12 Powerful Ways To Increase Engagement on Facebook

If you want to increase engagement on Facebook, then the best way to do this is to increase the number of engagements that your posts receive. Engagement is an action that a Facebook user takes with respect to your posts.

The most popular forms of engagement are commenting, liking your posts, and sharing them. But engagement can take other forms such as clicking links and tagging you in other posts. All of this engagement helps you to improve your organic reach.

When your posts have a lot of engagement this will help to get them increased exposure in the news feeds of your audience. Getting more shares and likes will help you to reach the extended network of your audience.

Having an engaged audience should be at the top of your priority list when you want to drive as much free traffic from Facebook as possible. There is nothing better than having a Facebook audience that wants to interact with you and your brand.

Posting at the Right Times Can Increase Your Facebook Engagement

You know that increased post engagement will curry favor with Facebook and their algorithm will help you to extend your reach. So it is worth you identifying the best times to make posts and get this timing really perfect.

It is just common sense – if you add your posts at the times when your audience is the most active then you significantly increase your chances of getting more shares, likes, and comments. Fortunately, there is data-driven research to help you identify the best social media posting times so that you can align your posting schedule with these.

Through user data, Sprout has identified the best times to post on each social network. As you can see in the infographic below the highest engagement days on Facebook are Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday.

Posting at random times and expecting a lot of engagement just doesn’t make sense. So go to your favorite search engine and search for “best times to post on Facebook”. You will see the results of data-driven research that you can use.

There are a number of Facebook content scheduling tools available and we recommend that you look into these. Most offer a free service but there will be limits on the number of posts that you can schedule. You should be able to find a low-cost scheduling tool that will help you to synchronize your posting days and times for optimum results. These tools help to streamline and automate processes to increase engagement on Facebook

Post Content to Facebook that is Fan Centric

Do you give your audience what they really want on Facebook? If not, it will be difficult to increase engagement on Facebook. Most marketers don’t do this and then wonder why their engagement levels are so low. Let’s say that you are a local restaurant using Facebook for marketing. Does that mean that everything you post has to be about food or drink – no certainly not!

When you think about it, there is only so much that you can talk about any niche on a day-to-day basis. What you don’t want to do is to start to repeat your content because if you do this you will certainly lose part of your audience.

Think about your Facebook content in this way – it is about your audience and not about you! Of course, you want your fans to know, like, and trust you but you don’t want to force yourself down the throat of your audience all of the time.

What you need to do is to find some current content that will engage your audience. A good way to do this is to ask yourself some questions:

What real-world events can I use in my posts?

There is always something going on that you can use to link your business to. For example, every year there is International Women’s Day so you could create a post about how you support this and you are offering half price for the ladies in your restaurant.

What facts or statistics will interest my audience?

If you are in the restaurant business then there are facts and statistics released all of the time about obesity, healthy eating, and so on. You can really use these to your advantage. Ask your audience how they feel about the statistic or fact and watch the comments roll in.

How can you make your audience laugh?

This is a really good question. People like Facebook because they can keep in touch with their friends and family and they can be entertained. One of the easiest ways to increase your engagement on Facebook is to entertain your audience! There are thousands of funny videos on YouTube for example and you should be able to find something that relates to your niche.

It really is all about your audience. Making posts about yourself or your business is not going to drive much engagement. Use an 80/20 rule here – 80% of your content is for your audience and 20% is about promotion.

Your audience will appreciate that your content is a “mixed bag”. It will make them more curious about what you will post next. They will look forward to seeing your future posts which is just perfect.

Identify Your Popular Posts

If you have been making posts on Facebook for a while then you can easily identify which of your posts were the most popular with your audience. By looking inward like this you can see what type and format of content really resonate with your audience.

It is likely that you are going to have some posts that just really performed well. They got a ton of shares, likes, and comments because your audience really loved the content. Don’t just dismiss these posts as something out of the ordinary – analyze them to see why they did so well.

The aim here is to learn all that you can from your successful posts so that you recreate this engagement love with your future posts. Did you use an appealing meme? Were you able to answer a specific question in detail? Did you show your audience how to do something useful? Answering these questions to identify posts that perform well will help you to increase engagement on Facebook for a future posts.

It is so easy for you to keep your finger on the pulse with your top-performing posts using Facebook Insights. You can see all of your posts and the amount of engagement that they received as well as the reach of the posts.

Get Your Facebook Photo House in Order

Facebook users will always be more attracted to good-looking visuals. The vast majority of content on the platform is image-based. The reason is obvious – it is a lot more interesting than a bunch of text or a boring link. So one of the easiest things that you can do to increase engagement on Facebook is to get your photo house in order.

Your audience does not want to see a lot of stock photos in your posts. So many marketers do this and it never works that well. The types of images that you use in your post are going to make a significant difference to your engagement levels.

So what is the answer? Take your own photographs and use these in your posts. Forget about being camera shy – your audience wants to know, like, and trust you which you will hear often in this special report.

They want to see you and other people in your business. Photos of you and your partner are also good. It is important that you use the right images that portray your personality. Always remember that Facebook is a social platform. So get social with your own photos.

A captivating image on Facebook will literally stop users in their tracks. People tend to scroll down their news feed a lot and if they see an interesting image they will stop to take a closer look. The most effective photos are stunning landscapes that have striking colors. Amusing photos are very popular too so get creative!

Make Responding to Comments a Priority

Using Facebook to generate free traffic is rarely a “set it and forget it” activity. You want users to comment on your posts and when they do you need to respond swiftly to these comments. Someone has taken the time to add a comment so you need to respect this and respond accordingly.

Research has shown that businesses that respond to comments on their posts have a lot more success on Facebook than those that don’t. A lot of the time a comment is actually a question from someone in your target audience. Other people will have the same question in their mind so by answering this you will make a lot of your audience happy.

You need to know this – it is expected that businesses respond quickly to comments on Facebook these days. We understand that people live in different time zones but do everything that you can to respond fast. Research has shown that four hours is a reasonable time for a comment response and will meet the expectations of a Facebook audience.

Replying to the comments that you receive on your posts shows that you care about your audience and you are listening to what they have to say. When you respond properly you will encourage more of your audience to leave comments on future posts. You can set up a chatbot to respond fast for you if you want. The key takeaway; To increase engagement on Facebook engage with your audience

Align Your Website Content to What Works Well on Facebook

You want to get as many shares, likes, and comments as possible on Facebook. The more shares, likes, and comments you have, the more you will know that the content that you are providing is resonating with your audience. You are giving them what they want.

If you know that a certain type of content creates a great deal of engagement why wouldn’t you add this type of content to your website or blog? There is lots of research and statistics to support this.

The most popular type of content on Facebook all of the time is:

• Quizzes

• Heartwarming stories

• “How to” guides

• Bold opinion posts

• Shocking or surprising statistics

To replicate this on your site does not mean that you have to compromise on quality. Use titles for your posts that pique the interest of your site visitors. Most will be Facebook users anyway and they will appreciate it if you take a similar stance with your website.

Use a Compelling Call to Action In Your Posts

We think that this is obvious but you would be surprised how many Facebook marketers drop the ball with this. You have spent a long time creating a perfect Facebook post and then you don’t ask the user to do something – it just doesn’t make any sense.

If you want people to take action on Facebook (or online in general) then you need to tell them what to do. Some people are uncomfortable with this but it is true and you need to do it. You need to include a call to action (CTA) with your posts.

You need to bear in mind that Facebook has been cracking down on “engagement bait” posts for some time now. A few years ago you could say things like “smash a like on the post” and “share this post with your friends”. The Facebook algorithm will restrict your reach if you do this often enough.

But that doesn’t mean that you should shy away from adding a compelling CTA to your posts. You need to tell your audience that you really want to hear from them and that their opinion matters.

One of the best forms of CTA is to ask a question in your post. Plan for a sequence of posts where you will pick the brains of your audience. Don’t outright beg for shares, comments, or likes because this could get you into trouble.

Use Photos and Videos to Enhance Your Audience’s Experience

Videos and photos are immensely popular on Facebook. This becomes obvious when you look at this report from Statista. In a February 2019 Statista report on what U.S. social media users do on the networks, it was found that 65% of them use Facebook to view photos, closely followed by 46% of users watching videos.

The simple fact is that users would much sooner watch a short video than read a lot of text. You could call this laziness, but often it will be preferable or more convenient for the user to consume your content in this way.

If you are not posting videos to Facebook then you are missing out on an opportunity to drive free traffic and increase engagement on Facebook. The problem with videos is that they take time and effort (and often money) to make so this puts a lot of marketers off. But the engagement you will get from good videos will certainly be worth it.

A lot of marketers make the mistake of uploading their videos to YouTube and then posting links to these on Facebook. You will get far more views if you upload the video to Facebook itself. This is known as “native video” and Facebook will always prefer this over links to external sites such as YouTube.

Of course, you should have a YouTube channel for your marketing, what we are recommending is that you take this video content and repurpose it for Facebook. Making a square video rather than the 16:9 aspect will help. This is because most Facebook users will be on their mobile devices.

Vertical videos generate the highest engagement rate. Between landscape, square and vertical formats, vertical wins out on the highest average engagement rate of 0.35%.

There are a number of online services that you can use to create Facebook “vertical” videos. There are some free options, but if you plan to post a lot of video content (and you should) then you will probably need a paid option. These are not usually very expensive.

Something that will really drive engagement is using Facebook Live. Users really like live content and you can get significantly higher numbers of views, and therefore traffic if you go down the live video route.

Keep Your Post Short

Facebook users do not want to read long posts. You will get far more engagement if you keep your posts brief. If you need to explain something in detail then create a brief post and a link to your website where more information is available.

Most Facebook users view their news feeds on a mobile device. They are seasoned “scrollers” and if they see a really long post from you they are going to avoid it in most cases. Even desktop users will not appreciate long Facebook posts. So if you are used to writing long posts then you need to get out of this habit as your engagement rates will suffer.

Here are some good examples of short posts that are likely to get a high level of engagement:

• Asking your audience a quick question

• Providing a quote or interesting statistics from an article where users can click through to read the article in full
• Images that contain witty or snappy statements

Just a single sentence can really grab the attention of your audience. They want to know more so they click through to your website. By keeping your posts short and simple like this you will increase engagement on Facebook.

Know What Your Audience Wants

We have touched on this already – it is really not important what you think is interesting or entertaining it is what they think that really matters. You have to find out as much as you can about your audience.

Facebook Insights can provide you with the information that you need to understand your audience. Do not overlook this powerful resource as it can provide you with a lot of detail that you probably won’t have been expecting which you can use to connect better with your audience in the future.

One thing that we recommend that you do is to create a persona for your audience. This involves identifying a member of your audience based on their age, gender, interests, location, and so on. You can find some great resources online to help you to do this.

If you are new to Facebook marketing then join relevant groups for your niche. Take the time to go through a number of the posts in these groups to see which ones had the highest engagement levels. Use what you find as inspiration for creating your own posts.

Ask Your Audience a Question

Not enough Facebook marketers do this. Facebook users like responding to questions. It’s human nature to provide an answer when you are asked a question. When you ask the right questions you will find that your audience responds with a lot of comments. So what are the best questions for you to ask?

Here are some good ideas for you:

• Do you agree that (add a statement or opinion)?

• How do you (ask how they decide about something for example)?

• Why do you like (a certain product etc)?

• What is your favorite (something related to your niche)?

A good thing to do with questions is to ask your audience what type of content that they want to see from you in the future. The best way to do this is to give them a numbered list of choices. All they then have to do is enter a number in the comments. You can tell them that if what they want is not on the list just add it as a comment.

Make it as easy as you can for your audience. Just asking “what content do you want” requires them to think and then reply with their choice. If they just have to choose something from a list and type a number that is really easy for them to do. Don’t expect your audience to work hard on Facebook because they won’t.

Use Facebook Stories

If you are familiar with Instagram stories you will know that they appear at the top of user news feeds. Well, the good news is that they work the same way on Facebook as well. This will get more eyeball activity for you and should increase engagement on Facebook.

Stories will take some effort to put together but you do not have to strive for perfection here because users will not expect this. Use Facebook stories to build a stronger connection with your audience.

When you create good Facebook stories you will build a stronger desire within your audience to see more of your content. Some users will spend time on your Facebook Page checking out previous posts that they missed.

There is evidence from Facebook themselves that shows a high percentage of users became more interested in a business or individual after seeing their stories. So make stories a regular part of your Facebook content strategy.

Increasing your engagement is the best way to get more free traffic from Facebook. All of the 12 methods in this special report work and are easy to do. Giving your audience what they want is the name of the game. So implement these techniques starting today and watch your engagement levels soar – and your free traffic too.