For modern brands with an online presence, strong social media engagement is a sign that you’re making an impact in the market.

It’s not just about looking popular: it’s about making meaningful connections with current and future customers, which will serve to boost your brand (and ROI) both on and offline.

Read on for the ultimate guide to building, managing, and measuring social media engagement and all its business benefits.

What is social media engagement?

Social media engagement is the measurement of comments, likes, and shares.

Of course you want to rack up your followers, but ultimately, the greatest measure of social media success is an engaged audience, not just a big one.

As a business, it’s quality, not just quantity, that you should be striving for.

Imagine you threw a party, and tons of people showed up, but they all just sat there silently. No small talk, no dancing, no conversations, no questionable drinking games. Was the party really a success? The RSVP list looks good, sure, but did your guests have fun? Do they like your dip?

Activity and engagement is crucial for every social platform to build a positive brand experience, and develop meaningful relationships with new and potential future customers.

Weighing the options between organic vs paid social media? We’ll save you some legwork: you’re probably going to want to do a bit of both.

Paid and organic social are different beasts best harnessed for different goals. But for a holistic approach that balances awareness with conversion, it pays off to know the pros and cons of each.

If you’re new to paid social, 2020 is an interesting time to get started. Confinement during the pandemic has people using social media more all over the world. But at the same time, ad spend isn’t keeping up. The major social networks are reporting some ups and downs in their revenues as many brands pause their advertising, either to save money during an economic downturn, or to take a moral stance against hate speech.

It’s a complicated time, but the silver lining is that there’s evidence ad prices are trending lower. For instance, Facebook’s CPC went down from 11 cents to 9 between January and March alone. Just a year before that, Hootsuite’s own numbers had CPC averaging around 40 cents.

Social media in higher education has become an essential chapter in almost every institution’s playbook. According to our research, 98% of schools use social media across campus.

Why? There’s a lot of value for schools to unlock on social media. Universities now take to social to recruit budding scholars, promote school spirit, and raise fundraiser dollars.

But there’s more to social media in higher education than marketing. These platforms also serve as essential communications channels.

With so much at stake, it’s a lot for higher education social media teams to manage. Not to mention the colossal task of supporting a vast international community across numerous channels. That’s why it’s imperative to have the right strategy, tools, and support in place so teams can use social media to its full potential.