It’s a question you hear often on social media, in conferences, webinars and wherever entrepreneurs and other business owners gather. It usually starts out with bemoaning the loss of organic reach on Facebook. But anywhere savvy business owners gather, the discussion quickly progresses to “HOW.” How to overcome Facebook’s changing algorisms to be effective with your Facebook marketing.
I recently posted regarding how to improve your organic reach. Today, I did some research to see what the thought leaders in content marketing recommended to increase your number of Likes and Shares on Facebook.
Pay Attention to how Frequently You are Posting
(Tip Source: Kismetrics)
“The frequency of posting has been shown to have an effect on Facebook engagement.
According to a research by Buddy Media, pages that posted one or two times per day receive 40% higher user engagement compared to pages that had more than 3 posts per day. This shows that it is not the quantity of posts, but the quality of your Facebook wall post.”
Keep in mind that this is specific to you, your brand and your ideal customer. As with anything, start with your target audience research and consult Facebook Insights to determine when your audience is on Facebook.
Take the focus off yourself
(Tip Source: Intuit)
“Facebook users share posts for the same reasons they’ll discuss something they read, learned, or heard about in a face-to-face interaction: It moved them emotionally or had personal relevance.
Don’t simply share an image, article, quote, blog post, or update; ask what people think. When fans comment, nurture the interaction with a response. Beyond the importance of having two-way communication with your Facebook fans and uncovering invaluable insight into what makes them “tick,” fan interaction by way of “likes,” comments, clicks on links and images, and “shares” is critical to staying relevant.
Facebook’s algorithm (EdgeRank) bases the content users see in their news feeds on such interactivity with pages and friends. If they’re not interacting with your page, most of your posts will soon “drop off” their feeds.”
You may be thinking all this interacting will be time-consuming You’re right it can take a lot of your valuable time. There are ways to reduce that time though. Several tools exist that will automate some of this for you. Two I like are IFTT and Missinglettr. You can also invest in a virtual assistant who can monitor activity, respond or inform you if something needs your personal reply.
Quiz Audience
(Tip Source: Intuit)
“A May 2012 study by Wildfire research, which examined 10,000 social media campaigns, revealed that 39 percent of “pick your favorite”-style quizzes were ultimately shared with others in a network.
What’s more, “82 percent of the users [who] clicked on a friend’s news feed post about a quiz they’d taken went on to take the quiz themselves.”
To generate similar activity on your Facebook page, quiz users about information that’s creative, entertaining, and somehow relevant to your brand. For example, if you’re a shoe retailer, you might generate sharing activity with a quiz about a user’s favorite celebrity shoe maven.”
If you want to learn more, check out this podcast from Resonance Content Marketing, “Why Quizzes Belong in Your Content Marketing Mix: Interview with Josh Haynam of Interact”
Make Sure All your Content is Highly Shareable
(Tip Source: Social Media Examiner)
“Highly shareable means the content is relevant to your audience and compels people to share it. Your content should make people stop in their tracks.
Facebook calls this “thumb stopping,” since the majority of users view the platform on mobile devices. When your audience stops scrolling and pauses to read your content, they should feel an instant urge to share it with their audience.
The content could be breaking news, educational, hilarious, entertaining, or something that’s not typically seen elsewhere. This is the type of content that will make your audience look good to others when they share it.”
Not sure how to find out what is breaking news for your topic? You can check sites such as Buzzsumo, What’s Trending or set up Google Alerts for your keywords.
Use Images
(Tip Source: Social Media Examiner)
“According to KISSmetrics, photos get 53% more likes, 104% more comments, and 84% more clicks on links than text-based posts.
Photos also stick out like a sore thumb (in a good way) in the comments section so try responding to customer posts or even the content of peers to attract more engagement.”
Take the time to learn some basic image guidelines and best practices. Each of your images should stop your audience from scrolling past your post and make them want to read more. This article outlines some basic guidelines.
I recommend you chose one of these techniques to try and put it to work. Pay close attention to your engagement over the next few weeks. When you’re getting the results you want, add another tactic. Remember, everyone’s results will be different. Find the one that works for you and make it a standard operating procedure for your business.
I’d love to hear your results! Leave a comment of contact me.
