Facebook Marketing Tips

to Help Increase Engagement

1. Timing is everything the timing of your Facebook post is something to seriously consider. Take

a look at your audience, and note the personas you aim to reach. For example, if your targeted customer is a busy stay at home mom, the best time to reach her will probably be different from that of a single bachelor.

While a great way to figure out what times work best is through good, old-fashioned trial and error, a solid starting point is through this guide provided by Adweek. As shown, the best days to post to Facebook are Thursday and Friday, with engagement rates dropping 3.5 percent below average from Monday to Wednesday. The same infographic declares 1 PM the best time to post for shares and 3 PM the best time to post for clicks.

2. Include social media images You’ve probably heard it time and time again, but the benefits of adding

images to your Facebook posts cannot be emphasized enough. As Angie Pascale of Clickz explains, “Photos receive 53 percent more likes on Facebook than the average post and 84 percent more link clicks.” In the same post, Pascale offers the following seven very helpful tips for your Facebook images:

Share images of real people Focus on faces Use lifestyle imagery, rather than product imagery Be brief Encourage short responses Create image galleries Use nostalgia to your advantage

3. Host Facebook contests If there’s anything people love, it’s free stuff. I’ve definitely found myself liking

and engaging with branded Facebook pages I previously would have ignored or not been aware of, simply for the chance to win something. The thrill of potentially getting something for free is a great incentive, and would most likely have little actual cost for your business when compared with the social media and brand awareness payoff.

Increase fan base (through methods such as like-gating) Boost in traffic (The candle brand used as an example saw 30,000 new fans in 6

weeks thanks to a contest) Produce user-generated content Generate target market opinions (through asking your target market for their

opinions through voting contests) Increase shares and virality Generate conversations Grow your email list (through collecting participant emails during a contest)

4. Crowdsource answers As mentioned above as one of the benefits of hosting a Facebook contest,

crowdsourcing customer and audience feedback is a key way of boosting Facebook engagement. Crowdsourcing acts as a kind of social listening, which we know is an important component of any social media strategy. Everybody’s favorite topic of conversation is, of course, themselves, so in turning to your Facebook fans to get their opinions or ideas on something is a surefire way to see increases in engagement.

Collect testimonials via questions Harvest your post comments Ask fans to send photos using your product Run a photo contest to collect images Run a contest

5. Boost your posts While some debate this practice, boosting your company’s Facebook post is

still an effective way of improving your reach and engagement potential. Once you have identified your target audience, you can hone in even more on those you want to reach through a boosted post. If you require a little bit of clarification regarding what a boosted post actually is, our guide to Facebook boosted posts explains that “a boosted post is a post from your business Page that, for a fee, can appear higher up on your audience’s News Feeds.

It helps promote a product or service offered by your business It encourages visits to your business’s website It spreads awareness of a limited-time campaign your business is running

6. Seek audience insights This tip goes hand in hand with crowdsourcing answers, and for good

reason. The activities, posts, comments, and any other type of engagement you encounter on your brand’s Facebook page, offer valuable data for you to consider. You can see what kind of content your audience responds to, what kind of content they ignore, and therefore what content you should concentrate on and put your efforts into.

Furthermore, you’re able to narrow in on exactly who your audience is, and focus on this demographic. Facebook makes this really easy for you through their own “Audience Insights,” where you are able to see exactly what your audience engages with. As Social Media Examiner explains, with this “data-led understanding, you’ll know whether to post more photos, if that contest really worked, and the right kinds of topics to post about.”

7. Provide unique and valuable content

This may seem like a no-brainer, but the number of companies and brands who rely on obviously recycled or stale content shows the degree of missed opportunities on Facebook. By now you’ve hopefully recognized who your audience and customer is, so carefully consider what content they would find most valuable. Will a suburban teenaged girl care about “4 ways to can tomatoes?” Your common sense will always help you with questions such as this, so taking that extra moment to pause and think about your audience will go a long way.   

Remember–your brand or product is unique! Whether there are direct competitors or not, there are things that your product or service does that nobody else can claim, so take advantage of these features and highlight them accordingly through your Facebook strategy. Are there things your customer can do that they couldn’t before, thanks to your product? Feature crowdsourced photos of them doing just that, or provide your own interesting images making these points.

Are you an expert in your field? Offer advice and solutions to your customers and audience members through your organization’s Facebook page. The possibilities are endless, so make the time to sit down and truly think about how your brand stands out in the marketplace, and how this can be translated to your Facebook marketing strategy.

Thank you