What is the secret to getting more engagement with your brand?

It starts with your content. If content marketing is the best way to get a steady stream of traffic to your site, then how you create content matters.

Specifically how you end each piece of content.

By committing to one simple strategy on each piece of content (be it articles, videos, podcasts, or social media posts) you can turn plain old content that goes out into the world and ends there, into an engagement machine that draws your audience in and builds your business.

That strategy is called the CTA or Call To Action.

The Newspaper And TV Show Model Is Dead

For decades newspapers and TV shows were the kings and queens of content creation.

The model was simple – create a piece of content (a written news piece or TV show), broadcast it out to the world, the audience would consume it – and that would be the end of it.

This one-way content model doesn’t work anymore.

We live in an age that demands on on-going conversation between brands and their audience. The companies who foster this conversation will win, and those who don’t will fade into the background.

For example, it’s funny how we can find two very similar articles by two very similar brands, on the exact same subject but if one of those articles has tons of comments at the bottom and the other has one, or two, or zero – we seem to trust the article with more engagement.

We naturally assume that brand has more credibility – because lots of other people are engaging with it.

We call this on-going conversation “engagement”.

And the best way to get more engagement with your brand is simple – ask for it! Specifically ask for using something called the CTA or Call To Action.

People Love To Express Their Opinion

There are two main types of CTAs you can use.

And one of the simplest ones to implement is the question. People everywhere love to express their opinion. So leverage that!

At the end of your piece of content, ask your readers (or viewers or followers) a single relevant and specific question surrounding the topic you’ve been discussing.

Ask them to share their opinion by leaving a comment.

For example, if I ran a personal finance blog and I’m writing an article on how to pay off your debt, I might end the post with one of these questions for my CTA:

• “What is one debt that you’ve successfully paid off in the past? Leave a comment below!”
• “If you’re in the process of paying off your debt, let us know how that’s going in the comment section below!”
• “What’s been the hardest thing for in the process of paying off your debt? Leave a comment below!”

Asking them to answer a question in the comments (expressing their opinion) is a great way to get the conversation going and increase engagement.

User Generated Content And Winning The Social Media Game

Now getting more engagement isn’t just about inflating your ego as you see tons of comments on your posts.

There are two strategic reasons why getting more engagement can help your brand.

The first is that comments on your posts, videos, or podcasts create what’s called User Generated Content. This basically means your audience is creating more stuff for Google to find and show people in their search results.

This can be huge for you as it only increases the odds that your site will pop up when people search for your topic or niche.

Your followers are basically helping you get more traffic by creating content for you!

Secondly, with the way social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram are going the brands with more engagement will win because the algorithms are rigged in their favor.

Recently Facebook changed their formula again and CEO Mark Zuckerberg posted about the changes.

The message is clear: if you want to win the social media game you need to focus less on promoting your brand and your products and instead start conversations with people and foster more meaningful engagement.

Give Them An Action Step (Or Click)

Now the second way to use CTAs in your content is to ask your audience to take a step or to click on something to continue their journey with you and your brand.

Generally the most strategic thing here is to get them to join your email list.

Why? Because your email list is where the money is – far more than social media or FB ads or anything else.

But you won’t simply want to ask them to “join your list” – rather you want to ask them to download your lead magnet!

A lead magnet is simply an additional free offering (could be more content, an online tool, or even a discount code) that is relevant to the content you’ve been sharing, desirable to your audience, and is given freely in exchange for an email address.

Simply end your content by asking them to click and download your lead magnet. It’s a natural way to wrap up a post or video or podcast.

As your email list grows you’ll have more warm leads to sell your products or services to – and your audience gets more free value immediately.

It’s the ultimate win-win.

It’s a relevant, free training that my audience can download. It’s packed with valuable content that can transform your ideas and passions into an income stream.

But I don’t make this available to stream right off of my site – because I want to collect an email address in exchange for it.

This gives me the opportunity to build my email list to then offer products or services to later.

Never End Your Content Without Your CTA

The rule is simple – from now on, never end a piece of content (no matter how big or how small) without some form of CTA.

Whether it’s asking a question to start the conversation or offering your lead magnet, you must ask your audience to take action at the end of every thing you post.

That being said, here’s my CTA for this post – if you’re creating content but haven’t figured out how to turn it into an income stream, download my free audio training “Get Paid To Do What You Love” and learn the 3 step process for monetizing what you know and love.