11 Social Media Posting Tricks to Get Views, Shares, Clicks and More!

Let's explore some of these ideas to get those followers, likes, shares, views, and clicks skyrocketing! 

1. Start with a goal

To get started for every post, make sure you have a goal. What do you want the post to do? What action do you want your audience to take? How do your individual post goal and audience action align with your larger marketing strategy? When optimizing your post for the most engagement, make sure that what you say, show, and give away aligns with the goal and response you are driving from your target audience.

2. Make sure your profile is complete

This is an opportunity to showcase your brand and be clear on what your audience can expect from you. Make it clear what you and your page are about so that you attract and retain the right audience. Include keywords in any descriptions which will help you get found in social media search results but also allows your audience to quickly scan to understand what you and your page are about. If you are a company that primarily services a local market, add your location to get found in local search results.

3. Create valuable content

Don't forget your audience and why you are in business in the first place. Your customers have needs or desires they are trying to fulfill. You have a solution, a product or service that solves their problems that stand in the way of fulfilling their needs. Stay focused on your area of expertise and continue using your social posts to educate, inform and drive action with your target audience.

4. Add a photo or image

Your posts will stand out with exciting and catchy pictures or images.  The types of images or photos to garner the best results will differ by the social media platform. You must test different pictures and images for each platform to understand what works best for your audience. Remember to include a photo or image; make sure it is relevant to your copy and strive for something that stands out.

5. Add hashtags

Hashtags (#) are used as keyword phrases on social media posts to help those interested in topics easily find posts and content. They are more effective on Twitter and Instagram than other social media platforms. 

To find the best hashtags, consider the keywords you use throughout your content strategy to gain visibility with your target audience. Look at what key groups or influencers in your business category or industry are using as hashtags since they have likely researched to pick the best hashtags to be searchable. There are also tools like Rite Tag, Hashtagify.me, and Keyhole offer hashtag suggestions.

6. Make sure you have "get messages" turned on

For the platforms with direct messaging, ensure you have messaging enabled if you want visitors to be able to chat directly with you when they are engaging with your posts. This will allow you to instantly message audience members taking action on your posts. Make sure to thank those taking action and offer more opportunities to engage with you, like signing up for your newsletter or sharing more materials you have on the topic they engaged in while on your post.

7. Give a call to action

Since you have your audience's attention, give them an action to take.  Allow them to sign up for your newsletter or share a link to your website with ways to continue learning more about the topic in your post. Give your audience the feeling of exclusivity by allowing them to sign up to be notified about an event or offer you will be communicating soon. 

Be specific with the action you want your audience to take. Do you want your visitor to visit a website, sign up for your newsletter or enter your contest. Tell them exactly what you want them to do. Also, make your CTA easy for your audience. Reduce the clicks and steps they need to take to complete the action. Also, don’t be afraid to ask your audience to share your content with their network. Don’t assume that they know to do this or are thinking to do this even if they enjoy your posts. Explicitly ask your audience to share your content with their network.

8. Grab attention with headlines

Along with your image or picture; the headline is likely the next best thing your audience will notice about your post. This will determine if they decide to take further action or move on. Using numbers, creating a sense of FOMO (fear of missing out), and highlighting your offer are a few ideas to help your headline stand out. 

9. Post at the right time for your audience

This will take some testing, but pay attention to your post metrics to get an idea of what day and time work best by social media channel to post your content so that you get the most engagement. You want to post when your audience is most engaged on social media. 

10. Ask your audience a question

Ask your audience to respond to a question about a topic. Think about a question where the answers will be helpful to your audience. What results could be shared that can give your audience ideas or even help them commiserate with each other so that they don't feel alone in tackling a problem? When your audience responds, their network can see their responses and even engage in the discussion or at least get exposure to your brand and content.

11. Track your metrics often

Each social media platform has metrics you can manage within the platforms, or you can use a central social media scheduling and management tool to aggregate data across platforms.  But it is essential to understand your metrics on each platform because what works for one might not work for another. You'll need to start with a plan and then look at metrics often to adjust if you aren't seeing the results you are targeting.

Slow and steady wins the race

Building a following and driving engagement on social media channels are challenging. It takes time and patience. But following steps to ensure you are doing all the right things to optimize every post and watching metrics to see what works best for your audience will help you steadily increase engagement and build your following. Increasing engagement across social media channels will help you achieve your broader brand awareness and demand generation goals.