company pages or groups, by clicking on “Start a post” and “Create a poll”. It’s possible to add up to 4 options and set the duration to 1 day, 3 days, 1 week or 2 weeks.
Publish a Reels on Instagram
Reels are a relatively new feature of Instagram. It allows you to create short clips of 15 or 30 seconds, with multiple shots.
It includes a few editing features: speed, music… It’s actually similar to TikTok’s clips. When you know the popularity of this platform, it’s no surprise that Instagram follows the trend.
You will create Reels from the Stories section of Instagram, but you can also post it as regular posts. This new format is a nice way to do video editing on-the-go.
You can use this feature in many ways: introduce a new product, shoot a “behind-the-scenes” video, publish short interviews…
Usually, the new formats get a better reach to encourage their adoption. A selection of Reels appears at the top of the Explore section. If yours gets featured, it will give you extra reach.
Instagram is testing a standalone Reels tab, replacing the current Explore one. If this change is globally rolled out, it will strengthen the importance of this format on Instagram.
Join a Twitter Chat
Have you already heard about Twitter chats? It’s a discussion via a dedicated hashtag. Attendees answer questions from the host and share insights with other users.
It takes advantage of the interactivity and openness of Twitter: anyone can join by searching the hashtag.
Joining a Twitter Chat can be a great way to share your insights and connect with new people. If you stay active during the full chat, you will see a high increase of engagement on your account.
Here are some of my favorite Twitter chats:
- #CMWorld hosted by Content Marketing Institute. It discusses trends and strategies of content marketing.
- #RCChat hosted by RingCentral (the company I work at). It discusses customer care, remote work and unified communications.
- #SMTLive hosted by Social Media Today, discussing social media news and best practices.
To find more ideas, you can use a website like Tweet Reports that indexes Twitter Chats by topic.
Social media is a competitive landscape and is changing quickly. Keeping up to date with new features and experimenting can help you stand out. Adopting these new formats early can boost your visibility, so don’t wait to try!