Having a large following on Facebook is great. But if you have a ton of “likes” and only a handful of true fans, then it doesn’t matter how awesome your brand is. Your posts still aren’t likely to be seen.
Facebook doesn’t just look at the number of likes you have—it also considers how much engagement you’re getting. Fortunately, there are still a few things you can do to boost your engagement levels…
Ask Questions
Questions are a simple way to get people commenting on your posts. The important thing is to ask questions that are relevant to your brand. For example, if you’re a cosmetics brand, you might ask, “What’s the #1 makeup item you’re never without?”
As people begin answering, go through and “like” their comments. If they ask a question in return or need help with an issue, take a moment to respond. By doing this, Facebook’s algorithms will think your post is trending and display it to even more of your followers.
Share Images
The best types of images to share are funny ones (think memes) or inspirational ones. Unless your business is a religious institution or a political niche, avoid touching on these two topics in your images. They can result in alienating a large portion of your followers.
Again, you want to stay on topic so the images align with your brand. For example, if you sell skydiving lessons, then a funny post about fear of heights might be appropriate. But your audience may not find a dog joke as funny.
Go Live
Facebook loves promoting live videos to their users and they’ll even send your followers a notification that you’ve gone live. That’s why you want to use Facebook to start broadcasting if you haven’t yet.
Don’t just pop in for a quick chat on Facebook Live. The social media giant prefers to see videos that are 15-45 minutes in length. Viewers watch live videos with the understanding that they’ll be getting meatier content, so show up ready to share valuable insights or tips.
Use Facebook’s Graphics
Sometimes, you want to share a quick text update with your Facebook fans. The only problem is that it’s easy for text posts to get lost in the noise of a busy newsfeed.
You can overcome this problem by using the graphics Facebook has included in their posting area. Login and type your status. Then click on the backgrounds to choose one—the backgrounds are the tiny colorful squares you see at the bottom of your posting area.
Link to Interesting Content
Linking to outside content on Facebook can also be a good idea. But you want to pick content that’s fascinating. Linking to ho-hum content trains your community to ignore your suggestions.
Instead, only link to the very best posts and articles online. Look for headlines that will grab attention and inspire your audience to click. Remember: if it doesn’t inspire you to click, it probably won’t appeal to your followers either.
Ask Your Followers to Share
This is another simple tactic that can boost your engagement rate. But you only want to ask your followers to share a post when it’s truly valuable. Posting 20 updates about your new sale and telling your followers to share each post will get you ignored.
Instead, post something that your community will naturally want to tell their friends about. For example, you could ask them to share a post that features a 20% discount coupon code or a chance to win a prize (per Facebook’s advertising rules, sharing cannot be a requirement in your contest).
Pay Attention to What Works
Study your Facebook insights. This is the best way to track your engagement level and see which posts are succeeding. Pay attention to what your most popular posts have in common.
For example, you may notice most of your engagement comes when you post Facebook Live videos but you get very little engagement from regular videos. Now that you know that, you can transition to doing just Facebook Live videos to keep your fans interested.
Facebook is one of the best social networks to use for your marketing. But like every tool, you need to invest the time and the energy into making sure it’s working right for your business.
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