Your social media channels will only go and grow so far without engaging with your audience. We all know how clever [or frustrating?] the algorithms can be when it comes to showing/not showing your content to your followers, but one sure fire way to help with this is to make sure you're engaged. Yes, this will make you 'more attractive' to the good old algorithms, but it's a brilliant, tried and tested way to help turn your audience into a community. Not sure how or where to start? These are our 10 tips...

This may seem simplistic when it comes to engagement on social media, but it’s such a powerful tool. It allows your followers to feel seen and heard and it’s a great opportunity to spark conversation and, in turn, build a community.

Remember, subscribers can now comment directly underneath your content [both on-demand and live] on your WithMe platform, so make sure you're replying to these too.

You’ve probably seen the quotes, re-purposed tweets, and graphics doing the rounds on social media and it doesn’t look like they’re going out of fashion anytime soon. They’re simple to make but we love to share them, so find your favourites and post them in-between your ‘regular’ content and you might even find this will help boost your following, too!

It’s not going to be possible, or as easy, to reach your audience and therefore engage with them if you’re not reaching them when they’re most active. Take the time to work out when your audience are online the most and post consistently at this time to boost your chances of grabbing their attention. Remember, this could vary throughout the week but if you’ve got a 'business' account on IG, for example, the insights page will be able to tell you the best times to post.

These could be related to your content or just general Q&A’s, you might want to ask for feedback or to get the opinions from your followers. Whatever your reasons [and we think it’s a good idea to mix up the kind of questions you ask] it’s a surefire way to get your audience to engage with you. Remember it’s always a good idea to post some of the responses your receive - let’s not pretend we don’t love it when we see our own answer appear on someone’s stories!

An easy reminder of the person behind the content! There are so many ways to approach this too - it could be a live class [a lovely way to build community amongst your followers], it could be a simple Q&A [remember to post a question box a day or so before], or it could even be a collaboration with another creator. Either way, lives are a brilliant tool for instant, real-time conversation and engagement, both on your social media pages and on your WithMe page. You can read more about going live here.

Has someone snapped a shot of them doing one of your classes? Share it! Has someone re-posted a piece of your content? Share it! Whenever your community engages with you, make sure you’re engaging with them back. It has similar effect to responding to likes and/or comments that we spoke about above - it’ll make your community feel seen and heard.

Another simple way to boost your engagement - the IG story stickers. Run polls, ask questions, or ask for feedback. And remember, these don’t always have to be related to the WithMe content and it’s a good idea to keep it varied by asking what to have for dinner, for example, or getting their opinion on a houseplant, say. These may seem trivial, but if you’re always talking about the same content it’s more likely that your followers will disengage.

We all love a freebie every now and again, right? Make sure it’s relevant to your regular offering, interesting to your audience, and authentic to your brand. You can read more about the value of giveaway’s here.

The age old IG carousel is still going strong and a really great way to boost engagement - many studies of social analytics suggest that they’re actually the most engaging type of Instagram post. Use them as an opportunity to share informative content that will really add value to your followers. Long-form content is also more likely to spark responses and conversations, too.

Last but not least, it’s important to be you! People have been on social media long enough now that they’re more likely to see through fake personalities. When you’re approaching engagement try to treat your community as your friends. Start conversations and acknowledge their interest in what you’re creating. A happy community is an engaged community, which will hopefully become a paid community.