Social Media Engagement: How to Create Content That Gets More Likes and Shares

June 03, 2025

In today's fast-paced digital world, social media engagement is the currency of success. It’s not about how frequently you post; it’s about sharing content that resonates, creates interaction, and fosters a community. Regardless of whether you are a brand, influencer, or small business, increasing engagement on social media channels such as Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and X (formerly known as Twitter) will help boost your visibility and foster deeper relationships.

In this blog, we'll share tips for how you can create content that captures your audience's attention, inspires them to like, comment, and share, and then convert.

The Importance of Engagement on Social Media

A good level of engagement is a strong signal that your content is relevant and valuable. If content is receiving good engagement, the platforms will give it some value in feeds & recommendations. With more engagement, you see:

Increased Brand Awareness
Increased customer loyalty
Increased conversion rates
Increased organic reach

As an agency, iMarketo, we help businesses create a content strategy that leverages engagement to drive results.

Key Strategies to Boost Social Media Engagement

1. Know Your Audience Inside Out

Engaging content starts with understanding your audience’s:

Interests
Pain Points
Behavioral Patterns

Use platform analytics or tools like Meta Insights, Google Analytics, or Sprout Social to gather as much data about your audience. Personalization based on this data significantly boosts interaction.

For example: If the fitness brand specifically targets young professional workers, it is unlikely that the young professionals will engage with 45-minute-long live workouts instead of 30-second workout shows.

2. Create visually appealing Content

When looking at engagement, social media is visually driven. You can leverage:

High-quality images
Short-form videos (Reels, TikTok)
Infographics
Memes & carousels

Don't forget to brand your visuals. Tools like Canva or Adobe Express can help.

Tips: Test content formats to determine which posts generate the most likes and shares based on each platform.

3. Share Stories that Resonate.

People remember stories, not statistics. Use your content to talk about:

Behind-the-scenes
Customer success stories
User-generated content.

When your brand has a human feel, people feel a connection and are much more likely to share your post.

4. Write Effective Captions & CTAs

Your captions should be:

Short and straight to the point
Question-based or emotional
End with a call-to-action (CTA)

Example CTAs:

"Tag a friend that needs to see this!"
"Double tap if you agree!"

These are simple questions that can ramp up your likes and shares significantly.

5. Use Hashtags and Trending Topics

Use hashtags to broaden your reach; it is suggested to use hashtags relative to your content. Use Hashtagify and RiteTag to find good hashtags. You can also use trending audio clips, memes, and trending challenges, but only if they align with your brand.

6. Engaging Consistently

Don't forget that social media is all about engagement and interaction; meaning, you need to be active while also encouraging engaging.

You should always:

Reply to comments
Recognize mentions
Re-share user stories
Like and comment on other posts

Pro Tip: The more you engage, the more frequently your content will begin to pop up for others.

7. Make sure to post at the right time

Timing has a direct impact on visibility, so make sure to leverage as many of the platform's analytics as possible to find your ideal posting times across all platforms. Generally, the best posting times are:

Instagram: 11 AM - 1 PM or 6 - 8 PM
Facebook: 9 AM - 1 PM
LinkedIn: On weekdays between 8-10 AM .

All content should speak directly to your audience's pain points and help them move towards action. And of course, repurpose all the time. Blog posts can become carousels, videos can become blogs, and stats can become infographics.

8. Run contests and giveaways

You can encourage your audience to engage with your posts, by recommending that they share their thoughts or tag friends in return for:

Free product
Free discount code
A shoutout or a feature on your page

You can even set up a contest or giveaway with rules like: "Follow my page, like my post, comment on the picture, and tag a friend to win." Giving giveaways like this is a great and easy way to gain engagement quickly.

9. Use polls, stickers & quizzes

The interactive content that platforms provide (especially Instagram Stories or LinkedIn too) often generates fast replies.

Polls
Emoji slices
Q&A text boxes

Interactive features like this allow you to increase session time by making your brand top-of-mind.

10. Analyze and optimize

You can use insights from the platforms you are on or use third-party applications like Buffer, Hootsuite, or SocialBee to:

Explore which content has statistically performed well.
Record baseline engagement metrics for future comparisons.
Make adjustments to your content to ensure high future engagement levels, based on past records.

Tools for Creating Engaging Content

Here are some powerful tools that can help you simplify your process, and amplify your output:

Canva – If you want to create and design beautiful graphics or short videos, Canva is a great option. It has an easy-to-use drag-and-drop design interface that makes it easy for beginner or professional content creators to create quality visual content.
Loomly – This recently all-in-one social media scheduling and analytics platform. It is perfect for overall social media planning and analytics needs. Plan and schedule all of your social media posts, manage your social media content calendars, and analyze social media performance all in one place.
ChatGPT – Use it to generate caption ideas, come up with content ideas, or generate a post copy that is engaging for your target audience.
Later – This is a visual content scheduler for planning and previewing your Instagram feed, and content for aesthetic consistency across all your social posts.
BuzzSumo – It is a great option for identifying trending topics that your competitors publish and also helps in identifying what’s landing with your target audience.

Final Thoughts

To effectively utilize social media, you must create intentional content—content that educates, entertains, and invites response and interaction. Continue testing, stay current with trends, listen to your audience on platform types and content details.

Want help building a content strategy that achieves results?

Contact iMarketo’s social media experts—let’s develop and implement a strategy to grow your engagement, reach, and ROI.