Are you trying to get more Facebook engagement on your Page?  Are you frustrated with the declining reach and activity on Facebook?  In this article I’m going to share what is working now to get more visibility, interaction, and reach with your Facebook Page posts.

I’ve spent the last two weeks analyzing Facebook Pages that I have featured in the past to see how they are doing now. I just updated my free ebook on 50 Posts Guaranteed to Engage Your Audience (click the link to grab your copy!) and in the process really dove into what is working right now.  I’ve outlined some good examples that I also feature in the ebook.

Why focus on Facebook Engagement?

First of all, why focus on Facebook Engagement at all?  Is it still an important metric?

Facebook can be a lot of work.  Especially these days.  Organic reach is harder than it use to be.  So why bother?

First of all, Facebook Pages are still getting organic reach.  Yes, it is harder but it is worthwhile to stay top of mind with your customers.

Facebook is still the place where businesses are hanging out.

Image Source: http://www.pewinternet.org/2016/11/11/social-media-update-2016/

If your Page doesn’t get engagement, the posts start to drop out of the News Feed even more with your community.

While I don’t think that Engagement is the only metric you should be watching (I’m partial to link clicks and traffic to my website), it is still valuable for visibility to your business.

Also a good reason to have an engaging post is that if you were to Boost your post and add some advertising budget to push it out to more people, Facebook rewards good content with lower costs to get more reach!

So what is working to get engagement on Facebook?  Here are some good examples.

Facebook Video and Live Video

Facebook videos continue to do well as they give higher priority to video and Live video in the News Feed.  You must upload the video directly to Facebook (not a YouTube link) for this strategy to work.

Facebook Live video is particularly good for engagement and Reach as your Fans are notified when you go Live.  We used Belive.tv to schedule our Live video so that our Fans were also notified in advance that the video was going to happen.

 

Give a Quick Tip

People love to share helpful tips.  If you can teach someone something new, you will impact their life.  This video tip combines both video and something helpful and has over 24 Million views after just 2 days.

Illustrating the tip with an image also improved the “shareability” of the post.

 

Make a List

People love lists. You can make a blog post with a list or make a list into an image. Not all lists may resonate but they can be good for engagement.

 

Make it FUN!

Asking questions has always been a good way to get engagement.  But I know not every question gets the type of engagement you want.  It’s ok.  Keep trying.  Make sure you are commenting on other people’s posts as well so that the conversation isn’t always one way.

Get Personal

Sometimes people don’t want to share their own picture on their Page.  But it makes your business more relate-able.  People don’t want to talk to your logo, they want to talk to you!  Share some news about what is going on with your business.

 

Give Away Something Valuable

People are often connected to your business on Facebook to get notified of special deals. Make it worthwhile to be your fan.  I know you may not always want to run specials or discounts in your business but when you do, they can go viral.  Check out the engagement on this special deal at Market Basket Foods and the engagement they get after posting a special.  (Example courtesy of http://www.socialchadvisor.com/)

Tons of people tagging others to go pick up the deal.  Over 586 comments after just 1 day.

Or consider something free that someone use – a report, some checklists, or an online training.

Note:  While this particular example is “Sponsored” and therefore not “organic” engagement, we only spent $27 to reach an additional 9,100 people since it was doing very well organically in terms of engagement.  Facebook rewards good content with better ad performance!  And it can be very beneficial to give a good post a “boost” with some ad budget.

Lessons from Reviewing Facebook Engagement

This exercise came about because I was updating my free ebook.  And so I was looking at a lot of my “go-to” Pages that have done well with Facebook engagement in the past.  Here’s what I saw:

1. Pages that have previously gotten high engagement for every single post they had are seeing a decline in engagement overall.
2. You don’t have to have a lot of fans to get good engagement – small Facebook Pages are still doing well.
3. Adding humor, adding your story, and getting more personal are still effective methods for connecting to your community.
4. Video is really working well on most Pages.
5. Posting less but posting consistently is a good strategy.
6. Always focus on good quality posts that inspire, entertain, or help your audience.

Hope that is helpful to you in someway.  For more examples and tips, make sure you download my e-book:  50 Facebook Posts Guaranteed to Engage Your Audience!