As of January 2013, Facebook has 1 billion users. 219 billion photos have been uploaded and there have been 140.3 billion friend connections. The average age of users is about 22.
Clearly Facebook is not going anywhere and although my teens hardly use it anymore, many of us visit the site daily. From a business purpose, engagement is more important than fans. You can have 1,000 fans but if only 2 people are interacting with you very few people will see your posts on their feed. Take a look at the number of fans you have on your Facebook business page. Now note how many people are "talking about this." Your goal should be to increase the "talking about" number.
Last year Facebook introduced EdgeRank (also known as News Feed Algorithm or why you see what you see on your news feed). It is important to understand how it works because it makes an impact on how many people see your page. Brittany Botti, a Social Media Marketing professional, explained it simply: "The more your fans like, comment, share or click through on your posts, the more often they will see your posts in their NewsFeed."
Have you noticed you tend to see posts from the same people in your news feed? It's probably the people you interact with most. For your business page to show up in more people's feeds, you should improve the engagement by mixing up your posts.
Here's a few ideas for increasing engagement:
- According to a study by SocialCode, the best time to post on Facebook is after 7pm EST on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.
- Ask questions. Find out more about your fans
- Post photos. It is the most popular type of post
- Use quotes from books you love
- Change the cover photo regularly. It's more fun and keeps people engaged
- Graphics from Pinterest (just make sure you give credit to the creator)
- Post short "thoughts" or "comments" - Posts that are 5 -10 words perform best
- I hear "Fill in the blank" gets lots of engagement. I have not tried it myself yet, but seems like fun
The most popular type of post is text only (short, funny, thoughtful ones). The least popular are updates with links. Add a link sparingly only when you need their attention and have a call to action. It's important to be selective about the links you add as they are the least effective in promoting engagement.
If you are only on Facebook because you want to sell something, I am not sure any social networking will really work for you. Facebook allows us to know our "partners" better. Today partners are our clients, customers and readers. It is because of them we are in business and by treating them with regard and respect, I think we'll be in business longer. Of course, social networking is a business investment so you should totally promote your company/book/product, just mix it up.
What have you found to be effective in encouraging engagement on Facebook?
Fauzia Burke is the Founder and President of FSB Associates, a digital publicity and marketing firm specializing in creating awareness for books and authors. For online publicity, book publishing and social media news, follow Fauzia on Twitter: @FauziaBurke. To talk with FSB and ask your book publicity questions, please join us on Facebook.
© 2013 Fauzia Burke. All Rights Reserved.