5 Ways to Boost Facebook Engagement


March 29, 2016

For a long time, brands and businesses were able to post to Facebook and easily reach their target audience and fans organically (without using paid ads). That all changed in 2013 when Facebook’s algorithm changed to feature business pages’ posts significantly less organically.

With this shift, Facebook went from a huge traffic generator and branding tool, to a pay-to-play model platform.

Battling Against Lower Organic Reach

Despite the algorithm change that dictated what is shown in a user’s Facebook News Feed, there are still some ways to help your posts get some organic reach. One of these factors is the amount of engagement a post receives - meaning the amount of likes, comments, and shares.

The only problem is that getting those likes, comments and shares is a lot harder to get when a large portion of your fans aren’t seeing your posts.

Luckily, there are still some ways to reach a portion of your audience and help boost your engagement, even with the changes to the News Feed. Give these seven strategies a try to jump-start your likes, comments, clicks and shares on your Facebook posts.

1. Share Content Your Audience Wants... Not Only What You Want Them to See

Sometimes businesses get a bit of tunnel vision when it comes to showing their audience content that benefits only the business, and not the customer. An example of this would be a flower shop only posting about the flowers they have available, their promotions and company news. This type of self-promotion isn’t always what customers care about and certainly won’t help your engagement.

To balance these types of messages, a flower shop could also post about how to make flower last longer, gardening tips, how to make upcoming holidays special (beyond giving flower of course).

2. Post at the Right Time

On of the tricks to getting your content seen is posting it at times that get the most engagement… and it’s not always when you might think. Although most people tend to check their Facebook during the daytime, the most engagement happens at night. Buzzsumo found posts published between 10 p.m. and midnight (local time) receive the most engagement.

 
Image from Sprout Social


In order to find the best times for your business, it’s a good idea to schedule your Facebook posts ahead of time and to test different times between the most engaging hours to find out what works.

3. Use Real Photos with Real People

Photos make up 75% of the posts on Facebook and account for 87% of the content shared on the platform, Social Media Examiner reported. That means that photos should be a huge part of your engagement strategy for Facebook.

Instead of relying on generic, stock photos, use your phone or camera to take some real pictures of your surrounding, people on your team, or even customers (if they agree). Posts containing original photos feel more personal and organic, which can lead to people engaging with those posts more.

4. Use Facebook Video

Video content has become a huge part of digital marketing over the past couple of years. Youtube might be the second-largest social network, but when it comes to Facebook marketing, that doesn’t mean much.

In one study on the engagement of Facebook native video vs. YouTube videos published on Facebook, the winner was clear. Native Facebook videos received:

  • Two times more comments
  • Three times more shares
  • Seven times more comments
  • Two times more reach
 

5. Use What Works

There’s no need to reinvent the wheel with every Facebook post. Sometimes the best way to get more engagement is to publish more of the same type of content that was popular in the past.

You can see what has performed well with Facebook Insights. This can also help you identify the best times to post from our second tip.


Organic reach on Facebook has definitely decreased, but that doesn’t mean you should count the social media platform out. There are still over a billion people logging in every day, which gives you plenty of opportunities to reach your audience and potential customers without reaching too deep into your pockets.

If you’re interested in learning more about the possibilities of Facebook marketing, contact Sales & Marketing Technologies by calling (407) 682-2222 or using the contact form below.

 

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