How often have you been scrolling through Facebook and seen posts almost guilt-tripping you into interacting with them? They will tell you “repost if you love dogs” or “drop a comment if you agree”. These posts are very popular on Facebook and imply a tactic called engagement bait. Engagement bait is when you ask for likes, comments, and shares. Facebook will downrank these types of posts in the algorithm because they gain actions without putting any kind of thought or consideration into it. The secret is, you don’t need to rely on engagement bait to have successful interactions on Facebook! I’m going to be sharing some tips and tricks to increase your engagement on Facebook without falling prey to engagement bait.
The easiest way to increase engagement is by actually engaging with your audience.
I know it’s easier said than done. Ask questions that relate to your company and brand. People are likely to respond with their answers. When you get comments you should reply to them all or at least react to them if a reply isn’t necessary. When people take the time to comment they expect a response, more so on Facebook than any other social media platform. Another thing that will encourage engagement without getting negatively flagged is to run contests and giveaways. People love getting free things and prizes and giveaways are also great ways to up your following numbers as well as increase engagement. But what do you do if you get a mean or inappropriate comment? Some brands will choose to engage back, but most of the time it’s better to ignore the haters. Facebook has a great function where you can hide comments. This doesn’t alert the person who posted it as they can still see the comment and you can see the comment, but no one else will be able to. This allows you to keep the engagement numbers and avoid a fight in your comment section that Facebook is known all too well for.
Add a call to action button on your home page.
When you set up your account as a business page you can add a call to action button. You should definitely take advantage of this feature! Another great feature you should be taking advantage of is Facebook stories. According to Hootsuite, about 500 million people use Facebook stories daily. Stories are great for small updates and pictures that you don’t want to be a feed post. Facebook users also react highly to posts with pictures, videos, and graphics. Use high-quality photos and videos in your posts when applicable. People don’t want to just read posts, they like visuals to go with them.
Most people use Facebook on their phones over their computers.
The feed on your phone is condensed to fit better and so some posts can look longer than they actually are. When posting on Facebook it’s important to keep things short and simple. Facebook has a reputation for only having these long, drawn-out posts, but those don’t always perform well. I know sometimes you need to expand on your lead-in and it can end up being long, but remember simpler does better. If your posts are ending up being paragraphs long this is a great opportunity to add a call to action to your post such as a website link so people can get more information. This will not only keep your posts short and simple but will also bring traffic to your website and other platforms.
Meta and Facebook have great tools you can use to measure the engagement on your accounts.
Your page will have analytics you can view to determine where you’re doing well and where you need to improve. It’s important to check this every so often, especially if you’re testing out different tactics and posts. When you using this tool it’s also important to determine which interaction is most important to your brand: shares, comments, link clicks, follows, or reactions/likes.
With all engagement, it’s about figuring out what works for you and your brand. It differs from page to page and even across social media platforms. Listen to your followers as well, they’ll let you know what works and what doesn’t. After all your posts should be tailored to your target audience. Once you figure out what works don’t be afraid to play around with it. Keep testing new ideas until you find what works for you.
Happy engaging!
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