VSMP 1: The Other Forms of Social Media Engagement No One Talks About

Cheyanne dives in on what engagement really is and the forms of engagement no one talks about when discussing social media engagement. 

Links mentioned in this podcast: 

• FREE 65 post ideas and templates: www.heycheyanne.com/freestuff

Looking for more support and resources? Join Cheyanne's free Facebook group called, Veterinary Social Media Managers to get advice and inspiration from other veterinary professionals managing social media for their clinic or business. Join the group here: www.facebook.com/groups/heycheyanne

Transcript

[00:00:00] Welcome to the Veterinary Social Media Podcast, where you learn how to navigate social media and apply it to the world of veterinary medicine. I'm your host, Cheyanne Flerx, and let's get down to business.

[00:00:10] So today. What I want to do is I want to talk about engagement and more specifically. I want to talk about the other forms of engagement that nobody really talks about and you might be wondering, okay, what does that mean? 

[00:00:24] So when I'm talking about engagement, what made it really comes to your mind? I'll give you a second to formulate some ideas here. But I bet you immediately go to thinking about reactions and comments. That's typically what a lot of people will tell me when they're thinking about engagement. 

[00:00:44] But to me, engagement has become somewhat of a blanket term and can mean. Something different to each person. But I feel like as an industry, as a whole in veterinary medicine, we have a misunderstanding what gate, what [00:01:00] engagement truly is. So I figured this would be a great topic for us to start off with, and really dive in deeper. And I hope that after this episode, you have a better understanding of what engagement is and how you can utilize it for your practice or for your business. 

[00:01:16] And really help you to achieve the desired results that you're looking for. So. In preparing for this episode, I was curious what Google had to say about what engagement means as far as a definition in marketing terms. So. I looked it up and according to the online advertising guide.com. They define engagement as a metric that includes an interaction with content. 

[00:01:44] Okay, let me repeat that. They define as engagement as a metric. That includes any interaction with content. And when I say content, I'm talking about our social media posts. So in other words, engagement is a metric that tells you how someone [00:02:00] is interacting with your posts in any shape or form. 

[00:02:04] So when it comes to us getting engagement on our social media posts. Like I already mentioned, we can get them to comment. We can get them to react to a post, but. There is actually several other ways that we can get engagement. And I'm sure you are familiar with every bit of these types of engagement that I'm going to list out to you, but I hope you're ready for your mind to be blown because. 

[00:02:30] When I was compiling this list, I was quite blown away myself. So with that, let's hop on in to talking about the seven different types of engagements. Now, when I say. Seven different types. I'm sure there could be a couple more I could add to this list, but when we are talking about, um, all the social media platforms as a whole in general, whatever, um, these types of engagements are pretty much embedded and seen throughout each of the social media platforms [00:03:00] in one way or another. 

[00:03:01] So. Take this list for a reference and for guideline, but definitely if you are using a social media platform that doesn't have these or has an additional, please feel free to let me know. And I would love to. Update my list, but let's talk about the first one link clicks. Link clicks are something where if you add a link to a post, very popular on Facebook and LinkedIn, then that would be considered a form of engagement. Because according to the definition that we pulled, it is an interaction with a post. 

[00:03:35] That is if you include a link to your website, or to another post that you've shared on that platform et cetera. So then we have website visits, which can be viewed as the same as link clicks, but on Facebook, in particular, they view websites differently, website visits, excuse me differently. And so do I that is if someone goes to your profile or your account and click on your website straight from there.[00:04:00] 

[00:04:00] The social media platforms, track that and consider that as a website visit. The third one on my list is profile visits. And that is if a user or a follower visits your account or your profile on any of the social media platforms. So. For example, Instagram is very popular or well-known for using this as a call to action or telling someone to go visit to their profile. Their. 

[00:04:25] Lincoln bio going to their bio to go get more information, watch their stories. You get the idea. So that's considered a profile visit. All right. So the fourth one on my list is comments. And I feel like everyone has a good understanding of what that one means, but basically that is, if anyone leaves a comment on your social media post, whether good or bad. 

[00:04:49] Next is shares, which we're pretty all familiar with. I feel this one for me is a pretty big one as far as like getting more followers or bringing more awareness to your business. And so [00:05:00] each social media platform does count this as a type of engagement. Number 6 is saves this one. If you're not familiar with. 

[00:05:07] The feature on any of the social media platforms, most of them have an option for you to save the posts so that you can refer to it later. This is one of my favorite features. But this one is a great way for people to show interest in a post. And for them to refer to it back later, but maybe not in the moment. And then reactions were all familiar with this with like a picture hearted. You get the idea. So, let me do a quick recap, so link clicks, website visits, profile visits, comments shares, saves, and reactions. So. Now that I've given you all of that information. 

[00:05:46] You might be wondering, okay, why is this important to know and why are we dissecting all these different types of engagements? 

[00:05:54] Once I was able to articulate these different types of engagements just for myself and my [00:06:00] journey. I personally unlocked a whole new level of the way that I saw social media, because yes, it's amazing to get all the comments. It's amazing to get all the reactions. But ultimately. If you are using social media for a business or for any personal gain that gets you transactions. 

[00:06:20] You want your focus to be for your business to get people from social media to your website, or to do a transaction with you in some way. And so in order to diversify that you need to know the different ways that you can reach people and have them interact with your posts that ultimately lead those people from your post to your profile, to your website. That is my ultimate goal. Whenever I am managing social media for a business in particular. Because when we are managing business or a social media for business, it's a very different [00:07:00] approach for a personal page. And the fact is that typically with a personal page, you are wanting to interact with your family and your friends and connect with people in a different way. And that's pretty much it you're being social right on social media. 

[00:07:13] With a business you're trying to connect with people and hopefully they will want to do business with you. So the whole approach is completely different. 

[00:07:22] And so bringing it back to our conversation today, once you know how to interact with people, That are either following you or potentially going to be following you. This is going to be a great way for you to unlock different ways for you to connect with people and ultimately get them off social media into your business. And knowing these types of engagements will help to diversify things so that you're not feeling like you're constantly posting a promotional things. 

[00:07:51] Saying buy this book an appointment. And you're not feeling drained from feeling like you're being a constant salesman. So what's that. [00:08:00] I also love having these kind of mapped out because it helps me personally to be able to better measure and understand the post-performance and how much traffic that post is truly generating. 

[00:08:14] And how it's. Really benefiting my business as a whole. So what I mean by that is on your analytics of any social media page. Uh, account, you can go to the analytics and see. All of these different types of engagements that I just listed. Either in some shape or form they are there. And so. You are able to see. 

[00:08:39] If, for example, for a clinic, if you are posting patient photos, And you're adding the link to book an appointment. The bottom of that caption. You are able to go back into the analytic and see, oh, a lot of people were commenting on this and saying how cute this puppy was, but no one is clicking on the link to [00:09:00] book an appointment. So then you can do a couple things. You can go back and say, okay. Why aren't people booking an appointment? Is it because I'm not getting enough attention on this post? Is it because my caption isn't telling them to book an appointment. Or is it because of X, Y, and Z, right? It helps you to backtrack and say, oh, I was hoping to get more appointments. 

[00:09:24] From this post, but that's not happening. So why is that? So it really helps you to do some self-reflection or to really do a deep analysis on my post and really help you to backtrack and see how you can improve. Also by knowing exactly what you want to do with the post. It helps you to formulate your goals a little bit better. I know a lot of businesses and clinics will try to get as many followers as possible. And mine is definitely one metric that you can try to get. And if you're trying to do that, 

[00:09:57] You know, maybe your focus is [00:10:00] trying to get more shares or getting more. People's attacks somebody on a co on a post and a comment in the comments. But overall. 

[00:10:09] It's a goal that you can define, right? So by knowing what goal you're trying to do, you can do better define which action do you want to be taking on your social media posts. So in turn, you can then go to your management or to your business partner or to your team and say, Hey this type of post is getting a lot of great turnaround or ROI return on investment. 

[00:10:33] For our clinic. I would love if you can share more of these photos, because we are trying to get a new x-ray machine or a new lab equipment, for example. So that's a quick tip on how to get more team buy-in. Or if you are the solo preneur for your business, then you can say, oh, okay. I'm definitely getting a lot more attention and consultations booked on this post based off of the amount of people [00:11:00] direct messaging me or send me emails through my website visits just a couple of examples there. So I hope you're starting to see why really defining these types of engagements is super, super critical. 

[00:11:11] And really overall it's critical to your wellbeing because if you're constantly trying to come up with ideas for social media and you are just hitting a brick wall trying to come up with fresh new ways to get stuff, or you're just simply busy. And don't have time to recreate a whole bunch of new ideas. 

[00:11:31] I find this list to be very helpful for me just to spark some new ideas or be like, oh, that's right. Yeah. I'm trying to get more eyeballs on this promotion that the clinic has having. Let me just go back, look at what I already have. And see if I can either spice it up or, oh, it gave me a new idea for a contest. I never even thought about. 

[00:11:52] So it really does give you a great reference point to see how you need to go about [00:12:00] things. And so then in a result, I find this, it helps me to be able to plan out my social media posts better. So I'm not scrambling last minute. And it helps me to see what is really working and how I need to either. 

[00:12:15] Improve what I'm doing or continue something that I've implemented. So I hope this is helpful. I hope it's bringing a little bit more of a new spice or new flavoring to engagement and helping to just really inspire you to try something different. If you are looking to get more engagements on your social media posts. 

[00:12:37] Or just add some fun to what you're already posting. I do have 65 posts ideas with free Canva and caption templates that would love for you to, to snag. You can go to my heycheyanne.com/freestuff for less forward slash black free stuff or check the show notes for the link. I think you will find incredible [00:13:00] value from that.

[00:13:00] And so for a quick recap, I'm going to list the seven types of engagements you can use on your social media posts. So we have link clicks, profile visits, website visits, comments, shares, saves, and reactions. By having this list handy, And knowing the different types of engagements you can use, you can have a better impact on your social media posts, whether that's for your business, for your clinic overall, you'll be able to have a better leverage on your efforts and achieve the results that you desire for your social media. 

[00:13:38] But that is it for this episode. But if you could do me a personal favor, if you found value from this episode, and you think that a colleague or friend would find this helpful. Could you share this with them? For me, please? It would mean the world to me, it would be a huge help in getting this information out to anyone who could use it and get it to as many [00:14:00] people as possible. 

[00:14:01] When I was starting out managing social media, I desperately wish someone had a resource like this available. So I would love to have the opportunity to bless someone with this information and knowledge that I'm sharing here and support them in the way that I wished I had available. So. That is it but thank you so much for joining me today and i will catch you later bye