What is Facebook Engagement?
I’m certain that at some point in your social media life you’ve posted a picture on one of your social media pages. Then a friend, a colleague, or your aunt from Australia either liked, commented, or shared your post. What you’ve just witnessed is engagement on Facebook.
Engagement is any action that another person (or business) makes on one of your posts or your Facebook page. Likes, comments, and shares are the most common form of engagement, but there are others too such as tagging or location check-ins. They are all essentially the same thing; people interacting with you.
Engagement is essential to your business if it is to thrive in the Facebook world. It helps boost your organic reach and increases exposure to your target market. It can also help your post gain a more favorable place on Facebook’s “News Feed” through Facebook’s algorithm.
Most importantly, engagement is free! The more engagement you can get, the more free advertising you get. Simple right? Well kind of. Underneath are 5 top tips on how you can easily improve your Facebook engagement.
5 Ways To Improve Facebook Engagement
1. Well-Timed Content
Timing is key to the success of your Facebook business campaign. You need to know what to post and when to post it.
-
Post at the right times
To do this effectively you need to know your audience base. Where are your main audience from and what time of the day are they active? Facebook’s algorithm will allow you to see ‘peak times’ of when your audience is active on the site. Posting your content at a time when your audience is online will boost your chances with the algorithm, getting your post a favorable spot on that all-important news feed and boost your engagement.
-
Post relevant content
Post relevant and valuable content from your industry consistently. Why is this a big deal? Going VIRAL, that’s why! The dream of every wannabe influencer.
Going viral can be an extremely useful outcome for your business. It provides large amounts of free advertising and engagement with little to no work for you. Posting timely content is one of the best ways to achieve this. Find out what’s going on in the news with regards to your industry, or even better, what’s about to be in the news. If you can ask thought-provoking questions about this news and be one of the first people to do it, you will become a place for people to talk and discuss the topic themselves.
BOOM, you’re viral!
2. Consistency
Post regularly and at around the same time, every time. From your previous work on timing, you’ll know exactly when your audience is online, so you’ll know when is best to post. The more often your audience sees your content the more likely they are to engage with it. Being consistent will let your audience know when to expect a new update from you.
Facebook allows you to build a strategy, whereby you can schedule posts and plan ahead. This helps to avoid the last-minute scramble for content to use and keeps a consistent flow of valuable content to your audience.
3. Be Genuine
On average, Facebook users spend 1.7 – 2.5 seconds looking at a piece of content. That’s not a lot of time to impress. Posting “clickbait” or misinformation isn’t going to achieve high engagement and you’ll also be punished by the Facebook algorithm for doing this.
Instead, focus on the quality of your content and be genuine. Show them that your business is more than just a business. Add some humor and try out new things. The more original and inspiring that your content is, the more engagement you are likely to get.
Everybody loves some good news amid the constant flow of seemingly endless bad news. Try to make your audience feel good. Why do you think people love looking at photos of cute puppies for so long?
4. Know Your Audience
This ties into timing and consistency, but it is so important that it deserved a mention of its own. You really need to know your audience to engage with them.
If a teacher stood in front of a group of history students and spoke about SEO-optimized online media management, it is more than likely going to fly way over their heads. Don’t be that teacher.
You should know what interests your audience so that you can present them content that they will find interesting, valuable, and that they will engage with.
5. Be Visual
If the trends of social media such as the exponential growth of Instagram and the explosion of TikTok tell us anything, it’s that visual content is extremely powerful at attracting customers. Eye-catching images can help to grab the attention of your audience as they scroll through the sea of articles. Facebook suggests that a close-up product photo or an image of a satisfied customer works well.
Your business focus should be on keeping a consistent brand image. Using the same colors and designs can help embed your business in the audience’s mind. From the famous “yellow M” of McDonald’s to the “blue F” of Facebook, simple branding can define your business.
Extra Tip:
Boost your Posts for Extra Facebook Engagement
This article is written to show you that you can improve your Facebook engagement without costing you any money. If however, you do have a budget for your Facebook advertising, boosting your post can be a great way to significantly expand your Facebook reach!
Boosting your post is Facebook’s way of inorganically promoting your post. It allows you to get your content out in front of the eyes that you want to see it. You can specify your target audience right down to their demographic, location, interests, and behaviors creating the perfect customer for you. Boosting can be done on any budget and is an easy way to increase your Facebook ad engagement.
About Optily
Optily is the only single-click ad spend optimizer for eCommerce. Our plug-and-play online platform quickly links all of your Google and Facebook ads together and helps you easily determine which campaigns are working. With just one click, you can apply our optimization recommendations–like moving budget from a lower performing Google ad to a better performing one on Instagram.
