Have you just discovered what Facebook Edgerank is all about but not sure what the implications are? Here are 8 simple tips to help increase your engagement on your facebook page and have your content seen by a larger group of people:

 

  1. Creating relevant and informative content is THE easiest way to increase the engagement on your facebook page and make sure that your content is seen. If the content is relevant, entertaining or informative, people will keep coming back for more.
  2. Mix up the content – develop a content editorial calendar and make sure that you have a range of mediums covered in your posts – photos, videos, polls or short text both posts all appeal to different groups and should be included in the mix. It’s also useful to see what sort of post your fans respond to and base future posts on your learnings.
  3. Have a range of everyday posts and extraordinary brand experiences – You need to make sure that you’re providing reasons for your fans to continue to engage. Make sure that your editorial calendar has some extraordinary brand experiences to keep people coming back. Reward them with exclusive fan discounts or events or run a competition that they can enter with the chance to win a prize. Remember that if you are running facebook promotions there are a number of guidelines to keep in mind and you can’t run a competition directly on your wall unless it’s hosted elsewhere (see earlier blog post on how to comply with facebook promotional guidelines )
  4. Time of Post – people interact with your posts at different times of the day and it’s not always from 9-5pm on Monday to Friday that people are online. Use the facebook post scheduler to test how posts perform at different times of the day. I often find that it’s posts I put up late at night that drive the most interaction.
  5. Post frequency – I often get asked how often should you post on your page. The answer is it depends on what content you have to communicate. Keeping in mind that many fans will never come back to your page once they have initially liked it, you need to think about how often you post. If only 10% of fans are seeing your content based on your edgerank score, then it won’t hurt to post more often if the content is good.
  6. Ask for feedback – this is a two-way dialogue. Encourage your fans to comment, like and post on the page so that you’re driving further interaction. An interesting article was recently posted by Social Fresh about whether you should encourage likes or shares – have a read http://socialfresh.com/facebook-like-vs-share/
  7. Measure and adapt – Facebook analytics gives page administrators some great information about how their fans are interacting with the page. Use this information to your advantage to be able to learn from your post interactions.
  8. Ask fans to receive notifications from your page. There’s the option to ensure that pages are seen in your news feed. If you hover over the like button under the cover photo, you can click on the “get notifications button or to ensure that the page “Show in news feed”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A word on the paid promoted posts….

There’s been lots of controversy over the fact that you can also pay to promote your posts on the page by paid facebook advertising. Yes this is frustrating, but remember advertising on facebook is how they make money!  On occasion this can work and be effective, but use it as part of your overall content plan and not too often as some of this advertising can generate negative feedback for your page if the content is not relevant.

 

I’ve also found that I get greater interaction posting directly onto facebook rather than using third party automated apps like Hootsuite. It’s not confirmed that these third party apps are blocked or penalized by facebook in the edgerank scores (it’s often quoted as the case), but personally I’ve found better rates by posting directly.