Tried and true methods for increasing your social engagement.
Keep your camera steady, people scroll quickly when they feel queasy. If you're speaking directly to the camera, use an Octobuddy or phone stand.
Have good lighting - natural lighting is best.
Use a microphone for narration and speaking videos.
If you are a local business, use weather content wisely. Longer videos work well on colder days when people are inside. Shorter energetic videos work well on warm days. Make your content relatable to your area, such as a patio video on the first nice days of Spring.
Make sure your music isn’t too loud and safe for work - a lot of people use headphones and don’t need music blasting.
Do a good job when editing, try different styles of edits, but keep it easy to watch and listen to. Not too many jump edits and if you are panning, do it slowly and anchor your elbow into your side for a smoother pan.
Always create your own captions - the auto-generated captions are not reliable. Captions keep the viewer on longer than having no captions.
Time sensitive content - time your posts according to your estimate of your follower’s moods and post videos around their interests. Spring fashion when it’s warm, brunch videos early in the morning. Cocktail videos later in the week.
Edit out any dragging parts to your video, write a script for your narration video, so you sound confident. If you are whispering when narrating, tell your viewers why. Maybe you are editing late at night, it gives the viewer context into your day. Cut out the umms, and stutters. Delete that millennial pause before the video.
Continuity - tell people it’s a two part video right from the start and let them know you will have an update coming soon. There’s nothing worse than viewers feeling shorted because you click baited them.
Remember you are always accountable to your audience, you can say it’s your page and tell viewers to scroll past if you don’t like your page, but if you listen to viewer’s feedback and make changes when comments are critical, your efforts will be appreciated. It’s really not your page, it’s your viewer’s page, their views make your page happen. Your page is about their interests, not yours.
Add viewer comments to your videos, this is such a great way to engage with your audience and it shows you care about your followers. It’s also a great way to get more views on the comment video. When people are scrolling your comments and see another video in the comments, it’s highly likely they will stay on your page.
Your social profiles are all about giving back to your followers. Let them know you see them, answer or like comments, engage with comments, if they have content ideas, make videos that they want to see. Look at the likes on comments too to help create content around them.
Let people have their opinion, deleting comments is horrible for growth. If people want to be critical, let them. Your fans will stick up for you in the comments, and the more interesting the comment section is, the more people will keep reading comments and keep the video playing. Social media is not for the faint of heart!
If you remove comments and block haters, you are giving free platforms like Reddit all of your viewership. You'll get a snark page when you block people and/or delete comments on your posts, let them snark on your page, it’s higher engagement.
Never clap back, keep posting, and acknowledge haters if they are making a valid point. Your fan base will leave when you clap back, and it will fuel haters even more, inviting even more negative comments. Your fan base can clap back, but don't instigate anything by liking their comments. Post and stay out of the fray.
Increase your watch times and enjoy all of the benefits of being popular.
