Young Entrepreneur Council — January 29, 2017 Follow @YECWhat’s a great trick for increasing engagement on Facebook that most new business owners don’t already know?
1. Create Original Content for Facebook
While it can be tempting to just link out to existing content of yours on Facebook, you’ll get much better engagement if you take the time to create some original content for the platform, especially shareable memes or funny lines that will resonate with your followers. This will up your page’s engagement and ultimately get you more clicks on the other content you share there. – Stephanie Kaplan Lewis, Her Campus Media
2. Boost Your Posts Every Now and Then
I look at boosting posts as a stepping stone to more engagement. By boosting your Facebook post, you’re paying for it to appear higher on people’s newsfeeds. Sometimes without a boost, your amazing quality content remains unseen by users who would otherwise engage. I recommend -10 a post, two or three times a week in order to start seeing results. It really will make all the difference. – Dave Nevogt, Hubstaff.com
3. Focus on Existing Buyers With Audience Marketing
The best engagement on Facebook comes from people who already know your business and preferably have purchased your products. In this way, the key to driving top engagement is to use Facebook’s Audience marketing. Audience marketing allows you to upload customer information (email, phone number, etc.) and create audiences. You can then show highly engaging content to a highly familiar audience. – Kristopher Jones, LSEO.com
4. Share Quality Content From Competitors
Take a look at the content of some of your competing businesses. And if you feel it will benefit your followers, share it. It sounds counterintuitive but it does work. You can’t expect that you’re the only one with great content for your audience, and promoting that of others in your industry will be sure to improve engagement, as well as your reputation. – Andrew Schrage, Money Crashers Personal Finance
5. Host Live Streaming Events
You can use Facebook’s live streaming features to live stream right on your feed. Planning and producing an informal, informational and fun live stream can be a great way to generate engagement on Facebook. You can even use Facebook Ads to promote your live stream before it happens to reach audiences outside of those who follow your Facebook page. – Russell Kommer, eSoftware Associates Inc
6. Publish and Promote Videos Directly on Facebook
Facebook is the new dominant platform for online video these days and your customers are glued to their timelines. Capture their attention, interest and loyalty by publishing creative videos directly to FB and promoting them. Include a CTA at the end too so viewers can leave a comment with their thoughts, ‘like’ your video and share their reaction or visit your website and complete a purchase. – Firas Kittaneh, Amerisleep
7. Hold Free Giveaways and Contests
Use free giveaways of your most valuable content and offer contests to keep your visitors engaged. When you continually have something happening on your Facebook page, it will prompt your visitors to come back each day to see what’s going on next. – Nicole Munoz, Start Ranking Now
8. Sell Directly and Offer Exclusive Deals
Many people may not realize you can set up a mini shop and offer exclusive merchandise and specials not found on a website. This gets people excited and makes them feel special for liking your Facebook page. – Drew Hendricks, Buttercup
9. Be Diligent About Filling in Relevant Information
An easy, often overlooked thing to do is fill in as much information as possible. This means: fill in your location, tag other pages/users relevant to the post (if it’s a photo, both in the photo and in the copy surrounding it), and share your post in any relevant groups. It’s a great way to boost reach and drive engagement by having people organically find you based on your mutual interests. – David Ciccarelli, Voices.com
10. Talk to Your Audience
Certainly you might “know” this, but if you aren’t doing it, what good is the knowledge? People don’t want to be treated like robots or numbers. They want to be interacted with and engaged with on a personal level. Redouble your efforts to get to know your audience and respond to comments. – Ismael Wrixen, FE International
11. Use Facebook Affinity
Facebook Audience Insights can be used to segment out a hyper-targeted audience and then serve ads for customer acquisition. You can utilize the tool’s Affinity and Relevance scores to hone in on a sample set of Facebook users who are more likely to be acquired as customers based on user interest data. Your ads will have a lower cost per click (CPC) and a higher engagement rate. – Nick Chasinov, Teknicks
12. Lead the Conversation
The key to social media engagement is being engaging yourself. Look through your own posts and engage with each user who interacts with you. This will help you better understand your key demographic by creating organic conversations with them. Click through users who like your posts and return the favor. It also helps to utilize this same strategy with well-performing posts on competitors’ pages. – Justin Lefkovitch, Mirrored Media
13. Provide Exceptional Customer Service
We’re aware of our customers’ needs and desire to engage with us on social media with questions about our products or customer service issues. We try to respond to any Facebook message, comment or status within an hour in order to resolve any concerns our customers might have. Much of this activity is visible to other users and encourages them to engage with us. – Zev Herman, Superior Lighting
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