If we’ve already reached the point where we’re doing our internship placements, it means that we have thought up and designed countless campaign ideas whether it’s for tutorial activities or done as part of our university assessments. We learn so much about what, how, when, where, why we should do certain things to encourage engagement on social media. However, in reality, it isn’t that easy. It is especially so when you are working for a relatively new and smaller company that doesn’t have that much of a reach or audience yet. And, I learned that the hard way.

I currently intern under a company that has a food delivery project. It has a whole app and everything. And while the app functions just fine, the on their social media platform is less than ideal. When I just entered, I was told that their team had only been posting for the sake of posting without any regards to how the algorithm works and without any purpose whatsoever. So when they brought me in as an intern along with another permanent employee who became the Head of Marketing, they wanted to make some serious effort on improving their social media efforts.

As a PR intern with no real world experience, it was quite intimidating yet exciting to take on this task. So, I constantly asked myself what I could do in my three months here at this company. As time went on, we tried a variety of ideas. We used memes, we have a series featuring local culinary favourites, and we also came up with a few giveaways in hopes to improve engagement but not everything has gone as great as we had hoped

Of course, it is a huge bummer when things don’t work out but it is also a learning opportunity. And, a moment for us to really think deeply into what and how we can do better or where it all went wrong. So, here are the things that I learned while trying to figure out how to improve engagement on social media:

 

1. UNDERSTAND YOUR AUDIENCE

This first point here is the basic of all basics of PR. As our job is all about communication, it is extremely crucial for us to understand the kind of audience we are trying to reach out to. You probably think that it’s such a given that there isn’t even a need to say that it’s something we will learn during our internship. However, I’ve come to realise that understanding your audience is easier said than done.

Think back to what your company does. What kind of products or services does it offer? Then, remember that these products or services are the main reason why your audience follows you on social media. Therefore, the campaigns that you come up with cannot be too far-fetched from your Brand’s image.

Evaluate the kind of audiences that you have. Are they active or passive? Perhaps, try posting simple poll of sorts to gauge how willing your audiences are to simply take the time to tap a response. If not many engage, it is likely that your audiences are passive. So if they are the passive type, you REALLY need to get into their heads.

Think like a psychological expert. Think about how certain things could make your audience feel or how they could react to it. And ask yourself, ‘What kind of community does your audience reside in?’ ‘What does that community value?’ For example, if it is a community that is addicted to bubble milk tea, perhaps that can be the attraction to your upcoming social media campaign.

In short, think like your audience and understand who you are, what do people want/expect from you, and how can you deliver it to them while achieving your goals.

 

2. THE PLATFORM MATTERS

Not everyone uses the same or all social media platforms to consume content on a day-to-day basis. So depending on the platform that you are on, you may need to cater to a specific age group or demographic. You cannot expect a campaign that performs extremely well on Instagram to perform the exact same on Facebook.

First of all, you have to keep the purpose of the platform in mind. For example, Instagram is a platform that emphasises photo sharing and video sharing. Visuals are important on this platform so campaigns should highlight the purpose of the platform as well (in order to fully utilise the features). Second of all, you have to understand on different platforms, there are different kinds of audiences as well. For example, in Miri (where I am working), younger people between 15 to mid early 20s typically use Instagram while older people in their late 20s to 40s use Facebook. On top of that, Malaysia being a multilingual country, the language that we use on our posts (depending on the platform) can also largely affect the engagement as well.

For instance, if you launch a photo contest on Twitter account when you audiences are mainly on Facebook and Twitter is used main as a microblogging platform for short texts, you’re pretty much setting yourself up for failure.

Be smart about what kind of content or campaign you launch on the specific platforms. Be sure to keep them aligned with the purpose of the platform and the expectations or demands of your audience.

 

3. MAKE IT EASY

People have very little time and mindfulness to spare when they are scrolling through their social media platforms. You need to either be worthy of their time, not take up too much of their time at all or BOTH. We should know. We do it ALL the time (albeit unconsciously).

Make it easy for your audience to interact with your content. For example, you can start out with regular polls. Then an occasional question or quiz. Sometimes you need to ease your audience into being used to interacting with you.

Engagement campaigns are best when entry requirements are simple, straightforward, and quick to do. Making things too complicated only scares people off or turn them off even if the prize is something they’d want.

We need to make our audiences think, “How hard can this be?” to just engage with this post this one time over and over and over again.

 

4. GO THE EXTRA MILE

Since you will be working with your company, it doesn’t hurt to go the extra mile for them. Whether it’s doing extra research after work or searching for inspiration and knowledge, it’s never a bad thing to do a little bit more than you are obligated to. For instance, in the case of boosting engagements going the extra mile could mean getting people around you to engage with the campaign.

For example, you can get your friends and family involved whenever there is a campaign. They are your closest and biggest supporters and when people see that there are others joining or participating in the campaign, it may encourage them to do the same. However, if you never ask them to help you, they likely wouldn’t even know how to help you.

Other than that, you could ask people around the office to participate in the campaign as well. Since you are all working for the same company, it makes sense for them (even if they’re from different departments) to help each other out.

It may seem like a tedious and unnecessary thing to do but it can could like cause the chain of events that lead to a boost in unique engagements with the campaign. Remember that if you know people, it means people know people and people who know people would know people. Be the reason for the Butterfly Effect on your engagement boosts! (But remember to ask people respectfully and not push them if they don’t want to.)

—

All in all, remember what you learned in class and really dig deep into the basics of PR when searching for the best options and solutions to our company’s communication goals.

That is all from me for now. I hope this post can help a fellow classmateout! Stay safe everyone.

With love,
Lanny.