With Facebook’s announcement last week that their algorithm will now be more in favour of family and friends, many Facebook pages will see their organic reach fall yet again. I know I have noticed it on the pages I administrate.
It’s super discouraging. The waves have been felt across the board, and for those of us who rely upon Facebook to drive traffic to our sites, its impact has been felt.
I even have questioned if there’s any point for me to have a Facebook page, as I’m sure lots of you have, as well. Mark Schaefer put up an interesting post about this last week you might want to read.
In the mean time, how do you combat all this negativity? Engagement is the key. You see, the more engaging your posts are, the more they are liked, commented on, or shared, the better they will do.
Here are some ideas for creating engaging posts (I’m actually doing a private workshop on this on Monday for a client):
Video. Video is magic on Facebook. Not only is video natively engaging, but it ranks higher in FB’s algorithm. A recent Facebook Live video I did announcing that I’m writing a cookbook recently got more than 2,000 views and over 100 comments! Pretty cool stuff.
Ask questions. People love to talk about themselves and give their opinions. You can ask them for advice, ask them to fill in the blank, as them for their opinions. Keep it on brand, though. Insider tip: after you’ve asked your question, send a message to a few friends asking them to comment, just to get the ball started.
Contests. You can run simple contests on Facebook, giving away swag. It doesn’t have to be a huge prize. Simply post a photo of the prize, then ask people to comment in order to be entered. This works great for things like tickets, gift cards and the like.
Ask for photos. Encourage your fans to upload photos of your product wherever they are. Maybe someone is enjoying a bowl of your granola on a camping trip, make it clear to your fans you want to see that. And when they do share that kind of content, interact with it by liking, commenting and even sharing it.
And here are few more in today’s infographic: 9 Ideas for Creating Engagement on Your Facebook Page.
Infographic courtesy of Esuite.
