Being present on social media is essential but not enough. Don’t underestimate the importance of social engagement. Even though the rules of the digital world change pretty fast, there are some main strategies that always lead to a healthy social engagement.

In the past, being present on social media was enough to put you in front of your competitors. Those days are gone. Today, the vast majority of the companies have social media accounts where they post content on a regular basis. However, not all of them understand the importance of social engagement. They keep “talking” on the social media but not “listening.” They are not paying attention to what people are saying and thinking about them. This is a huge mistake which eventually leads to reputation loss. Luckily though, there are some strategies that might help you to build and maintain a healthy social engagement with your customers. Here are 4 of them:

1. Know What People Think About Your Brand

The very first step to establishing a healthy social engagement is social media monitoring. You have to know what people are saying on social media about your brand. Are they happy with your products and services? Is there a pattern in their likes and dislikes to your posts?

Remember that it doesn't matter what you say. What matters is what people understand. Social media monitoring and social listening allows you to know what people think about your brand. You need to use them.

If you are new to social monitoring, you can look for a free solution that allows you to keep track of certain keywords and hashtags. Some social media management tools offer simple and free features to do so. You can manually read the posts about your brand and see what people are thinking about you.

2. Keep in Mind That Engagement is a Two-Way Street

Social engagement is a form of relationship. It has two ends: You and your customers. Imagine that you are in a romantic relationship where your partner does all the talking, doesn’t listen to you at all and doesn’t engage in a meaningful way. You would start to think that you are in a toxic relationship which benefits only one partner and you’d feel exploited, wouldn’t you? There would be no reason to stay in that relationship.

The same principle applies to the relationship between brands and customers. First you have to listen. Pay close attention to the mentions to your accounts. Then start bounding with people who posted them. Like their posts when they try to tell you and other people how much they enjoy using your products and services. Even retweet and repost them. This will make them feel heard. Don’t limit yourself with the mentions though. Track specific hashtags and keywords to find out who is talking about you without mentioning your username, and approach them with the same principle: Take a step to bound with them.

Once you know more about people who are talking about you, it gets easier to decide what kind of language you should use when answering them. Of course, having a certain voice for your social media accounts is essential, but since social engagement is a two-way street, you need to make some adjustments to the language you use when engaging with others. If you need some help with social listening, you can always use more complex and professional social monitoring tools.

3. Accept That Timing is Almost as Important as the Content

Are you aware of the fact that every second, around 6,000 tweets are posted on Twitter (http://www.internetlivestats.com/twitter-statistics/) . Not to mention Facebook, Instagram and the other social media platforms. So yes, it’s pretty chaotic out there on social media and it’s not easy to be able to heard with all that noise. You need a solid strategy.

The content is still the king. The most important thing is what you post online. What you have to say. However, with all the chaos going on online (plus the constantly changing algorithms of social media channels regarding which posts to show first), when to post your content is now almost as important as the content. You have to schedule your posts. If you’re just starting, Social Flow might be a useful tool for you. What it does basically is that thanks to its advanced algorithm, it monitors the audience on the social media and based on the real-time trends, it tells what kind of content is likely to attract more attention and publishes your queued content when the timing is right.

Using automated scheduling has its risks though. You wouldn’t want to tell people about your latest campaign if a disaster had just happened and it’s the only thing people are talking about. So, even if you use scheduling tools for your posts, it might be wise to turn the “approve” function on, so you have the last word before publishing something.

4. Solve Your Customers’ Problems as Soon as Possible

Even if you had the best product ever, you wouldn’t be able to make everyone happy. There will always be some complaints. No matter how fair or unfair they are, if you want to establish and maintain a healthy social engagement, you need to deal with criticism the best way you can. The way to do is to design a good customer complaint management system.

If you are serious about solving your customers’ problems as soon as possible, using a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tool is the way to go. These tools help you track the issues raised by your customers in one digital channel so you can act on it. You can engage with the customer through the same channel if you wish, or you can reach out to them over an email, phone call or live chat so you can resolve the problem in private. You’d be surprised to see how many people are willing to turn their feedbacks into positive from negative just by being reached and heard.

All of these strategies are essential for a healthy social engagement. They might seem too complicated to apply at first but investing in a good social media monitoring and engagement tool might help you a lot.

Give Monitera a Try

One of the best available tools for social media monitoring and engagement is Monitera. Having a 10-year experience, Monitera monitors, analyzes in depth and reports on more than 400 thousand digital channels including online news portals, blogs, social dictionaries, complaint portals and forums in addition to social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube. It also has a management center where you can carry out your brand's social customer relations management (Social CRM) functions in a practical and secure manner.

You can request a demo and see if Monitera is the right tool for you and your company.