How to grow engagement on your Facebook page is something I get asked about a lot. This post will share the ways I grew my Facebook page to over 100,000 fans.
If you have ever wondered how to grow engagement on your Facebook page, this post is for you.
I should start this post with a little back story to my Facebook journey.
Before I started this blog, I was against all social media platforms.
Okay, “against” it probably too harsh of a word.
Let’s just say, I didn’t have any desire to have them. My family and friends were all on Facebook and Instagram was just coming out. I didn’t see the need. I did have a Pinterest account, but I never looked at Pinterest as a social media outlet. It was always a search engine to me.
Fast forward a few years to when I started this blog. I was in my own little world trying to figure out how to upload photos, how to write a blog post and how to publish that blog post. Those were the kinds of things that were on my radar at the time. As I started growing, I took some courses and read some ebooks about blogging. I was learning fast that I needed a social media presence. WHY?! What will a social media presence do for me?
I don’t want to get wrapped up in this thing that was consuming everyone’s life around me. Why would I want any part of that? I pushed it off for as long as I could and then, I started thinking about it differently. With a social media presence, I could share the projects and ideas I was writing about on the blog and share it to more people. I could reach more people by adding social media accounts to my arsenal. Hmmmm. This might not be so bad after all.
So, I started creating the My Creative Days Facebook page (if you aren’t following me there, go HERE and hit the Like button. Thank you! Thank you!). To set up a business account in Facebook, I had to have a personal account first. {insert angry face}. I set up the personal page (still never post there) and then created the My Creative Days page.
Since I was so late to the Facebook game, it took me some time to figure out how to post things, how to schedule posts, what to post, how to tag people, when to post and all the other things that comes with running a Facebook page for a business. Even though it took time, I learned so much throughout the process and it has been well worth it. I love the community we have created over there and I look forward to the conversations, questions and ideas I get every day from that page.
Now, let’s start talking about all the things I learned and how to grow engagement on your Facebook page.
How To Grow Engagement On Your Facebook Page:
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Learn Your Audience:
This will be hard if you are just starting out, but it is such a good tip to know from the beginning. I wish I understood this right from the beginning of starting my page. If you can start your page knowing who your audience is, you will have a much easier time growing. In learning who your audience is, you learn what they like. You will start to see what type of posts they are commenting on, which posts make them want to share and which posts they like. When you know your audience, you don’t waste time searching for things to share. You know what to share so you only post those things.
You won’t know your audience in the beginning. It will take some time through trial and error to figure it out, and that’s okay. You have to post different things to see how your audience reacts. Post different subjects, post at different times, post pictures, post things with just words. Try all kinds of different things to see what resonates with your audience. Once you do this a few times, you will see a pattern of what they really like and what they don’t really care for. If you post a DIY project and your audience really engages, and then you share a recipe and you hear crickets, then you know you should post more DIY projects.
If you share a lot of fashion tips that your audience responds to, and then add some travel posts and they say nothing, post more fashion. This isn’t to say that you can’t mix things up and share multiple things, but you will learn what the majority of your posts should be about if you want your audience to engage with them. I think it is good to keep your topics under five so your audience gets a sense of what your page is all about. For my page, I don’t post about fashion because that is not the audience I am trying to serve. Learn your audience. It is how to grow engagement on your Facebook page.
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Consistency:
This is the number one tip I give to anybody who asks me about how to grow engagement on your Facebook page. You have to be consistent. I love to describe it like this: Let’s say you visit a restaurant or store for the first time. You absolutely love it and can’t wait to go back. The next day, you go back and they aren’t open that day. They have nothing to offer that day. You find out that this place has random hours and no set schedule. How likely are you to keep going to that place? How likely is it that you will recommend that place to family and friends? Would you want to waste your time driving there just to see if they are open? NO!
The same thing goes for your Facebook page. You want people to know they can count on great content and consistent content. I have received so many messages from people who say they can always count on the My Creative Days Facebook page to post content every day. I also get messages that say, “I used to follow so and so, but they never post anything new, so I stopped following them.” Consistency is key. It is a lot of work, but it is the best way to grow your numbers and the engagement on your Facebook page.
You will hear people talk about how many times you should post on your Facebook page. Some people say once a day is fine and others say four times a day. I do think it depends a little on your audience and the content you are sharing, but you need to come up with a number that is going to work for you. The number that you are comfortable with and can stay consistent with. If you know that you can commit to posting three times a day, every day, then that is your number. If once a day is the number that will get it done every, single day, then that is your number. Your audience needs to know that they can count on you posting your number.
If they are used to you posting something new three times a day, you need to deliver on that number every day. I post almost every hour from 6AM to 10PM every day, including weekends. When I say every day, I mean every day. You definitely don’t have to post that many times for your page to be successful, but you do have to post as many times as you promise your audience to post. Keep that number consistent every day. Now, I don’t want you to think that I am sitting at my computer and posting something new every hour. NOT!
I use the scheduling tool within Facebook and schedule posts out a week in advance. A week in advance is the goal that I set for myself just so I can work ahead, but you can do it however works best for you. When I started out, I was doing all of the scheduling myself, but about six months ago, I brought a VA on to help me with some of the posting. I still do the majority of the posts on my Facebook page, but she fills in where I need her.
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Engaging Posts:
This is another BIG one to help grow engagement on your Facebook page which in turns grows your following. Every time you post something on your page, it has to be something that is going to engage your audience. Engagement comes in three main categories on Facebook: likes, comments and shares. You want everyone who sees your posts to do at least one of these things on each of your posts. Likes are good, comments are better and shares are the golden ticket! If you can get more people to share your posts, you have hit the jackpot. The more people who share, the more people who find out about your page and the more you grow. Once you know your audience and what they want to see, coming up with engaging posts becomes a lot easier.
“How do I get people to engage on my posts?” That is a great question and one that depends a little on your audience. Like I said earlier, in the beginning stages of starting your business Facebook page, you will learn what they like by how they are engaging on each post. Are they liking the posts?
Are they commenting on the posts? Do they share posts? See how they are engaging, but the key here is to always give them the opportunity to engage. Ask questions. Tell them to give you input. As for their opinions. Tell them how you want them to engage on each post. I have asked questions. I have asked for opinions and I have even said things like, “If you liked this post, share it with your friend who would enjoy it to!” Be direct in what you want them to do on each post.
The photo below is one of my Facebook posts. It is a picture of a pretty office and I asked an open-ended question, “This office is ________________”. I am asking people to comment with how they would describe this office. The post asking them to engage. I am giving them a reason to comment. Within the first few hours of this post going up, the reach was over 4,000, it was liked and I had 42 comments. It was also shared 20 times. This post will reach more, get more likes, comments and shares in the next few days too.
I wanted to give you an example of what an engaging post looks like. Now, I could have put this picture up and said, “This is a pretty office.” That doesn’t ask anyone to engage in my post. I am just making a statement. What are they supposed to do with that? They may think it is a pretty office, but they won’t be inclined to make that comment or share the post.
When you post something on your Facebook page, ask questions. Give your followers a reason to engage with the post. Remember, the goal is to get them to either like, comment and/or share the post. You want them to do something on every single post you have. Do you see the difference? Make this simple change in your Facebook posts and you will see a drastic difference in the engagement on your posts.
I should also mention here that Facebook algorithms aren’t fun and they change all the time. Like any social media platform, Facebook is constantly looking for ways to better the user’s experience and bring them the best value for their time. On our end, that means that posts that were performing extremely well in the past, will probably not perform well with the change. You are constantly having to relearn what is going to work well on your page and what isn’t. It is part of the game, but don’t let it discourage you. It is something we all have to deal with and learn to work around when we are figuring out how to grow engagement on your Facebook page.
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Don’t Put All Your Eggs Into One Basket:
I know this post is all about how to grow engagement on your Facebook page, but I wanted to mention this anyway. When I say don’t put all of your eggs into one basket, I mean make sure you have other areas where you have an online presence for your business. That may mean other social media channels (Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, etc.), a website, newsletter, etc. Whatever it is, make sure you are present in a few of them because if Facebook tanks tomorrow (I don’t see that ever happening), you are still seen in those other areas.
This also brings up the topic of not owning your audience on Facebook. You don’t own your following, Facebook does. If Facebook decides to change something tomorrow and take all of your audience away, you can’t do anything about it. They are in control of that audience. It stinks, but it is the truth. So, don’t put all of your efforts into Facebook alone. I suggest you have your own website and build an email list ASAP because you do own that audience. Then, you have a way to reach that audience if all social media accounts were wiped out tomorrow.
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Be Social:
Facebook is a social media channel. It was meant to be “social”. Not only do you want people commenting, liking and sharing your posts, but it is also important for you to respond to the comments, likes and shares. Be social on Facebook. When someone comments on a post, like the comment and respond back to them. When you start growing, you won’t be able to respond to all of them, but you should make an effort to like and respond to as many as you can. The things you post should be looking for interaction. You want people to respond to what you are posting and they love it when you respond back to them. It becomes a short conversation, a social interaction. Make sure to do your part interacting if you want to know how to grow engagement on your Facebook page.
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Spread The Word:
When I first started my business Facebook page, I sent it out to my family and friends. I wanted them to know where to find me and they shared it with their family and friends. You should be spreading the word about your page wherever you go. How to grow engagement on your Facebook page can’t get any easier than this tip. Tell everyone you know.
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Ads:
It is not until recently that I have started working with ads on Facebook. Like I said earlier, the algorithms are always changing with Facebook and right now, throwing a little ad money to your page seems to help. I am not going to give you advice or tell you how to do ads because I am not well-versed in that department.
I grew my page to 100,000 with only a few ads here and there (I am talking a couple of dollars sporadically just so I could learn how to do it if I ever wanted to spend more money). If you aren’t ready to spend money on ads, don’t do it. The other tips I am sharing in this post will go a long way in showing you how to grow engagement on your Facebook page.
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Analytics:
I have to say that I am the worst at this part, but it is so important to how to grow engagement on your Facebook page. Look at the back-end of your Facebook page in the analytics. There is a lot of information that will help you grow the page and the engagement on your posts. You can find out so much about your audience. You can find out where the majority of them live, what gender they are, the age range they are, and you can even go as far as to see where they like to shop and how they spend and/or save their money! Scary isn’t it?!
Like I said, I am not good about doing this, but I need to be because not only will it help me on my Facebook page, but it will also give me insight into blog content I should be writing. If I were to do it all over again from the beginning, I would definitely invest a lot more time in my analytics. Moving forward, I am going to do this more.
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Go Live:
Going live on your Facebook page and/or sharing video content is so good right now on Facebook and is another great key to how to grow engagement on your Facebook page. Again, this could change, but I see the video aspect of social media growing and growing so it is a good idea to start practicing now. If you can go live on Facebook or share a video you created, do it. It is scary at first when you go live, but I promise, the more you do it, the easier it gets.
There are so many things you can do on a live video. Think of the things you want to see and watch and customize that for your audience. Do you share fashion on your page? Maybe do a try-on session live or take your audience shopping with you. If you share DIY projects, do one live on your page. If you share crafts, do one live. You get the point.
How to grow engagement on your Facebook page and increasing your following is a fun topic for me. I hope after reading this, you have tangible strategies you can start implementing on your page right away.
I was able to grow my account to six figures and I get a lot of questions asking what my secrets are. The truth is, I don’t have any secrets. I am an open book and willing to help and share whenever I can. The tips I shared above are the exact things I did that helped grow my Facebook page to over 100,000 fans and I know they will help you do the same.
Now, get to work! It is time to start implementing these strategies and watching your Facebook page do great things! I would love to hear the changes you make and what the outcome is. Please come back and tell me!
If you have any Facebook questions that I didn’t cover in this post, leave them in the comments below. I will be sure the answer them as they come in.
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