The 5 most important things creators and influencers should focus on are engagement, engagement, engagement, engagement, and more engagement. All kidding aside, a strong engagement strategy is the one thing successful creators and influencers have in common.  Passive audiences are a dime-a-dozen, but authentic engagement is priceless.

Consistency is Key

Like many things in life, repetition and consistency on social media are the best way to drive results. In the case of your audience growth goals, this means consistent engagement.   

Create a consistent strategy for posting and engaging. It may seem obvious, but not only posting to your grid but posting to other accounts is crucial to maintaining and facilitating an engaged audience. 

Consistency is probably the most important but rarely executed rule. Consistent posting is not easy, as burnout and the push to always be creative are common, especially in the early days when you are growing. You can employ tactics and strategies to avoid stress and burnout and ways to make the job easier. Still, consistent publishing is a must, along with maintaining communication with your audience.

Replicate your best-performing content. Take a look at what's driving comments, likes, shares, saves, or subs. Is there an observable theme? Is there a specific tone of voice that you used that was different from other lower-performing posts? Balance is key as you don't want true repeats, but over time you should start to notice trends and use them as content inspiration. 

Provide value.  Great content takes time. Frequently, the best content is well-planned, but remember to have fun with it. Sometimes spur of the moment content gives your audience a glimpse of the person behind the screen. 

Use comments and engagement to drive your content strategy. Tools like HiBeam make it easy to extract ideas from 1000s of comments easily. Some of the best ideas come from your fans which can help inspire new content ideas. 

Don't ignore your DMs. While you should choose what you want to respond to, keep in mind that DMs often come from your most interested audience members. Some heartfelt messages may deserve a heartfelt response, but even an emoji can go a long way in making your audience feel seen and appreciated.

Tools 

There are many different software tools out there that you can make your day-to-day job more manageable. The best tools help you work smarter and avoid burnout and stress while building your business. Examples are: 

HiBeam is a game-changing message management app for creators that categorizes and prioritizes messages and comments so that you can focus on the stuff that matters most. 

Later tells you the best time to post so that you can schedule in batches with their easy-to-use software. They have many additional features, including a Link In Bio tool if you want a one-stop-shop. 

Software for creators and influencers is exploding. For more tool suggestions, we recommend

Measure It To Manage It: Analytics Are Your Friend

"You can't manage what you can't measure." - Peter Drucker

Legendary management consultant, Peter Drucker, is often quoted as "you can't manage what you can't measure." The saying applies to you as a creator. How can you keep improving and growing if you don't know what's working and what's not?

Luckily, the major platforms all provide analytics tools to help you understand what's going on with your account activity. 

Instagram provides an "Insights" tab in Creator Studio. Here you can find insights from the past 7 days on your account. To find out what's going on with individual posts (highly recommended), click into the Content Library tab and select a post for a deeper dive. For both, you can find analytics Audience (age, gender, location) and activities (what actions your followers take when engaging with your account). Finally, you can find total reach (how many unique views your content had) and total impressions (how many total views your content had).

YouTube Studio provides rich data to channel admins. In addition to general channel growth (subs over time, watch time, and views), you can find: 

• Traffic sources: what is driving viewers to your content

• Top videos, playlists, cards, etc.

• Audience demographics, location, when your viewers are on YouTube, and more.

As more and more creators take a structured and data-driven approach to growing their businesses, the platforms have stepped up, and you can likely expect these tools to become better and more action-oriented over time. 

Proactive CTA's 

While analytics provide a thorough look at what your audience has done or is doing, you should also keep a close eye on how your choice of words and prompts within content drives engagement (or lack thereof). One of the best ways to prompt engagement is to ask a question, aka a CTA or Call To Action. The question can be general, such as, "what are your favorite beaches?" or, more specific, "which of these sneakers would you rock and why?" Once you've incorporated CTA's into your content a few times, you'll be able to gauge what works best. Keep an eye on not only what you are saying but when you are saying it. Does asking a question at the beginning of a video work best? Does commenting on your own post stimulate more comments? What about adding a slider in IG Stories? Answering these questions will help you nail what works best for your audience. Experimentation is your friend!

Reactive Conversations

Once you've got the ball rolling with a prompt, follow-through is key. Audience members who have taken the time to respond to a post are much more likely to strike up a deeper conversation. While you don't have to spend time with every comment (and likely can't), it pays to keep feeding the conversation and keeping the ball rolling, even with another simple follow-up. This can be time-consuming as you grow, but luckily there are tools like HiBeam that can supercharge your ability to respond. 

Summary 

Engagement is a term that is loosely thrown around by many but truly harnessed by few. With the right tools, consistency, and some well-placed CTA's and follow-ups, you'll be well on your way to building an engaged, fast-growing, and valuable audience.