If a tree falls in the woods and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?
More importantly, do you think if "engaging" content is created and no one interacts with it, is it really engaging?
Not quite.
Without this happening it is “engaging” in name only.
That’s why it’s difficult to provide a formula for create engaging content. Each audience is different.
But there are some basics most content creators can agree on.
You must first know who you’re creating it for and where they are (online and off) so you can do your best to ensure they see it. Even by doing this, there are no guarantees. However, if you have data showing that historically that type of content has been successful, you can take a chance that producing something similar may yield similar results.
Content creation is experimental and requires a scientific approach. Like chemistry, you start with a hypothesis of what you think will cause a reaction. Then you test your theory and measure your results. If the results are positive, you replicate it. If the results are not what you expected, you try something else.
In this article, we’re going to do what a lot of scientists do. We’re going to use content “experiments” that other chamber pros have conducted to illustrate how you might master engaging content.
While we mentioned earlier there is no magic formula for constructing engaging content, there are some commonalities in the different kinds of engaging content.
Engaging content usually:
Engaging content can (and should) take on different formats. Some people love image memes, others podcasts, some videos, and other members love meaty articles. That doesn’t mean you have to do them all. Create in the formats you receive the most response/engagement from.
The good news is that this isn’t that much extra work. One piece of long-style content (like a meaty article) can be repurposed in many shorter types of media including a hot-tip soundbite, pull quote, or video reflection/teaser.
In theory, these things sound good but what do they look like?
We’ve compiled a few examples of chamber content that received a lot of engagement. What worked for one community may work for yours too. When deciding whether these examples will work for you, think about your audience.
Are these things they are interested in, will find entertaining, will be inspired by, identify with, or lose sleep over at night? If they are, you should consider creating something similar.
There are many forms of content. But for ease of conversation, sharing, and reproducing, we’re focusing on social media posts and graphics from chambers.
Entertaining
This post was taken from the Chamber Pros Facebook Group, so the audience is slightly different than when you’re posting with your community members in mind. But this a great example of entertaining content.
Why it works:
If this was a post to your members, you would add either a call to action or a question that would prompt viewers to leave a comment.
Relevant
If there’s something that’s important to your town, post it. While this post only has 155 reactions, it received 34 shares.
Why it works:
Connecting
This post from the Vail Valley Partnership is an award announcement. However, instead of using it as an opportunity to reiterate how amazing the Chamber is, Vail makes it about their community. The Chamber boasts that it’s the community and businesses that made this award possible. For that, it received a ton of reactions, comments, and shares.
Why it works:
Valuable
Sometimes there are certain topics people love. Generally speaking, ribbon cuttings are mid performers from an engagement perspective. You can give them extra oomph by sharing with your audience the unique things about the new business and why they might want to check them out. However, some businesses come with their own following. This company is one of those.
Why it works:
Think about how you might use similar tactics to improve your engagement. Conversely, the algorithm on social media and search engines will ding your content if you don’t have engagement. Make sure you’re publishing content that you know will receive reactions, shares, and comments. Otherwise, you may want to stop producing that kind of content.
Top Engagement Killers for Chambers
Before you check out these “engagement killers” and assume you need to remove all these types of posts from your social media posting schedule, remember every audience is different. Just because these posts don’t typically get a lot of reaction, doesn’t mean they aren’t successful for your audience. If they are, keep them. If they’re not, find something more engaging.
Many chamber pros who share these kinds of posts with little engagement argue that it’s important information for their community. No one is debating that. What we’re suggesting is that if your community isn’t interacting with it, Facebook will stop showing your posts to those people. If it’s important information and no one is sharing it, you may want to consider sharing that information somewhere else like an email blast or text message where you won’t get penalized for a lack of engagement.
The following posts will often elicit crickets:
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