Facebook Engagement
Why Is Facebook Engagement So Important?
First, let’s understand why engagement is so important for successful Facebook marketing. Engagement on a Facebook post happens when the post makes a sufficient impact on people (and often sparks an emotional involvement) that they feel compelled to respond. Human nature being what it is, seeing reactions and comments on a post will trigger curiosity and therefore more attention and impact. Regular moments of impact and emotional involvement with a target audience are obviously at the heart of successful social media
marketing. However, for many businesses, the ultimate goal is to have their posts shared because the content (and the business name) will reach a whole new audience and the sharing itself adds an endorsement, or social proof, to the post.
Posts that attract comments and/or encourage sharing or discussion will now get ranked higher in the feed. Facebook explains that “posts that inspire back-and-forth discussion in the comments and posts that people share and react to” will get more visibility in
the news feed.
What this means is that FB algorithm is giving priority to posts from friends and family. So creating engagement is central to successful Facebook marketing.
Things to know and do, to Increase engagement
1. AMA – Encouraging your audience to ask you questions
Asking questions is a great way to attract engagement and responses. For e.g Set up an AMA – This tactic works best if you designate a theme or topic for the questions, set a cutoff date, and explain when the questions will be answered and by whom.
2. Video Spotlight – Get creative about whom you put in the spotlight to answer questions. It could be your staff, suppliers, experts you work with, colleagues you’ve met at an event, or others you partner with. You can either share the answers on your page as a video or document or answer the questions via Facebook Live to generate even more engagement.
3. Share a Shout-Out for Content Created by Your Employees, Fans and Customers Sharing photos or content sent or posted by fans is a great way to show how much your community and customers matter. Just remember to Tag them on the post.
4. Ask for Audience Feedback People love to be included and feel like they matter. How better to make the most of this human trait than to ask your audience for feedback or help with making choices in your business? This tactic can work wonders for increasing engagement. For e.g if you are painting, show a picture or your choice of paint and ask for feedback
5. Curated Content You can get great engagement from sharing content created by others too! The better you know and understand the people you want to attract and interact with, the easier it is to share information they value.
6. Tap Into What’s Trending Sharing Facebook posts that discuss what’s happening in your audience’s world is a great way to encourage responses. Join the conversations that people are already having, so your presence becomes more like that of a friend than an entity that’s trying to sell. And humans respond much better to friends than salespeople. To really stand out, create posts that align with news that you know your audience cares about or that affects them. An extension of this tactic is to create a post referring to a big, current news story. A good tip is to monitor trending hashtags.
7. Talk About Community Involvement and Impact Beyond Business People love businesses that stand for more than just making money. On your Facebook page, share updates about non-profits you support, fundraising activities you’re involved with as a business, or any community projects you’re working on.
8. Post Videos – As a post, or Facebook Live and Facebook stories Facebook video posts attract more attention than any other type of post. However, certain types of video perform better than others. Factors that influences the amount of engagement on a video post is the length and the amount of text in the post. Aim to create videos that are 60-90 seconds long and post text of 84 characters for
optimum engagement.
9. Go Live – One of the quickest ways to ramp up your Facebook engagement is to go live on your page. According to Facebook, live videos on average get six times as many interactions as regular videos.
10. Tell a Significant Story With Emotional Context – Storytelling can also be fantastic for engagement and shares. It doesn’t have to be a long, drawn-out tale to be effective. Just a simple story that’s relevant to your customers or community can work.
Remember to consistently check what’s working by reviewing your Facebook page Insights. Be ready to try different tactics too. At the end of the day, it’s your audience that decides what’s engagement-worthy!