Ideas to Help Your Posts Get Better Engagement
Welcome to my (somewhat hodgepodge) list of ideas to help you post to Facebook. The ideas can work for other social media too.
WHAT should you post?
There are SO many ways you can build engagement! Not all of these may apply to your business, but it’s worth experimenting to see what works. Grab a few to get posting!
One axiom that is generally adhered to for business posting: Follow the 70-20-10 rule. Your focus should be to build relationships with your fans – not bombard them with ads about your products.
Post original valuable and engaging content 70 percent of the time. 20 percent of the time share content that your fans would be interested in. Then feel free to be self-promotional 10 percent of the time.
Pose a Question – pair the questions with an appealing visual
- Specific: What’s your favorite…?
- Tips: How do you…?
- Experiences: What’s your favorite moment from experience/memory…?
- Edgy: Do you think…? (controversial question)
- Direct: Why do you…?
- Events: Who is going/Who attended…?
- Timely: Today is…, so what are you…?
- Ask fans to make a choice
- Post at times of the day when your fans are online. Experiment with different times of the day and week, track your efforts to see your successes.
- Share relevant images – Images attract! Try one of these FREE online tools to help you create:
- Adobe Spark: https://spark.adobe.com
- CANVA: https://www.canva.com/
- Use ONLY quality images
- Engage with other brands – be tactful, build a relationship, share content, don’t spam
- Crowdsource Feedback – It’s a much more personal approach than surveys and you can respond to people directly to address their feedback.
- Include a Call to Action – if you want your audience to do something, you have to tell them what to do to encourage engagement
- Boost Your Best Posts – If you have a blog post or other website content that has seen tremendous traffic, post it to your Facebook page and boost that post. You don’t need to throw hundreds of dollars at it; give it a modest boost of $25 and target the people who like your page and their friends.
- High value content with a lot of great takeaways: solution to problem or answer to a question
- Use Google Analytics to check hits to blogs
- Use Preferred Audience Targeting – a free Facebook tool
- If this option isn’t enabled on your page, here’s how to turn it on. Go to your page and click the Settings tab. Under General Settings, you’ll find Audience Optimization for Posts. Click Edit and make sure this feature is turned on.
- This custom audience option will now be available whenever you post a status update to your page
- Share Industry News and Hot Topics – share news, current topics in your industry. Get ACCURATE news, ask fans for their thoughts
- Adjust Your Post Frequency – posting too little or too much.
- Posting too little (say a few times a week) won’t help you establish relevance with Facebook’s algorithm. You may be fighting for space in your audience’s feed.
- Posting too often can hurt you, too. Facebook tries to show users the most interesting and relevant content from everyone they follow. If you’re posting a half-dozen times each day over a short period, expect a lot of your content to be missed.
- Balance the number of posts with RUNNING your business. Many business owners can’t afford to be posting to Facebook frequently.
- Post something funny – relevant to your fans’ interests
- Post something emotional
- Post something that provides value to your fans
- Post a Job Opening – use the Jobs tab in Facebook to attract and set up interviews
- Post a quiz – serious or light
- Post/Host Contests and Giveaways
- Try Woobox or Rafflecopter to manage the event,
- Cpture email addresses for continued marketing and engagement.
- Just make sure you follow state and federal guidelines and Facebook’s requirements when hosting a contest or giveaway.
- Tap into Trending Topics – Google Trends: https://trends.google.com/trends/?geo=US
- Rethink Hashtag Use – use sparingly or not at all. Statistics show using multiple hashtags don’t increase engagement
- Respond to Everyone!
- Ask for your fans’ content – share photos
- Share content from your other media channels
- Video – upload directly to Facebook
- Live-streaming video – give an “inside look” at your business, broadcast to a Facebook group – answer questions about your product and connect with members (people watch this type 3x longer than native video.) https://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/6-ways-to-use-facebook-live-video-for-your-business/
- Celebrate Holidays – “silly” as well as traditional. Who here celebrated National Donut Day?
- Share valuable curated content – be a helpful resource for your fans. More info here: https://www.lifewire.com/curate-content-on-your-blog-3476847
- Post on the weekends