Many businesses managed to ignore Facebook for years, but they are finally accepting that there is value for their business in the way that it can be used to interact with, and learn from, their customers. Facebook users are more likely to purchase from companies that they are fans of on Facebook; therefore it is a channel that businesses need to utilise for engagement with their customers

Building engagement with your followers on Facebook can occur as a result of four different actions by users.

Users can:

1. Like your posts
2. Comment on your posts
3. Share your posts
4. Click on your posts

These four interactions will increase your Facebook page’s engagement levels, in turn increasing the reach of your posts. The reach of a post is the number of Facebook news feeds the post appears in. The higher the reach of your posts, the greater the number of Facebook users who will see your posts. If your posts are not receiving any of the four interactions mentioned above, Facebook will consider your posts to be of no interest to your followers. Check out our list of ways to give your Facebook fans a reason to interact with your business’s Facebook page.

Get your fans involved

Increase your post’s likes

• Create nostalgia or a good feeling: Likes are easier to gain than comments and they are much easier to gain by posting a photo. Try to post an image that will resonate with your audience.
• Ask for a like: Encourage your audience to get involved. Ensure the status resonates with the audience, is not controversial and that they will agree with what you’ve written.

Increase your post’s comments

• Ask a question: Learn from your customers by learning from their answers. It will provide an insight into how they tick and what they want from your company.
• Let them fill in the blank space in a sentence: This is a good way to help generate a large amount of comments, likes and shares. Again, you can gather an insight into what your audience wants.
• Ask for a caption to a photo: People love interacting with brands and coming up with interesting captions. This technique is useful when it is part of a competition.

Increase your post’s shares

• The Like vs. Share battle: Post a photo that displays two comparative images. Ensure you use images that evoke strong emotions within your audience and ones that are linked to your brand. Ask viewers to share or like the one they prefer.
• Post images of quotes: Find a picture displaying a quote that is extremely inspiring to your audience. Try to post a picture that your audience cannot resist sharing.

Increase your link’s clicks

• Post a link to a blog: Use an image for the link that will grab the attention of your audience.
• Create an element of curiosity around: Don’t give everything away in your post, tease your fans by providing a small part of the story, compelling them to click through to find out the rest.

Other tips for increasing engagement

• Share your followers' content that they message or post to you instead of your own. People love to see their content being shared.
• Hashtags can be used to create awareness and build engagement for specific marketing activities, such as a contest. Using popular hashtag terms will increase your posts visibility.
• Pay for Facebook Ads. Facebook managers can be resistant to paying for Facebook ads due to not understanding their value and the skepticism they feel around the impact that the ads have.

Final Notes

There are different techniques that your business can use to increase the level of interaction that your posts receive, but the best technique to use when publishing a post is to ensure your content is relevant and interesting to the audience.

Remember: do more of what works! It doesn’t matter how many fans you have following your Facebook page; engagement is engagement, and without it, your posts may go unseen which will lead to a reduction in the reach of your posts.

Click here for our building engagement on LinkedIn blog or here for our building engagement on Twitter blog.