It is no secret anymore that engaging your audience on your Facebook page is the key to more reach and eventually more success. The more people like, comment and click on your posts the more people will see your update. That is because engagement shows Facebook that your audience cares about you and your posts, and Facebook will pay you back with more reach.
It all starts with attracting the right kind of fans: People from your target audience. The next step is to post information that your fans like and reacts or interacts with. But that is not enough. Many Fanpages have targeted fans and post great information, and they still fail with Facebook, they fail at inspiring engagement and their reach on Facebook drops considerably.
Here are some tips for more engagement on your Facebook page.
1. Ask questions
You have probably heard about this: Asking your audience a question can inspire a ton of reactions. I have seen this on Twitter their new poll feature, but it also works on Facebook. It can be a very simple question like “Coffee or tea?”. Just keep in mind that your audience expects to get targeted information, you should not annoy them with too many unrelated posts. How many are too many? That depends on your audience; you need to test it. Also, you need to test what kind of questions inspire engagement, some you like very much may simply drop dead while others you thought were rather boring get a ton of reactions.
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2. Open loops
When you post a link to Facebook, you usually want people to click on it. There has been a lot of talk about posting questions and comments that people will respond to. But how can you make sure people click on your link? A very efficient way of doing that is to post a so-called open loop: hint at the content but do not fully disclose what you are talking about. Here is an example of a list post by PostPlanner.
As most people on Facebook do, PostPlanner added a little teaser text to the link they shared: “Ever thought about deleting the Facebook mobile app from your phone? I have. And here are 5 legit reasons why I should.” But instead of leaving it at that, they add “You can’t argue with #5!”. And that’s an open loop: They hint at something noteworthy and leave you as the reader wondering what they are talking about. You wonder: What could #5 be? Curiosity is a strong feeling, and this type of small tweak to your Facebook link can be very powerful and get a lot more people to click on your link.
(you may also want to try this on Twitter, it may well inspire more post clicks there, too).
3. Mix it up
A lot of people tend to post the same type of updates all the time. Your audience may love them. But they may also get slightly tired of them. You can then catch their attention by varying the types of updates you post. Use video, images, presentations or text updates.
Especially quotes and inspirational texts often get a lot of engagement on Facebook. Kim Garst and Neil Patel use these type of updates successfully to keep the engagement on their fanpage very high.
You have to test what kind of updates work best with your audience. But you also need to bear in mind, that you most of the time are not looking for an audience that likes quotes but for a targeted audience for your business. That often is not the same, and even if updates that are unrelated to your business may get more engagement they may not be the best updates for your Facebook fanpage.
Again, PostPlanner’s Facebook page does a good job with the mix. They include videos, images with quotes and link posts into their daily routine.
4. Repeat yourself
What, seriously? Yes. If you are doing a great job on your Facebook page, you are likely to gain some fans over time. If you have some evergreen content, why not share it again after a considerable amount of time? Most likely the majority of people who are going to see your update did not see it the first time you posted it – and if they did see it, they probably don’t remember. Choose posts that already inspired engagement the first time you posted them.
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This can well help you to fill your gap with your constant need for great content with some great links to your great content.
While engagement is a great step towards Facebook marketing success, Facebook might not be your best choice of a social network for growing social media traffic without paying for ads.
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5. Monitor
The best way to figure out what your audience responds to is to listen and watch your Facebook insights (or another tool that provides you with data on post engagement).
Simply watch out for the updates that inspire the most engagement. If one type of update usually gets a lot of engagement, you should consider posting more updates of that type. But do not forget your goals for your Fanpage. If your goal is to get traffic (clicks on shared links) from Facebook, inspirational quotes will not give you that. They are good for engagement.
Also, what works for your best friend, competitor or an infuencer does not necessarily work well for you. While Fanpages like PostPlanner or Kim Garst inspire a lot of likes and comments with inspirational quotes, they do not work overly well for our own Fanpage.
You need to monitor closely what your audience likes and responds to. Do not blindly copy what others do. Every niche and every audience are different. Find your own voice based on experience. Your audience will thank you.
Note: In case you do not know PostPlanner; there is a reason they have a lot of engagement on their updates on their Facebook Fanpage. That is what they do. They help you find updates that respond with your audience and are highly likely to inspire a lot of engagement. They give you ideas on what kind of questions and what type of inspirational images will work with your fan base. They give you suggestions for updates from other pages which already inspired a lot of engagement and are therefore more likely to inspire engagement with your audience.
Even if you do not stick with PostPlanner for a long time, it may well be worth to use it for a while to learn how to mix up your updates and get more engagement on your Fanpage.
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