6 Ways to Increase Your Facebook Engagement
1: Create Shareable Content
If you want people to share your Facebook posts, you need to create highly shareable content. It’s that simple.
“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.
For example, this video from The Kitchn is a simple recipe that plays off their audience’s love for avocados and desire to learn something new. This post has received more than 6,800 shares.
Create thumb-stopping, shareable content.
Makeup Lessons is another page that posts a variety of engaging, shareable visuals, such as stand-alone, multiple, and instructional graphics. The beauty pics really pop in the news feed. Plus, they use carousel posts to showcase multiple links and images.
Publish link posts with multiple images to create a carousel.
Takeaway: Create videos, graphics, and posts that are relevant, stand out in the news feed, and make people want to share. The content doesn’t have to be fancy, but it should look good and be of value to your loyal following.
2: Include a Call to Action
Just as you want to create shareable content, it’s important to ask people to engage. Include something as simple as an invitation to share the post.
For instance, write, “If you found value, please share with your fans.” Or “If this speaks to you, share it with your audience as well!” You may also want to invite people to comment.
For Rainbow Bridge Remembrance Day, Positively Woof invited fans to share a picture of a pet that had passed. The eye-catching video post has over 7 million views, 19,000 comments, and 208,000 shares. (I’m one of the 19,000 commenters. My own beloved cat, Baby the Bengal, went to kitty heaven in September of last year. So sad.) You can see the incredible bond that animal lovers have in the epic thread on this post.
Include an invitation to share a picture to inspire comments.
The Positively Woof Facebook page team does a great job of publishing timely content that is also related to pet celebrations, holidays, and awareness events. Their website has a pet calendar at a glance, which also helps inform their social media calendar.
Takeaway: Create shareable content that includes a call to action. Also post content that aligns with a trend or holiday related to your business so your audience will want to chime in.
3: Mix Up Content Types
There’s a window of opportunity right now with the Facebook news feed algorithm, since not nearly enough businesses are doing video.
If you put a higher ratio of video in your content mix (three times a week), it will increase the visibility and engagement of your page substantially. Mix in other content types and you have a recipe for success.
The Betty Rocker is a nutrition and fitness expert who has a wonderful mix of content types. From recipes and checklists to inspirational pics and fitness videos, there’s always something interesting on her page.
Bree Argetsinger, aka “The Betty Rocker,” publishes great fitness video content.
She also adds a human element to connect with people viewing her page so they’ll engage.
The Betty Rocker mixes up fitness videos and recipe posts with more personal updates.
Takeaway: Provide fun and interesting content for your fans so there’s always something to see, learn, and do on your Facebook page.
4: Use Facebook Live Regularly
One way to incorporate more video is to use Facebook Live regularly on your page. Start with doing one live broadcast a week. Ideally, plan your broadcast ahead of time to get the best results.
National Hammer Dulcimer Champion Ted Yoder does Facebook Live concerts from his backyard. Ted makes an announcement ahead of time to give his audience advance notice, even if it’s just earlier in the day.
His videos are extremely popular (he’s amassed more than 75 million views on Facebook), and he was even noticed and written about in the Huffington Post.
Plan Facebook Live video broadcasts to connect and engage with fans.
Takeaway: It takes time to build a Facebook Live video audience. Although you may not become a hit out of the gate, be persistent, practice, and find your voice. Keep showing up and fans will find you.
5: Design Video for Viewing With the Sound Off
To encourage engagement, make your videos understandable with or without audio. Although Facebook is testing autoplay video with sound on, you should still design your video to be viewed with the sound off whenever possible, since users will have control over the mute button.
Remember, autoplay video (with or without sound) is here to stay. Use a tool that easily allows you to add text such as lower thirds and captions to your videos.
This Tony Robbins video offers the same info to viewers, whether or not they’re listening to him speak.
Design video to be understandable when muted.
Takeaway: When your audience can consume your content with the sound off, they’ll be more likely to engage with it.
6: Try Instant Articles
Instant articles load 10 times faster inside the Facebook mobile app than links on the regular mobile web. If you haven’t configured Facebook Instant Articles, it’s something to consider.
Companies using instant articles include Business Insider, BuzzFeed, the Washington Post, and others. For example, Mashable publishes some content via instant articles, like this one about upcoming LinkedIn changes.
Instant articles are identifiable in the mobile feed by the lightning bolt icon.
One click and the article appears.
Instant articles show up immediately when a reader clicks.
Yes, it does require time and effort to set up instant articles. However, since people get instant gratification when they click an instant article link in the feed, they’re more likely to read it. Then they’ll share and otherwise engage with your post.
Takeaway: Perhaps you won’t use instant articles for every article you publish, but test it with some of your flagship content.
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