Facebook is home to more than 1.4 billion monthly active users from all over the world. Wether you already have a facebook page for your business or are considering setting up a new one, it’s a smart move. That being said, it takes time, patience and expertise to build a social audience for your product, brand or service. Creating and maintaining a page that has the potential to get noticed, Liked, and engaged with is an ongoing process. As every business is different then the next, so are it’s target audience. Naturally, This tip sheet is based on general statistics that have been accumulated throughout the years and therefore not every tip will be of utmost value to yours. Play around and find out what works best for you.
- An image tells a thousand words
On average, a facebook posts that includes an image receives around 40% more engagement and account for 93% of the most engaging posts on Facebook overall. Make sure that the photos you post are optimized and engaging. If you have a few images that go well together, it is always recommended to post them all under one Album. This will not only help with improving engagement but will also ensure that your facebook content is well organized and easily accessible for your users in the future.
- Call to action
Include call to action phrases within your posts. Call to action phrases can be simple questions and act as an invitation for your users to interact with your post. Asking your followers for feedback about an upcoming event or offer or inviting them to share there thoughts on a specific subject are all great opportunities for your followers to engage with your page and amongst each other. Try and avoid phrases like “Please Share” or “Help us spread the word” as these are activities that you should be able to inspire your followers to do instinctively.
- Create a conversation
Facebook is built for interaction. In order to inspire a conversation between you and your followers, as well as between the followers themselves, make sure you are posting information that is engaging and relevant to your users interests. Feel free to highlight great comments that your users are posting and keep the conversation on a positive note. This will not only inspire your users to communicate on your page but also to share the content your are posting with their friends on facebook.
- Post external links
While the majority of your posts need to be relevant to your products and services, feel free to post links to external sites as conversation starters. Events that are in the news, Holidays and special occasions are always wonderful opportunities to further engage your followers. If the source of the information you are sharing is also on facebook, be sure to tag them within your post. This will not only offer you a way to credit the source of the information but can also inspire other facebook users to not only like your posts and page, but to also tag you when they share content you have originated and helping you extending your social network on facebook.
- Planning ahead and scheduling posts
Planning your posts ahead of time can not only ensure that you are offering your followers a variety of post types and topics throughout the month but can also help you make sure you are including all of the relevant information you want to share. Facebook allows you to schedule posts that will be published at a later time / date which is highly valuable for you as you want to ensure that your posts are published at the most active times of the day / week.
- Valuable INSIGHTS
The Insights tab in the admin section of your page offers you a ton of useful information about your users and their activities on facebook. Take the time to review all of the information this section offers you and plan your posting schedule and content accordingly. The insights tab is also a wonderful source of content you may be considering to repost at a later time so keep a close eye on the data accumulated here and use it to your advantage.
- Follow up
Following up is extremely important when managing a facebook page. Facebook is a multi-way communication tool! Reply to your followers comments and utilize the notifications tool to make sure you do not miss any relevant correspondence happening on your page. Additionally following up on a regular basis will allow you to keep your page clean as you remove any spam, harnessing or irrelevant comments from your feed.
- Mix It Up
To maximize your exposure potential on facebook make sure to include text posts, photos, videos and external links as part of your ongoing post strategy. Once again follow up is important here as once you accumulate a good amount of posts you will be able to know which type of posts are the most engaging to your followers.
- Avoid constant promotional updates
While it is completely acceptable to post promotional information every once in a while, make sure that your followers are not bombarded with promotional posts on an on-going basis. Alternatively, decide what your most important promotional message actually is and focus on delivering it to your followers in an exciting focused way. Facebook users are known to love contests and giveaways, especially when they are exclusive to facebook so make your followers feel special by running facebook only specials on your page every once in a while. Just don’t over do it !
- Keep it short and personal.
Twitter is not the only social network where keeping it short is very valuable.According to available statistics, keeping your posts below 250 characters can get you up to 60% more engagement. Keeping your message focused is key, the other one being keeping it personal. Users don’t like to feel like they are interacting with a machine and keeping a personal tone on facebook is an absolute must.
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