5 Ways to Increase Organic Engagement on Facebook

Here are 5 easy steps to take to increase your organic reach on Facebook.

1. Join the Crowd- Facebook are now putting a lot more emphasis on community. More than 1 billion people use Facebook Groups every month, they are free to use and there are thousands of them, so you will find a ready audience for your content there. In the unlikely event that there isn’t one covering your area of interest, then form your own. Quite often people use groups to ask questions. Check out some of the most asked for information and write a blog post addressing those queries, then post it in the group. Brands should create their own official group linked from the Facebook Page and use it as the go to place for your followers. You can ask your group members to share their content, run competitions, use polls to get product feedback etc.
2. Go Live- Facebook Live videos have the highest engagement rate of any content on Facebook. Also, it’s still a relatively uncrowded space, get in now. It’s really simple to set up and broadcast, but make sure you have a strategy for what you are going Live for. With real time comments and reactions shown you can prompt responses by asking and answering questions in your broadcast. Tutorials are popular, live events, interviews, behind the scenes. Use the data from Facebook Insights to see when your followers are most likely to be on line and schedule your broadcast accordingly.
3. Leverage- Archimedes said ‘Give me a place to stand, and with a lever I shall move the world”. One of the best ways to get high levels of engagement on your posts is to get your employees and most importantly your customers to share your content. Think of ways to create content that they would want to see and share. Use the poll feature on Facebook to ask them what they’d like to see more of then create it. Turn employees into advocates. It’s a good idea to incentivise users to engage with you. However, avoid the ‘Like and Share’ competitions. They are the digital equivalent of the flyer stuck under your windscreen wiper.
4. Get a Partner- Partner with Facebook Pages that have a strong following that have a product/ service relevant to your customers. Share good quality content with each other on a regular basis but avoid overdoing it. Even better is to actually produce specific content that you both post on your Pages/ Groups. So for instance, a surfing school could post photos of the best boards for beginners from a local surf shop.
5. Pay Up- How is paying for ads organic? Because the audience that you pay for may share and engage with your post, thereby gaining an organic reach when their friends/ followers engage. The secret is to reach people who’ve already engaged with your business, as every business person knows it’s easier to sell to current customers than to new ones. A Facebook Custom Audience allows you to promote to an audience that has already engaged with you by utilising data such as your email list. A Facebook Lookalike Audience means that you can target an audience that ‘Looks Like’ the people that are fans of your Page. Use the data from Facebook Insights to target your ad spend and to see what content your audience engages with most.

Conclusion:

Facebook is the number one social media platform and that has resulted in a lot of content competing for attention. The practice of just posting and hoping for the best is not a strategy that will bring success. The tips above will help you achieve a deeper level of organic engagement on your posts. However, the most important thing is to post stuff that people want to see, read, watch and share. As always, content is king!