If you have been studying how to use Facebook to promote your business, you probably know by now that the key concept is “engagement.” When regularly posting content that your audience finds truly valuable, they will engage with that content by liking it, commenting or sharing. The more engagement your content receives, the more likely it is that Facebook will automatically place your content on the newsfeeds of all your fans. More newsfeeds means more exposure. Engagement Strategy is the Facebook equivalent of Search Engine Optimization for your website.
More newsfeeds means more exposure
There is no single magic bullet to increase your engagement rankings. To be effective you have to employ several different strategies consistently.
- Short posts of 80 words or less
- Use of images and video
- Posting at the optimal time
- Insuring that content is relevant to your audience
- Including links
- Cross-posting content (Sharing) with other Facebook Pages
- Include a call to action in every post.
While those are certainly not all the strategies you could employ, that list includes most of the fundamentals. Engagement boils down to good quality content provided Daily.
Tagging (also called @Tagging) is an often overlooked way to increase engagement by increasing the number of people who actually see your posts. Rather than just being viewed by your direct fan base (people who LIKED your page) it also goes out into the newsfeeds and sometimes even the timelines of those you tag. It’s very simple to do.
Whenever you post, look for opportunities to refer to one or more fans by name. When you use their name (or the name of a Page you have liked) simply place an “@” sign in front of the name. You will see Facebook give you a drop-down list of similar names. Select the name you want to tag.
When you use a tag, the recipient of the tag will receive a notice that you have tagged them. The notice will appear in the newsfeed of your friend and all their friends will also see it. This gives them a chance to view your content, find your page and like it.
This is important because your fans actually don’t come to your Facebook Page very often. Once they like it, most people forget about your Fan Page. In order the keep them engaged, you need to regularly and consistently pushing content into their newsfeeds. That’s why quality, relevant content is so important – if they are seeing stuff they actually do like, they will LIKE your posts, not hide them, even if you are posting several times a day.
If you are tagging other businesses’ Pages, you double the impact of your post. You not only promote your own Page, but you also ending up promoting other businesses. It’s like a mini-networking referral that only takes seconds to accomplish. Most businesses are grateful for the exposure and often the first LIKE you receive on tagged posts is from the tagged Page. It’s a give-to-get situation.
