Increase social engagement by talking about your brand

This may seem fairly obvious when marketing your business on social media platforms, but you need to talk about your brand to gain followers, fans, conversions - basically all the things you need for a successful social media campaign.

A recent Facebook study reiterated this by looking at postings on 23 brand pages over a one-month period to determine which did the best and which didn't perform up to par.

So what types of posts did researchers find?

- Messages about the product or service.
- Messages related to the brand.
- Messages unrelated to the brand.

Of those three, it was determined that posts about topics related to the brand or service but not specifically about the product were the best at creating engagement.

"Topics related to brand or about the brand were significant predictors of increased engagement," says Sean Bruich, head of measurement at Facebook, as quoted by Mashable. "When pages post about topics related to brands, they increase engagement."

Researchers also broke down the most optimal posts for achieving your social media marketing campaign's end goal.

For instance, if you want people to spread the word about your content and initiate shares, you should post about topics related to your brand with corresponding photos or videos.

If you'd rather focus on generating Likes, pair brand-related topics with a clear call to action. According to Small Business Trends, the best calls to action are short, easy to understand, show a sense of urgency, are highly visible and, of course, encourage people to click your link.

Finally, if you want to stimulate conversation and comments, post topics related to your brand and ask questions in your posts, such as "What did you think of so-and-so's post about ...?" Doing this not only engages fans, but shows support for others in your community, making them more likely to return the favor down the line.