Have you ever wondered why one Facebook post gets a better response from its audience than another? It’s not luck or an omen because it’s all about what you post, the time you’re posting and the choice of words. For instance, posts about technology, optimism, travel, health, and sports usually engage more audience than the other types.
Contents
Business is still learning how to use Facebook Effectively
Facebook so easily dominates competition that it’s often difficult to show the magnitude of its influence. While planning or implementing a social media strategy, businesses prefer Facebook above other networks for a winning streak.
Facebook has undoubtedly, focused immensely on helping businesses attract more audience, engage better and boost sales. There are literally thousands of apps on Facebook that assist businesses with brand promotion. Surveys have revealed that businesses will increase their investment in Facebook by 50% this year.
Facebook is simple to use yet engaging the right audience is an art. Businesses dream of people flocking to their Facebook page whereas, in reality most of them give up and cease all activity on the network when they fail to get results despite constant activity.
The fact is that businesses are still learning how to enhance their reach and better engage their audience on Facebook.
The questions that often arise are:
What type of content will help engage more audience?
How frequent should the posts be?
What is the best time to share a post for increased engagement?
There are plenty of research studies on tactics that increase engagement on Facebook and after a thorough review, below are some of the most effective ones that are guaranteed to get you those likes, comments and share.
#1 Keep your posts short, simple and to the point
Engagement is all about developing an audiences’ interest in a post to get more likes, shares or comments. Surveys reveal that in order to engage more audience, posts have got to be short, simple and to the point.
Here are some effective Engagement Tips that you can use to improve interaction on your posts
Posts with less than 80 characters get 23% more interaction. So next time, when you are in the mood to write do not use your Facebook Page as the canvas because wordy posts with lots of details bore your audience.
Using emoticons increases comments by 33%. If you’re thinking emoticons are personal and ought not to be used on businesses page then you’re wrong. Your audience expects you to interact with them in a friendly manner because that’s what Facebook is all about – Making more and more friends, even if it’s your favorite shampoo brand.
Question posts get 100% more comments: Questions are the best way to spark a dialogue with your fans. It is one of the easiest and the most effective methods to get people to respond to a post.
Here area few types of questions that you ask your audience:
Specific’ ones like “What is your favorite flavor?”
‘Yes/No’ questions like “Rompers: Yay or Nay?”
‘Timely’ questions like “Today is Halloween! What are you going to dress up as for the Party?”
‘Edgy’ type of questions like “Shouldn’t sweat pants with butt text be banned for good?”
‘Photo,’ these are questions related to a picture. “What do you think of Kim Kardashian’s pregnant bikini Pics? Sexy or Not!”
‘True/False’ questions like “True or False: Jennifer Aniston is covering up that obvious baby bump.”
‘Direct’ ones like “Do you think barely there swimsuits are here to stay?”
‘Preference’ ones like “Do you like jumpsuits or playsuits?”
‘Fun’ types of questions like “What if Neil Patrick Harris was the only man alive on earth would you turn gay to be with him?”
‘Event-based’ ones like “Who is attending Madonna’s last concert?”
‘Experience oriented’ questions like “What’s your favorite Robin Williams movie?”
‘Sympathetic’ ones like “Have you ever seen someone doze off and literally snore while watching a play or a movie?”
‘Tips’ are questions framed in a way that you get various tips as a response. “What’s your favorite sunblock brand to wear to the beach?”
‘Fill in the blank’ questions like “My Fashion must-have is ______.”
‘If scenario’ questions like: “If I had a million dollars, I would ____.”
‘Remember when’ questions like “Remember when bell-bottom pants were the hottest thing?”
Quotes get 26% more likes and 19% more shares
Popular quotes by celebrities or inventors etc derive more likes, shares and comments because of the emotional attachment your audience has with the quote’s owner.
#2 Use Images to increase engagement
A picture is worth a thousand words. Although, short posts receive a good response on Facebook and videos have recently become a popular source for likes and shares, yet Images rule when it comes to maximizing engagement on Facebook.
Pictures are any Facebook expert’s favorite way to build engagement because they are easily digestible to the mind, appealing to the eye and fun.
Engagement is not as simple as posting just any picture, there are several types of images and some work better than the rest.
Some of the most engaging pictures on Facebook include simple product pictures that are aesthetically shot, celebrity sightings; funny memes are a favorite these days and they easily pull in the highest number of likes/comments/shares, cute pictures of animals, graphic quotes and many more.
#3 Videos are ideal to increase engagement
Videos are the most effective way to engage your audience. But do not link your videos to Youtube because you’ll lose all those view to Youtube instead of Facebook.
A research revealed that natively uploaded videos on Facebook received 52 times more views than on Youtube. And with Facebook’s new feature on their phone app you don’t have click a video for it to play anymore since it plays automatically once you scroll down to it.
A 90% visual and 10% text is a recipe for excellent engagement on Facebook. Videos give you the space to be creative, interactive and you can do some really cool things with it.
In fact, your audience will not just engage with a video but they are more likely to remember it compared to plain text. With specific colors or shapes or maybe things, people relate to often hold an important position in their brain.
#4 Be creative with your posts
Creative ideas work wonders when you want to increase engagement on your Facebook page. Surveys have revealed that 35% of Facebook Fans like a page so they can participate in contests. Regular competitions and giveaways will attract more audience to your page and of course increase engagement by two-folds.
But when people like, comment, share or tag on posts like these the overall reach grows and innumerable people on Facebook can view and respond your post.
A particular ‘Tag 10 friends in this Picture’ contest yields 100 times more audience to your page hence, your likes increase for FREE and once they engage on your post, your brand’s reach on Facebook grows.
Similarly, you can collect votes with like vs. share posts with images. This activity is simple yet it increases engagement on a page. Graphic posts announcing discounts, mega sales, or giving out coupons receive 55% higher user engagement rate than regular posts.
Be straight about the amount your audience won’t have to pay because if you make your fans do the math off an offer then your post is most likely to fail miserably.
#5 Best Time to Post
Timing is key to any post’s success on Facebook. If you update your page when everyone’s at work or asleep then you are bound to fail with that post because your audience won’t be available to respond to it.
Depending on your target market, it’s best to post during the evenings when people are done with work and heading home.
To find out the best time for you to post, you must check your Facebook Insights reports to see when you’re getting the highest engagement rates.
When you know that time of the day you get the highest number of likes, comments and shares then you need to plan your posts around that time for increased level of engagement.
Although studies have revealed that 5pm EST is ideal for Monday through Thursday. It’s the non-busy hours that work wonders. Similarly, through Facebook Insights you can find out which day out of the week receives the highest engagement on your page.
Although, it is important to post daily so to keep your audience engaged at a regular basis, studies show that fan engagement is 8% above average on Wednesdays and 2% above average on Sundays, which makes these days ideal for increased engagement.
You can plan your editorial content according to the insights by announcing a contest on Wednesday and other video/image specific or other types of posts throughout the week.
#6 Frequency of Posts for better engagement
Do not post more than twice on the same day because it kills the fun for your audience. Research shows that posting one to two times per day produces 40% higher user engagement.
Make sure you don’t overcrowd your audience’s newsfeeds throughout the week by posting incessantly. Post once or maybe twice everyday and try taking a break once a week – we’ve all heard the saying ‘absence makes the heart grow fonder.’
But do not cut down those posts to one or two in a week because that will ruin engagement by folds. However, what works for your brand might not work for another. One has to carefully study Facebook Insights and decide accordingly.
#7 Use Call to Actions in your Posts for better engagement
Call to actions work as psychological nudges for your audience by triggering their brain to act on something. This is a common mistake that businesses make by skipping the call to actions altogether.
Your audience will respond better once you give them specifics as to what to respond to.
Decide whether you want more likes, comments or shares on the post and create a call to action based on that information. For e.g. like or comment on the picture and support a cause; or if the post is about some serious social/humanistic concern then ask people to share the post so to reach out to maximum audience on Facebook.
Prompting your audience into an action is the most effective way to increase engagement on your Facebook page. Just posting streams of content won’t get you engagement; it’s when you actually interact with your audience with a call to action that interaction on your page will increase by folds.
#8 Facebook Advertising
As absurd that it might sound, but without effective Facebook advertising to promote your page or posts you cannot increase engagement on your page by incredible folds.
Promoting posts increases the reach and if the post is of good quality created on the basis of essentials we have discussed earlier in this article then you are bound to get innumerable likes on the page and increased levels of engagement on your posts.
What about you? What do you do to boost your page’s engagement?
Was this article informative and helpful? Or are you that smarty who is aware of all the best tactics to increase engagement on Facebook?
Have you tried any of the tactics given above? If yes, then what results did get? We Wanna Know! So give us a shout out in the comments below. We’d love to know what you think.
