When you’re creating content for a certain audience, you want them to respond to it. And not just respond, but respond positively, showing interest, coming back for more, and becoming your loyal readers. This is the essence of audience engagement.

However, not every writer knows how to push the right buttons and get their audience to become more active, and interested. The truth is, without a strategy or a clearly defined plan, you can’t go very far. To help you gain a better understanding of what your audience wants, and how to use it to increase your audience engagement, we’ve put together this step by step guide.

Take a look at the 5 best ways you can maximize the audience engagement.

1.      Provide Value

Let’s start with the most important aspect of your writing. It’s called value and without it, you’re as good as gone.

So, what is value in terms of writing?

The value of your writing is determined by how informative, useful, trustworthy, and entertaining your content is.

If you want your audience to enjoy reading it and come back for more, you need to provide quality content which will actually make an impact on them. It needs to be:

• filled with useful information
• providing a solution to a problem
• removing a dilemma or solving an issue
• entertaining

In other words, once your audience finishes reading, they need to feel rewarded, enriched, and well-informed. That will make them return to you, and become more active members of your community.

2.      Inspire Them

You need to understand the basic needs, problems, or crisis your audience might be experiencing. Ask yourself:

•  Why are they reading this?
• What are they looking for?

In most cases, the answer is simple: they are looking for a way to make their life better, to find some new ideas, and to expand their knowledge. But, they won’t do it just by reading your content.

They need to act.

You can be the missing piece of the puzzle, who inspires them to actually make a move and become more active. Do this by:

• writing powerful CTAs (call-to-action)
• motivating them to take action
• telling them they can do it
• being uplifting and encouraging

If you manage to get some of those audience members to actually follow your CTAs and take action, they’re going to love you. Consequentially, it will increase their engagement.

3.      Find Them

Do you know where your target audience spends most of their online time? If you do, you need to ensure your content is present at those platforms, as well.

By doing data research, and examining your audience’s behavior, you’ll be able to determine where are you most likely to catch their attention:

• on a blog
• on social media
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • etc.

Know where to find them, and provide specific content for their platform of choice. This will definitely get their attention and maximize your engagement.

4.      Be Updated

If you want people to read your content, you need to ensure it’s current, and it covers the topics people are actually interested in.

To achieve this, you have to:

• constantly learn and read about the happenings in your niche
• keep a close eye on the competition
• understand what the burning questions and trending topics are and cover them
• give insight into your audience’s biggest interests

To ensure your audience will keep engaging with your content, you need to keep it updated and current. This will definitely make them increase their engagement.

5.      Be Consistent

People love creating habits. This is why you need to stay consistent.

This means that you need to stay loyal to your audience and:

• publish content on a regular basis
• nurture your style and voice
• provide reliable information and don’t let your content deteriorate

This way, you’ll ensure people stay loyal to your and their engagement only increases.

Final Thoughts

To maximize audience engagement, you need to give them something they can love, follow, and stay loyal to. This means you need to provide valuable content, designed especially for them, with the aim of making their lives better.

Follow the advice given above and you’ll see the change in your engagement rate.

Daniela McVicker is a well-known writer, a contributor to TopWritersReview, a blogger and editor at StudyClerk.com. She enjoys reading classic literature and doing research on internet marketing. Her favorite pastimes are to write, listen to jazz tracks and take quiet walks.