Since Facebook is a personal social networking platform, it’s important that businesses use a personal, and creative, approach to marketing on the channel.
As a business or marketer on Facebook, you’ve got some stiff competition.
I mean, you’re competing again photos of your friends babies in Facebook’s algorithm. You’re trying to capture people’s attention despite the thousands of funny and inspirational photos and videos that are posted to the platform daily.
If you want to grow the attention and awareness of your Facebook page, you have to give your fans what they want!
When marketing on Facebook, it’s important to prioritize the personal approach. (I blogged about the importance of this a few weeks ago.)
Now that you understand why the personal approach takes precedence, I’m going to share specific, actionable advice.
The first thing to keep in mind is that social media shouldn’t be self-centered; brands that post only about themselves don’t engage their audience.
In order to grow your social media audience and engagement, you need to provide value.
Should you post about yourself? Should you share your company mission and products?
Of course! After all, this is your platform to build brand awareness.
However, you also want to add value into your social strategy.
Sharing links to articles (not written by you,) that you know your audience finds interesting is one way to do it. Another way is to share posts from other pages on Facebook.
Curating the best and brightest content in your industry, and sharing quality content from other pages, will make your Facebook page more attractive.
Below are tactics to engage and entertain your Facebook audience, regardless of the type of content you’re posting:
Status:
This type of update is the least exciting and engaging. However, that doesn’t mean you should abandon posting status updates.
Instead, use status updates as a way to share a quick tip with your audience and/or engage them.
Ask your audience questions to get them excited about sharing their opinion and/or tagging their friends or other businesses in the comments section of the post.
Through questions and “shout-outs,” you can grow the activity and engagement around these types of updates.
Remember to: use hashtags and keep the updates short and sweet.
Hashtags help expand the reach of your status update, and brevity helps keep the updates digestible.
Links:
Links posts are optimized in Facebook’s algorithm for traffic and reach.
When you post a link, Facebook works to try to get you the most clicks and eyeballs to the site you shared. This means that if you want to drive website traffic, you should be posting links.
Posting a photo, and including the link in the caption, is going to be much less effective in driving traffic to your site.
Remember to: drive interest through questions or statements.
Asking your audience a question will prompt them to leave answers in the comments.
Similarly, pairing your links with statements such as “I couldn’t live without Tip #3,” is a great way to generate interest and incentivize clicks.
Photos:
Where links are optimized for reach and traffic, photos are optimized in Facebook’s algorithm for engagement and shares.
So, if your goal for the update is to get a lot of shares and comments, you want to be sure to make it a photo update.
You can get creative with how to entertain and engage through photo. For example, you could customize/edit the photo to show only a part of the story and ask your audience to fill in the rest.
Remember to: make your photos square.
Long, skinny photos don’t look great in Facebook’s interface.
It’s also worth testing the captions you write for your photos. For example, I don’t think that every photo needs a caption paired with it.
For infographic and/or quote-style photos, try publishing them without a caption to test the impact on engagement for photos with and without captions.
Videos:
It should come as no surprise to you that Facebook’s algorithm is currently prioritized for video.
Whether you’re posting a video to your page or doing a Facebook Live, video gets top priority in the Facebook newsfeed. This makes video the best type of update for businesses looking to generate awareness and attention.
Videos are the most shareable form of content right now, making them powerful for page growth.
Remember to: keep your descriptions short.
Videos perform best when paired with short and sweet descriptions.
As the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words; stray away from the desire to explain your video through the post description.
Instead, be quirky and creative with your updates.
Since a lot of people watch videos on Facebook without the sound, you’re going to want to think outside the box for ways to include text captions in the video that get people to turn on the sound.
It’s also important to note that when posting a video to your page, be it a native upload or a Facebook Live, the video stays on your page once posted or completed.
Facebook Live:
Live video, which is optimized in the newsfeed, is going to be a great way to capture attention on Facebook.
When doing a Facebook live, it’s suggested that longer is better. Don’t be afraid to broadcast for 45 minutes. However, keep in mind that Facebook will cut you off at 1.5 hours.
Remember to: engage with your audience throughout the broadcast.
Live video is interactive; be sure to introduce yourself to your audience a few times throughout the broadcast, as you should assume that people are hopping on and off your broadcast.
You also want to ask your fans to introduce themselves in return; this is a great way to build the community within the broadcast.
Another way to encourage engagement during a Facebook Live is to incentivize people to post their own questions in the comments of the broadcast. By answering their questions directly, you will serve to entertain and engage your fans.
You should ask your fans to subscribe to your Facebook Live; this means that Facebook will notify them anytime you go Live on Facebook.
If you plan on being an active user of Facebook Live, you definitely want to get your fans to subscribe to your “channel.”
You should also ask your fans to share the video at some point during your Live broadcast; early shares are extremely powerful in expanding reach.
Finally, it’s worthwhile to remind your fans that they can view your video later, as your video will be posted to your page as soon as the broadcast concludes.
Telling your fans when you’re going to go live, engaging them throughout the broadcast, and asking for subscriptions and shares will boost your engagement.
Regardless of the type of content you’re posting to the platform, there are ways to customize it to be more entertaining and engaging for your fans.
How do you go about entertaining and engaging your Facebook fans?
Share your tactics and tips below!
