10 tips to improve engagement on Facebook

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Improving engagement on Facebook is one of the most difficult tasks today. After all, the social network is the most relevant on the web and the largest too, with over 2 billion active users, but it is increasingly losing space to Instagram.

As a result of these numbers, it is virtually impossible to show all updates from each user in their News Feed, especially if the user has a high number of connections.

Therefore, improving engagement on Facebook has proven to be a real challenge. Added to this is the fact that network has made organic traffic increasingly difficult fan pages, prioritizing content from the people closest to each user, friends and family.

The aim of the network has been, since 2012, according to its executives, clean the News Feed of Spam and focus on quality content. In addition, the goal is to let the user decide what to see, showing content of interest to you.

As a consequence, only about 16% of your fans started seeing your posts, a number that began to decrease over time.

In this article, we will give you 10 tips to improve engagement on Facebook. Check it out!

1. Publish relevant content

The first point is to understand that Facebook's algorithm prioritizes showing content from those people (or companies) with whom each user interacts the most. Although the algorithm takes into account thousands of factors, broadly speaking, we have five most important points:

• Interest: as we said, how much the user usually interacts with the creator of the post;
• Post: whether the post performed well compared to other users;
• Creator: whether the post creator has other posts with good performance;
• Post Type: whether this post is usually preferred by that particular user (some users prefer photos with text, others prefer videos, for example);
• Post Date: if the post was published recently

In these five main points that we have presented, it can be seen that quality is directly involved. Therefore, the first point is to have a really good content planning.

Even if you have to eventually, boost some content To get started, your page can be leveraged if you get good audience interactions.

Therefore, don't beat around the bush and don't focus solely on promoting your product. You can, for example, use the Pareto principle in your content, posting 80% of content and only 20 of promotion.

And note well: quality is not quantity. There is no point in posting ten times a day if your content does not generate engagement.

2. Focus on your goal

Does your Facebook page not have a clear objective? Think carefully about why you are there. Being present on the social network just to “exist digitally” is not a good idea. A page that is left idle will not bring you any benefits and will also take up time to maintain the page, which also means losses in your investments.

Have a clear goal for your page. It could be, for example, the direct sale of products (social selling), the creation of traffic to your website or blog, or the creation of direct relationships by promoting events and news.

Whatever your goal, don’t lose focus along the way trying to increase your reach or engagement. A good strategy with good execution brings results.

3. Don't automate your actions too much

We are in the era and fever of bots for some time now. But care must be taken in this regard. Automating tasks too much can have negative consequences, especially if the automation is not performed well.

No one likes to contact someone on Messenger and receive 100% of interactions from robots, especially if the answers are not what the user is looking for.

4. Publish videos

Videos on Facebook have a greater reach than posts. Facebook's EdgeRank favors this type of content, which also seems to be popular with users.

Also, don't forget to always post the video directly from Facebook. Videos from other links, such as YouTube, have a much smaller reach.

5. Go Live

One of the most recent ways to improve engagement on Facebook is through Lives. Facebook Lives have had very interesting results and have been increasingly used. People tend to pay more attention to what is happening at the exact moment, which makes Lives have good results.

But don't forget to share the date and time of the event so that your fans can be aware of it. And again, focus on quality content too.

6. Use the scarcity trigger

Scarcity is always a great way to “force” an action. You can use this trigger both in a Live, for example, by distributing free content or a discount at the time of the event, and in other situations, such as a one-day or short-term promotion.

This is a way to keep your audience always engaged with what is happening on your page, as long as the offer is good for them.

It’s always important to remember that your audience is thinking about themselves, never about you. So think about offering something that is good for your audience, and not just as a way to attract them.

7. Use crossmedia/transmedia

Use other social media to move your audience from one to the other, as well as your email list. Crossmedia is a strategy that works, as well as transmedia. Always remember to inform your audience of other digital media and other channels about what happens on your fanpage.

There is always a crossover audience on social media and you can make good use of this. In addition, you can also keep your contact list warm by sending emails with the latest news from your fan page. This will attract your captive audience to your fan page and will not only improve engagement on Facebook, but also on your own list.

8. Publish lasting content

Publishing evergreen content is also a good way to generate more engagement. Evergreen content is content that does not have a specific date, as its subject matter does not run out from one moment to the next.

Unlike a one-off post that talks about a current topic, evergreen content can be shared for a long time on Facebook.

9. Repost and test times, topics and formats

Don’t discard your old posts just because they didn’t perform well at first. One of the first rules is to test the date and time of posting.

To do this, always check your fan page's posting chart. The secret here is to post based on the best days and times and then check whether the performance was actually better than at a certain time.

So, you may post the same post more than once, which may be repeated after weeks or months, depending on the type of content.

In terms of format, good images are much more engaging. And let's remember that Facebook no longer restricts texts to 20% of the post area. The reach of posts is much more linked to interactions than to the visual aspect of the post.

10. Segment your audiences – reach isn’t everything…

And last but not least, to improve engagement on Facebook, you need to know exactly who your audience is. Build your persona and segment as much as you can, if you have more than one.

This will give you better results with your posts. Here's what's important to remember. It's no use having 1 million followers if almost no one interacts with you. It's much better to have fewer followers who engage more with your posts.

And don't forget the main point. The audience on Facebook doesn't belong entirely to you, because the social network sets the rules.

To build a captive audience, you should always try to convert and get your followers’ email addresses at some point. This can also be used later on to not only improve engagement on Facebook, but also to optimize your ads within the platform.

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