07 Ways To Increase Your Facebook Engagement

By increasing your engagement with your Facebook posts you will drive more free traffic to your website. In the first of a two part series, we will show you some good ways to raise your engagement levels with your Facebook audience.

1. Get your Posting Times right

If you post your Facebook content at the wrong times then you will severely limit your exposure. You need to know when your audience are the most active and post at these days and times.

If you have posted some content on Facebook before you can use Facebook Insights to see which posts had the most views and engagement (likes, shares, comments). Make a not of the day and time that you made these posts.

There has been a lot of research on the best Facebook posting times and this is continuously changing. Rather than provide days and times that may be out of date here, it is better if you search for “best Facebook posting times” on Google or another search engine and look at the most up to date research on this.

2. Create Posts that your Audience wants

OK this is obvious, but are you actually doing this? Most Facebook marketers tend to post the things that they think will be of the most interest to their audience and a lot of the time this doesn’t work well.

Don’t think that you only have to post content related to your niche. Even if you are in a niche where you can post a lot of relevant content then it is good to mix it up sometimes. For example, you can publish a post that coincides with a world event such as “Earth Day” and tell people what you are doing to support this.

The rule of thumb that you need to follow is this – the needs of your audience are more important than your needs. Think about what information would be really useful to your audience such as some interesting facts or statistics.

Another thing you can think about is how you can entertain your audience. What could you post that will make them laugh? Facebook users like to be entertained so find something amusing and post this. If you can relate this to your niche then that is even better.

3. Respond to any Comments fast

If someone leaves a comment on one of your posts then you need to respond to them as quickly as possible. There is an expectation on Facebook that any comment needs a response in a few hours.

Thank your audience for leaving comments. If you are asked a question in the comments then provide a full answer. When other users see that you are responding professionally to comments they will be more inclined to leave them as well.

4. Add a Compelling Call to Action

Make sure that you add a compelling call to action (CTA) to your posts. If you want a user to do something (such as visit a related page on your website) then you need to tell them. I(f you do not add a good CTA then you will not get as much traffic as you could.

5. Create Shorter Posts

Long posts are not a good thing on Facebook. Most users will scroll through their news feeds until they find something that piques their interest. If they see a very long and wordy post then they are likely to skip past this very quickly.

You also need to take into account that the user is very likely to be using a mobile device. Reading a long post on a phone is not a good experience so you will lose people if you do this.

It is possible for you to attract the attention of your audience with just a single sentence. The idea is that you want to tell them something interesting and then give them the option to read the full story on your website.

Why not just ask your audience a question? People naturally respond to questions. Or post an image with an intriguing caption on it that will make users curious. You can quote some interesting statistics and persuade the user to click through to the article on your website for the full story. Just keep your posts short.

6. Ask a Question

It is easier to get more engagement if you ask your audience a question. When you ask the right question users will feel compelled to answer. Make it as easy as possible for people to respond to your questions. Create a numbered list and ask your audience to respond by just typing in the appropriate number.

When people are using Facebook they don’t want to work hard. Don’t ask questions and expect your audience to provide a very detailed answer as most of them won’t. For example, you could ask them what subject they would like you to post about next and then give them numbered choices.

Use these questions to increase your engagement:

·         Why do you like…?

·         How do you…?

·         What is your favorite…?

·         Do you agree that…?

·         Do you need help with…?

Just think that all Facebook users are very lazy (this may not be true but when you make something easy for users you will get a better response). Put some thought into your questions so that you get the information that you need.

7. Use Facebook Stories

Few marketers use Facebook Stories. This is probably because it takes more time and effort to create them. But the good thing about stories is that they appear at the top of user news feeds just like they do on Instagram. This is really good exposure.

Facebook users like stories. When you post some good stories you will warm up your audience to want to see more of your content. Some of them will look at previous posts on your Facebook Page that they hadn’t read before.

There are a number of examples where Facebook users have shown more interest in a business after reading their stories. They are powerful so work out how you can create good stories and add them as often as you can.