Increasing your engagement

Find the right channels for your audience

Instead of posting content across every digital space you find, consider which channels will be most relevant to your brand or business. It will take a bit of research and testing, but learning about your customers today will help you maximize your marketing campaigns tomorrow.

First, identify your target audience (age, gender, location, profession or skill level, income bracket, hobbies), then note which digital channels they spend the most time on. Are more conversations happening on Instagram or Twitter? Do you have more subscribers on YouTube or email? You can work on building engagement across multiple channels, but it helps to know where people naturally gravitate.

Second, define your marketing goals. Are you trying to raise awareness around a social cause? Drive traffic to your website? Build a social media following? Hit a weekly sales target? Think about your brand messaging and imagery to decide which channels are the best fit. Third, look at competitors in your industry to see where they invest their resources, from Facebook ads to blog posts to TikTok videos. Take your cues from brand leaders and look for gaps in their marketing channels where you might be able to gain new followers.

Finally, make sure your marketing strategy fits your budget and available resources. Content creation, web design, marketing software, and paid advertising are important costs to consider.

How to measure content engagement

If you want to grow your audience, measuring engagement is a must. In other words, keep track of who your content reaches and how they interact with it. A high follower count is good, but a highly interactive audience is even better.

Google Analytics, SproutSocial, and Constant Contact are some of the countless marketing tools designed to help you gather data on everything from branded emails to web traffic to social posts. Then it’s up to you to decide which metrics are worth monitoring.

You’re probably familiar with the most common measurements of engagement, such as likes, shares, re-tweets, and click-throughs. In general, comments and shares should be weighed higher than likes, because those interactions require more effort and are therefore more valuable when assessing the impact of your creative assets.

To build a truly positive brand experience, it pays to go beyond the basics. If you want to create content that ranks highly, start by looking at new users and overall traffic. If your goal is to drive revenue, you’ll be tracking sales transactions and conversions. Make a list of your brand goals to give you a sense of the metrics that matter.

What drives engagement on social media?

Video posts are one of the best ways to engage followers on social media. Tutorials, ads, motivational clips, webinars, behind the scenes clips. Videos are simply the fastest and most compelling way to connect and influence people, and it usually doesn’t cost to upload them. Why not add a few key strategies to your social marketing playbook?

1. Post regularly to build familiarity and monitor trends. Social media is a great medium for brand storytelling and developing customer rapport. Establish a number, theme, and time of day of your social posts each week, then see which ones perform the best.

2. Bring your content to life with animations. Moving images demand attention and stand out in a sea of visual assets. It’s easy to animate text or photos with Adobe Express and take your creative designs from so-so to stellar.

3. Create contests for ongoing excitement. Trivia, product giveaways, and sweepstakes are a fun way to introduce your brand, while surveys can offer a unique glimpse into your audience’s interests.

4. Format videos for social media on the go. Trimming, cropping, resizing, and converting videos for social posts is a breeze with Adobe Express. Now you’ll never miss a chance to connect with followers.

When you’re done posting, go back to the data. Reach, impressions, audience growth rate, branded hashtags, and tagged mentions can be great indicators of social engagement.

What drives engagement over email?

While delivering emails to subscribers is a real accomplishment, it won’t make an impact unless your audience is motivated to open or click through. As you build your subscriber list, make sure you are leveraging your messaging and visual content to boost engagement.

1. Revamp your email design. Today’s internet users quickly scroll and scan until something catches their eye, so choose an email format that is simple, clean, and easy to read. For inspiration, check out our collection of high-quality templates and design elements curated from Adobe's community of professional designers.

2. Increase email personalization to connect with subscribers. Setting up an email preference center allows people to select the kind of content they want to receive. When subscribers have control over email frequency and content, they’re more likely to stay engaged.

3. Create a newsletter with enticing visuals and headlines. Round up three to five of your best videos, images, or blog posts into a monthly email, then label each section with a snappy title or brief caption.

Get in the habit of monitoring email insights to see who responds to each email, and how various images, links, videos, and CTA buttons perform. The main performance indicators for emails are open rate, click-through rate, and click-to-open rate.