It can be frustrating when you put the time and effort into creating attractive imagery coupled with an engaging caption for your company Facebook page, just to get a disappointing amount of views and engagement.
It is time to go that little bit further to increase the awareness of your posts on Facebook and get the most out of your social media strategy.
Here is a list of suggestions for better metrics on Facebook!
1. Use Hashtags
A hashtag allows social media users to easily find content relating to the topic they are searching for. Including them in your caption will mean more exposure for your company, as long as you are using popular hashtags.
Make sure to use hashtags that relate to your message and not just any old word or phrase. Unrelated hashtags can irritate users that are searching for specific content.
There are many tools that you can use to find the most popular hashtags. Here are a few:
You can also search for posts with certain hashtags by using facebook.com/hashtag/inserthashtag. For example, to search for posts containing “love”, you would use www.facebook.com/hashtag/love. This can be a great tool if you have a company hashtag, like how coca-cola uses #ShareaCoke. You can keep track of all the posts your customers have made and also share the link to the hashtag and ask them to create a post about your product or service.
2. Pin important posts
If you have an important announcement, you can pin a post to the top of your page so that it is highlighted. The post will be the first thing that visitors to your page will see. Highlighting a post is simple and can be done by clicking on the three dots on the top right of the post.
3. Share into groups
One technique that works well is sharing into Facebook groups. Many groups on the platform have a lot of members and you can find local buy, swap and sell groups to promote your products or services locally.
There are groups for almost everything, including business promotion for all business types. Search on Facebook groups to see if they have anything relating to your business:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/?category=discover
4. Turn on “get notifications” and “see first”
Politely remind your page followers to turn on “get notifications” and “see first” so that they see your posts first in their newsfeed. This will help reduce the number of people that are missing your page updates.
To enable this, they will need to visit your page and click on the “follow” or “following” button. They will then see the options to change the settings.
“In your news feed” will need to be changed to “see first” and “notifications” will need to be “On (Highlight posts)” if they have not been changed already.
5. Re-post best performing content
Reuse the best performing posts! Without going overboard, you can post content that has performed well a few times over a spread-out duration to make sure it has reached everyone. This can include things such as blog articles and competition posts. Many popular Facebook pages use this technique to get the most out of their content.
6. Integrate on your website
Show off your social media pages to your website visitors. You can add page plugins that enable your visitors to like and share the page without them leaving your site. This will retain visitors whilst also increasing your social media following.
Setting this up is easy and Facebook have their own page plugin tutorial that you can follow:
https://developers.facebook.com/docs/plugins/page-plugin/
If you use WordPress, there are plenty of social media plugins that you can use. An example is Social Media Share Buttons and Social Sharing Icons by Ultimately Social.
You can also utilise these tools by including social media share options at the bottom of blog posts to encourage people to share articles on their own social media profiles.
7. Host competitions
Engage with your audience and build your brand with competitions. You can do this across all social media platforms. One approach to this can be telling your audience that each social media channel they follow classes as an entry. The more entries they make, the better chance of winning. This will help you to gain followers on all of your channels at the same time!
People can like, share and comment for their chance to win your selected prize.
8. Interactive content
If you do not want to spend money on competitions just yet, you can still be interactive with your audience and encourage them to comment on, like and share your posts. You can do this by asking questions or creating a poll. For example, if you are a fashion company, ask them which “look” they like better and post a picture of two different outfits. If you are a restaurant, you can ask what their favourite pizza topping is.
Since introducing the new react features (wow, love, haha and angry), Facebook has confirmed it favours posts with reactions rather than likes, so utilise this and try to get your followers to use them.
9. Schedule for most popular times
Scheduling your content in advance can save you time and allow you to post at the most popular times of the day.
- The best time to post on Facebook is between 12 p.m. and 3 p.m. Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. (source)
- And at the weekends from 12 p.m. to 1 p.m. (source)
You can also experiment with your own posts to find the best times of the day. Scheduling for different times during the week, you will be able to see from your own analytics any patterns that occur, and which posts are performing best. Try this over the duration of at least two weeks to be able to compare properly.
10. Cross Promotion
If you have multiple social media channels, you can cross-promote. For example, if you find you have more followers on Twitter, promote your Facebook page through it. Be creative though – give your audience a reason for liking your Facebook page. These reasons can include exclusive competitions, videos and discussions.
11. News Feed Targeting/Restricted Posting
Facebook gives you the opportunity to target your organic audience with news feed targeting or restricted posting. If you want to get a higher engagement rate, you can target which of your followers should see what content. This is useful if you offer a range of different services or products. For example, we offer multiple courses and programmes. Some of our followers may be interested in our apprenticeships, but not our e-learning courses.
12. Imagery
If you’re not already including imagery on your posts, you can increase your engagements by doing so. Facebook posts with images see 2.3x more engagement than those without images (Source).
If you don’t have the money for software to create imagery, you can download software that is free. Some great ones are:
If you still need help increasing your social media presence, we offer a Digital Marketer Level 3 Apprenticeship in the North West which incorporates effectively using Social Media to find new customers. Find out more here.
