Facebook is the world’s largest social media platform, and it can be an uphill battle to try and increase engagement. You’ll find that benchmarks show engagement varies drastically from industry to industry. Education has a 2.62% engagement rate, while financial services have a 1.72% engagement rate. If your engagement is falling or is far off from your industry’s standard, you can follow our guide below on how to increase Facebook engagement using proven strategies. Implementing the strategies below and being consistent is a surefire way to begin increasing your account’s engagement. You can dig deep into average statistics and tips on how to boost your Facebook engagement, but nothing is more accurate than the insights directly from your audience. You’ll want to log into your page and click on your profile picture. You’ll notice on the page there’s an “Insights” section. Open up the Insights and start: If you click on “Audience,” you’ll also see a breakdown of your audience by location and gender. You can use this information to create posts that are geared to the demographic that follows you already. Additionally, when you post, try scheduling within the ideal timeframes for your audience. Long posts have their place on social media, but most people (98%) are on their mobile devices. Less screen space means that people are less likely to read your long post. You’ll want to explore the ideal text length for your audience, but for most, it’s 40 – 80 characters. If you’re posting videos, try keeping them to less than a minute, or you risk people not watching the entire clip. Again, your audience may be different, so you’ll want to perform your own tests. Remember how you saw where your audience is located? You can use this information to ensure that you’re posting at the ideal time for engagement. The right time to post on Facebook is: Of course, you’ll want to keep posting daily to keep engagement rates high. If you just started posting after a long hiatus, you may not have the engagement that you once did because people have forgotten about your account. If you have a global audience, you may consider posting at different times to ensure that everyone has a chance to see your posts. Large accounts will need to be very strategic with their posts to improve engagement rates. Facebook provides a wealth of analytical data for you to review and learn more about your audience. If you go back to your Analytic data, you’ll find that there is a lot of data relating to your posts. You’ll need to dissect which posts are performing best and which are not. Create more of the posts that have performed well and learn from those that did not. It’s possible that posts that underperformed were sent out at suboptimal times or that they simply didn’t resonate with your audience well. It’s okay to post text-only posts from time to time, but if you really want to boost engagement, add some media to your content. Photos or videos can bring your post to life.How To Increase Facebook Engagement: 11 Strategies To Follow
1. Analyze Your Page Insights to Understand Your Audience
2. Stop Writing Walls of Text
3. Start Posting at the Right Times
4. Create More of the Posts That Have Been Major Successes
5. Incorporate Media into Your Posts
Visuals will always increase engagement on social media, so make sure that you’re incorporating them into your content whenever possible.
6. Comment and Reply to Your Audience
When you post on Facebook, you hope to get comments and likes from your followers. When you do get comments, make it a point to reply and interact with your audience.
People are taking time out of their day to share their thoughts or feedback. Return the favor to let your audience know that you value their time and engagement.
If someone asks a question, respond as quickly as possible. If there’s a complaint, address it.
Don’t ignore comments. Replying will give you an opportunity to boost your engagement both now and in the future because your followers know that you’re a part of the conversation.
7. Ask Users to Take an Action
Did you know that Facebook allows you to add a call-to-action button on your page? Asking users to take action gives users more engagement options beyond liking, commenting and sharing.
Your call-to-action button can ask people to:
- Watch a video
- Book an appointment
- Shop now
- Send you a message
- Visit your website
- Download your app
- Join your Facebook group
All of these actions give people more opportunities to interact with your brand or page in different ways.
8. Ask Questions
Want to get an interesting comment thread going? Ask a question.
For example, you can ask:
- What’s your favorite [item, place, food]?
- Why do you like [place, event, brand]?
- What’s your superpower?
- What are you grateful for today?
- What’s the top destination on your travel bucket list?
Ideally, you should choose a question that’s relevant to your page.
As a bonus, you’ll also learn more about your followers, and this can help you create more content that they love. Creating great content or posts on Facebook will naturally boost your engagement.
9. Join in on Popular Trends or Conversations
Like any other social media platform, Facebook has its own popular trends and conversations. See what people are talking about right now, and find a way to create content on that topic.
Don’t forget to add relevant hashtags to help your content get found.
When events or news are trending on Facebook, more people will be looking for content related to that topic. Hopping on these trends can help expand your reach, but people will also be more likely to comment with their own thoughts and opinions.
Hopping on trends is a great way to spark conversation and get people to interact with your page, which will lead to higher overall engagement.
10. Run Contests
Do you know what people love? Free stuff! Not surprisingly, contests and giveaways are really popular on Instagram.
They’re a great way to generate some buzz about your page and get people engaged.
Just make sure that you’re following Facebook’s rules for promotions when posting your giveaway. These include but are not limited to:
- Being compliant with legal and regulatory requirements
- Not requiring or incentivizing people to report, share or tag others to publicize your promotion
If you want to host a contest, find a prize that you know your audience will love. The more valuable and coveted the prize, the higher your engagement will be.
11. Post Frequently
One of the best ways to boost Facebook engagement is to post more frequently. Aim for 1-2 posts per day on your account.
Posting a few times per day will help you stay present in your audience’s mind without overwhelming their feed.
If you only post once per week, your audience and followers may lose interest and you’ll have a difficult time growing your account.
Summary
Facebook engagement is a metric that accounts follow to ensure that their content resonates with their audience. If you follow the tips above, you’ll be well on your way to increasing the number of likes and comments that you get on your posts.
