So you have set up your business Facebook account! Congratulations! Now, what are you going to do with it?
One of the most common mistakes I see made by smaller businesses on their Facebook Pages is that they use their pages like moving billboards. They push information at their audience rather than engaging with them.
To avoid being one of those brands, read on to find how you can increase your brand’s Facebook engagement.
- Engagement Strategy #1: Give Your Audience Something to Engage with
- Engagement Strategy #2: Stick Around
- What Kind of Engagement is Beneficial?
- Get the Tools to Help
Facebook Engagement Strategy #1:
Give your audience something to engage with
Recently, I have seen a trend where businesses are using their Facebook Page like its a website. They post pictures and provide information about their company and services, but do not encourage interaction from their followers.
Facebook was not designed for this! In fact, Facebook’s algorithm will punish you for acting this way. Give your followers a reason to talk to you! Here are a few ideas that you can use to encourage natural dialogue from your fans:
- Ask for help on a business decision you need to make – for example, what your next project should be or the next steps in a program you are working on. There is a blogger I follow and she just recently asked the group about splitting her audience into multiple Facebook Groups. She’s getting a ton of great advice from her fans. People like to show off their expertise to brands so give them the chance to feel like they are having an impact on one they love! (Yes I mean yours!)
- Create a poll – Ask your audience to choose their favorite. I have done this in the past with clients asking their fans to pick a favorite item or comment if it wasn’t listed. This is a great way for you to get a better feel for what your fans really love!
- Share articles/information that you find interesting and ask for feedback – If you find it interesting chances are your fans will too so share that information and ask for feedback or for other resources that your fans might want to share.
Overall think of your Facebook page (and other social media channels) as an ongoing conversation with your fans. Make it natural and make it real. You wouldn’t just post a picture of a new pie and say to a friend “Here is this pie.” No way! You would say something like “Should we try this next time?” or “What pie do you want to try on your next visit?”
Facebook Engagement Strategy #2:
Stick Around
Once your fans are interacting with you, don’t walk away! I see this with a number of small business brands where a post will create a lot of buzz and questions, but the brand is nowhere to be found. Ultimately, your fans will lose interest if you let this continue.
If you are posting at a time when your fan base is active, then hang out online for a little bit to see if anyone responds immediately and respond back! Even something as small as a thank you or
Want to take this Facebook engagement to the next level?
Make it a conversation! Ask for more information or a follow-up question whenever someone comments on your post. The more interaction that happens the more the social media algorithms like you and that’s good for business!
What Kind of Facebook Engagement is Beneficial?
Not only will your fans start to become super fans when you engage with them, but the social media algorithms judge your content and value based on that feedback. The more engaging your content, the more likely those channels will help you grow!
For example on Facebook. Did you know that only 0.5% of your fans will see content that is put out by a business page? Facebook is not in the business of helping other businesses so to make an impression they want you to pay for it. But you can avoid that by making your content amazing and engaging.
No interaction at all is bad and too much of that and Facebook will deem that your content is not interesting and reduce your reach (even with your fans)
Like, Love, Wow and so on are better, but they are very easy to get and don’t require a lot of effort. Plus there is no way for you to engage with just this kind of response.
Comments are amazing! When someone takes the time to comment, they are putting in an effort. So it should be acknowledged by you with a response! This will also help your organic reach as Facebook will consider your content interesting enough to show to other users (think about “Suggested Posts” you have seen in your feed).
To
Get Tools to Help
As a brand, you more than likely run multiple channels and have lots of things going on. It can be almost impossible to keep track of all of the activity on your accounts. There are tools out there that can help you track all of the activity in one place as well as give you the information you need to make decisions about how to best use each channel. One of my favorites is Agorapulse.
Check out all of their features but one of my favorites is a social inbox that will centralize all of the comments and activities for your pages.
When you are engaged with your fans, then you have a super-engaged audience that will help you grow your brand organically.
What kind of content does your audience like best?
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