It is little wonder that Facebook is among the most dominant content marketing platforms. The social networking site has a ton of fresh, dynamic and resourceful features that can be brilliantly integrated into your overall promotional strategy. Yes, we all know by now that it can be used to increase engagement, boost authority and build brands. Your half a million fans will be of little consequence if they aren’t doing much on the page.
Have you ever thought about why some posts go viral, while others become ghost towns? Nope, it has got little to do with luck, and more to do with the timing of your post, the words you use and what is posted.
Facebook users react well to posts related to technology, travel/lifestyle, health, positivity and sports/games. A quick pro tip – if you include words such as “why”, “how” or “most” on your posts, you are likely to garner higher likes, comments, and shares.
The million-dollar question is…
Here are 10 fantastic and proven tips to help boost your Facebook audience engagement:
1. Host Contests
This is one of the best strategies for improving engagement on your Facebook business page. It’s such a no-brainer, yet marketers fail to channelize it effectively. The thrill of winning something gets people to take action, which can be used to your advantage. Use rewards, prizes, and freebies as an incentive to create a buzz about your brand.
One of the biggest advantages for marketers is that for a comparatively low-cost, you’ll end up gaining plenty of exposure and brand awareness. If done right, it can be a brilliant payoff.
2. Post Response Generating Posts
Pose an attention-grabbing yet simple question for drawing your fans into a conversation. For instance, if you run a travel/lifestyle/leisure related brand, posting images related to beaches or mountains with a simple caption like, “Hit Like if you want to spend a relaxed day on this tropical island” or “Hit like if you feel like grabbing an ice-cream Sundae Right Now.” Simple yes/no type of questions can also help generate quick Facebook post traction.
Telling people what you want them to do will increase your Facebook page likes and engagement. Ask interesting open questions, such as, “If you could take off to any destination of your choice, where would it be? Or “What food items are on your current craving list?” Keep posts engaging and relevant to your page.
“Which is your favorite luxury car?”
“How many times do you let the phone ring before answering?”
Questions like these spark stimulating conversations and unimaginably funny answers. Get creative with your questions to draw your fans into a conversation.
Create posts that get people involved. If you are stuck with a decision, create a poll to gather feedback from your target audience. It gives you quick insights about exactly what your customers are looking for, along with boosting page engagement. Encourage fans to post testimonials of your products or services along with images.
If there’s a raging topical issue or controversy related to your field, ask customers to share their views about the same. Keep the debate sane and healthy by establishing clear guidelines at the outset.
Urge people to share memories, moments and experiences or go slightly edgy with a controversial question.
Ask direct questions or encourage people to share their favorite tips related to your products/services.
Make people feel wonderful about them by encouraging them to share innovative ideas about the different ways through which they use your products. You bet people love it when the spotlight’s on them or when they are at the center of the conversation.
I simply love asking my page fans to pick between two choices. Pick a favorite between “A” or “B” or choose between “X” or “Y.” This can create a lovely division between fans (evil in a fun way yes), which sparks further debate and conversation in the comments. Using current controversies is alright as long as you don’t venture into sensitive topics such as politics and religion.
Whether your post bags a single comment or multiple comments, attempt to respond to each of them individually. Facebook lets you like comments, which is a great way for you to acknowledge their response. Of course, it will be a challenge to reply to hundreds of comments. However, taking that extra effort will make you come across as a caring, customer-focused organization that values its fans/buyers.
3. Post Shareable Content
Videos and infographics are currently the hottest content formats on the social media. If you can create a single infographic or list for summarizing everything that people need to know about a topic, there’s no stopping fans from sharing it. Checklists or cheat-sheets are amazing from a viral perspective.
If your business relates to travel gear, you can create a handy backpacker’s checklist or if you are an internet marketer, a quick content creation or topic generation (or headline generation) cheat sheet can do the trick.
Make it a valuable proposition for your target audience by putting together information that is time-consuming to research in an easily digestible format. For instance, you can put together a handy guide for travelers visiting a particular destination by including all important information in a single infographic.
People don’t have the time to research and jot down important pieces of information on a single source, which is why infographics are hugely popular. You can create an infographic using an app like Canva or hire someone to do it.
4. Engage with Other Businesses
There’s no stopping you from engaging on other pages, especially when they there’s a synergy of products/services or a shared audience. For instance, if a wedding jewelry related business has posted something about weddings, you can chime in with your 2 cents too if you are a florist, wedding photographer or wedding cakes business. You aren’t directly competing with the brand or there’s no conflict of interest.
However, be mindful of not spamming other business pages on the Facebook landscape with your promotional posts. Keep it subtle and engage in a naturally meaningful manner. Add well-researched, detailed and thought-provoking comments to establish authority.
-> You’ll expose your brand to a large number of targeted customers if it’s a popular page!
Who doesn’t benefit from a bit of cross promotion and synergy? Encourage other pages within your industry to comment/post on your pages too. If you can work out a fruitful mutual sharing agreement, both pages can boost their organic reach and enjoy exposure to a wider base of potential customers. You can also create guest posts for other blogs, which they can share on their business page to increase your authority, credibility and brand awareness.
Round-ups are another fantastic way to get experts to share your posts on their pages. Ask influencers in your field to share their best tips on the given topic. Make a post about these tips by tagging these influencers and getting them to share the round-up on their pages.
Everyone loves to be seen as an expert among their fans and audience, which means the influencers will most likely share these posts (which pitch them as an expert) on their news feed, thus giving your brand exposure among fans/followers of a bunch of experts or popular business pages.
If you find particularly interesting images on your fan’s news feed, take permission to post it and give them credit for it. Social media is based on a strong sharing economy, which means you mustn’t shy away from posting relevant, valuable and useful content from other players in the niche.
One pro tip to get a lot of organic Facebook likes for your page is to enable the “Similar Page Suggestions” on your page. Go to “Settings” and enable the “Similar Page Suggestions” option.
This way when people like pages that are similar to yours, Facebook automatically suggests your page to them. Not many people know about this feature but it can help you some great organic likes from interested folks.
5. Boost Posts
Facebook offers business page administrators/owners a paid boost post option to create more engagement on specific posts. You can either boost posts among existing followers and their friends (which means the post will be visible to a higher number of fans on their feed) or select a predefined audience (based on audience demographics, interests, hobbies, and pages they’ve liked) to boost your posts. These posts will show up on the news feed on the selected audience group, which means a higher engagement for your posts.
Boost your most popular blog posts that have witnessed a considerable swarm of traffic. Post it on your business page, and use the boost post option. There’s no need to invest thousands of dollars on advertising. You can start with $25 by targeting folks who’ve already liked your page and people on their friends list. It may be enough to give your posts a slight nudge.
Though there’s low chance of seeing thousands of likes or share, boosting posts can increase engagement and initiate conversation. It can get people to spark a conversation, while also making them aware of your products or services. This can increase your organic reach within their networks. Use this strategy for high-quality, information blogs where you are offering clear solutions to desperate problems faced by people. It works well for posts that answer the most compelling questions about a topic or offer people high-value takeaways.
How do you look for your blog’s most popular content? Go to Google Analytics. Select Behavior, followed by Site Content and All Pages. Go through the metrics for every page to know your most popular posts.
How to boost posts on Facebook? Here’s a handy step by guide to get you started.
– Go to your business page;
– Select the post you wish to boost (remember to pick only high-quality posts which have proved their popularity on your web page or posts you think have the potential to be popular);
– Select the “Boost Post” button located just above the post. If the button isn’t activated, it will stay unclickable, which simply means that this particular post cannot be boosted. There can be several reasons for this including the like the business page may be unpublished or you may not have sufficient admin rights to boost a post or you may need to set up a payout method;
– Go to the Audience field. Carefully pick the audience you would like to reach from the given options. There’s also an option to “Create New Audience.” You can start from scratch by targeting users based on their location age, interests, gender and behavior.
– Next, click the dropdown to pick a budget for boosting your post. You can either select a predefined budget or opt for the “Choose Your Own” option and enter an amount of your choice;
– Pick a duration for which you want the post to be boosted. Enter the end date of the boosted post in the “Run this ad until” section;
– Select a preferred payment method from the given options. If you haven’t done any paid promotions on Facebook before, you’ll have to add a payment method to your Facebook ads account;
– Finally, click “Boost.”
6. Stay Persistent
You won’t believe how many people actually give up building strong business pages on Facebook when they would’ve been a roaring success simply by tweaking their strategy a bit. Don’t expect overnight success. It’s not like you build a page, and have people swarming to it with a million likes and thousands of shares. Many of your initial posts will barely have any engagement. Keep posting a variety of stuff to test what works best for your market.
If a particular type of post hasn’t performed well, opt for another. See what other businesses in your domain are doing successfully and incorporate the same into your social media content strategy.
While social media marketers will also emphasize on posting relevant posts (including yours truly), it’s alright to have fun occasionally. Experiment with a funny quote or laugh-worthy meme that your fans can relate to. Pose random questions.
Don’t always keep the focus on your products or services. Help you fans have some fun! You may not get business through that funny meme but it makes you likable. It will set the tone for another post, which can include a link to your website.
People generally use Facebook to make connections and browse through informative and entertaining posts.
Try different types of posts to measure ones that draw a maximum response from your target audience or stir them into interaction.
Facebook offers some of the best audience insights and analytics for your page.
Spot patterns and trends, and reinvent for strategy according to these valuable insights. For example, if you see a huge surge in fans within the week, look closely at your recently posted content. Figure out a clear reason for these trends, and continue posting more of the same if it’s working.
Where do I check my Facebook business page insights?
– Log in to your Facebook account;
– Click the page for which you want to view the statistics from the left sidebar;
– Click “View Insights” on the right sidebar of your business page to check interaction statistics for the last month. The statistics will include insights such as number of new likes, post views and other user activity represented through figures and charts.
Social media is all about creating a run-up to the actual decision. You’re setting the stage by establishing relationships, engaging your audience and making your brand desirable before you actually go for the kill.
7. Post at the Optimal Time
Posting at a time when your audience is most likely to be on Facebook increases the visibility and exposure of your message. This is a question most newbie marketers struggle with simply because there isn’t a single time for all enterprises. The best days and times to post on Facebook depends on the type of business.
For instance, if you are targeting home-makers, they are likely to be online at a different time (later mornings or afternoons) than working professionals (late evenings and weekends). It also depends on the type of post you are targeting, and the region the post is meant for.
There is, of course, some reliable data on the best times to post on Facebook, though you must research the social media browsing habits of your target audience to arrive at the best days and times unique to your business.
As a general guideline, the optimal time to post content on Facebook is 3.00 p.m. on Wednesdays. Other good days and times to post are 12:00 to 1:00 p.m. on weekends, and 1:00 to 4:00 p.m. on Fridays and Thursdays.
Engagement rates are known to be 18% higher towards the fag-end of the week (Thursday and Friday), and on other weekdays from 1:00 to 4:00 p.m. This is especially true for businesses related to leisure, travel, vacations, and hobbies. The click through rates are known to be higher at the above mentioned times. Also, since there is 10% increase in Facebook activity on Fridays (and people tend to be merrier at the prospect of the oncoming weekend), it is generally considered a good day for posting positive, funny and uplifting content.
The most unfavorable times to post on Facebook include after 8:00 p.m. and after 8:00 a.m. on weekends. Of course, use this as a general guideline and not rule of the book for posting on your business page.
You still need to investigate what are the best times for audience engagement based on trial and error. Try posting at different times during the first few days, and check when you can elicit the maximum response or engagement from your target audience.
If you are beginning from scratch and have no data of your own to gauge what the audience likes or dislikes, simply go to a platform like BuzzSumo.com. Do a search based on your niche or main keywords, and find a list of posts which have received maximum likes and post shares on Facebook.
The platform offers tons of features, including the check which pages/posts are performing particularly well for a competitor. It is also a nice place to find influencers in your domain for some much-needed cross promotions.
8. Keep Posts Short
Don’t convert your Facebook business page into a blog. Social media users are not on Facebook to read long-winded content. Keep it concise and engaging. Posts that are under 50 characters garner maximum engagement. Adding characters beyond that reduces your chances of engagement. Unless long posts have proven to work for your particular niche or audience, it is best to keep them below 50 characters.
Don’t sound preachy or overly promotional; inspire people to connect with you by sharing stories visually.
Share images based on the core values related to your business. You’ll be the ultimate social media magnet if you share the business/brand’s passion with customers, creating an almost cult like following. Your business can be passionate about organic food (if you run a food related business).
Build a community by infusing the same level of passion in your Facebook followers through short and interesting posts.
Share a sense of purpose that genuinely inspires people. In the above example, it can be about healthy eating, going organic or sticking to vegan meals. Find a clear sense of purpose and spread it to your fans.
Post pictures of your brand connecting with real people to add the much-needed human touch. Share uplifting and inspiring quotes that trigger your fans into action.
List posts, infographics and “how to” articles that stir curiosity fare effectively on the Facebook platform. If you do a BuzzSumo search for “healthy eating”, you’ll discover that the top-performing posts are “18 Make Ahead Meals to Eat Healthy without Even Trying” and “How to Eat Healthy Whole Foods, Plant-Based Diet on $50 Per Week?”. Well, everyone wants to know how one can eat healthy on a budget of $50/week.
Spark a sense of curiosity, and you’ll have them hooked.
9. Use the Power of Facebook Groups
Groups are an excellent platform for building a community based on shared interests. They bring together people sharing a common passion and can stir greater dialogue and engagement than regular business pages.
Track down niche groups related to your industry or create your own group, and link it to your main business page.
Give it an easily searchable and relevant name. Include a brief and appropriate description for the group so people can find it easily. Keep posting content that inspires interaction about topics related to the group.
Encourage group members to post their queries or start a discussion. You can even share your blog posts or business page posts within the group to give them greater exposure.
Building a loyal and engaged community is the foundation of launching a successful social media enterprise.
Though maintaining a busy group can be time-consuming and tedious, it may offer brilliant pay offs in future.
Groups are incredible when it comes to building a network around your business. For instance, if you are a consultant for small and mid-sized businesses, you can build a group around “power entrepreneurs.” Similarly, if you sell camping gear or organize camping holidays, start a “camping enthusiasts” group. Encourage people to share their blogs, inspiring pieces of content and topics that get everyone fired up into a discussion.
– Post questions. If you don’t know what to talk about, simply ask people what they’d like to discuss.
– Host events such as an online webinar, Hangout session or in person events. Groups give you a fabulous opportunity to connect with like-minded folks in person.
– Encourage member introductions. Ask people to share a little bit of their background, passions and business interests. Create conversations and/or connections based on sharing details about people’s aspirations, goals, and interests.
– Conduct polls about what people would like to hear about and discuss in the group.
10. Celebrate Holidays and Festivals
Fans love it when you add a bit of holiday/festival cheer to your posts. It gets them into a joyful and celebratory mode. Ensure to create posts for special events, and participate in the festive spirit. It reveals an interesting persona, while also demonstrating your sense of awareness about the latest happenings. This makes the business look more human and less robotic, which is really what social media marketing is about.
Find out if the holiday applies to a particular community or it’s celebrated globally. Use it as an occasion to greet you fans and connect with them.
For instance, if it’s International Women’s Day, you can share an appreciation post about the company’s women employees. Give a brief and interesting backdrop, and mention how they add value to the organization.
Fans love inside details about people who run the show from behind the scenes.
People are generally in a more joyous, positive and spending mode during festivals, which means it may be easier to get them to make purchases in a promotional post, following a cheery festival wish post.
Best of Luck! 🙂