Social media management can be a tricky balance for a brand or business. It’s one thing to connect personally with family photos, vacations and the link but for a company to truly connect with it’s customer base and potential customers, each brand must become fully fluent in the platform that best suits it and resonate it’s true message.
Many agree that a company must have a social media presence to truly connect with it’s audience, and Facebook is the main event. It can however, be winding road to determine what sort of articles or posts get the most interaction, how can we increase engagement with our followers, and create the most meaningful experience? How can we glean the most benefit from one of the most popular social media networks in the world? There are a few ways to assist you in making your Facebook posts make a more meaningful impression.
A brand must engage in extensive research to see what their UX, as well as which social media platform would have the most impact with their audience. Keeping that in mind, if your company has decided that creating a business Facebook account is the optimal route for customer engagement, consider the following steps.
Be Results Driven
Before creating a post or campaign, step back and ask yourself what you want the message to accomplish. Building engagement, driving site traffic, encouraging shares, start a conversation – clarify the intention from the get go, and then your Facebook post will be that much more effective. Your goal should be obvious to your readers. Include a call-to-action, or an enticing headline that includes a special deal or time-sensitive offer that would encourage interaction. Create a human, personable feel and use language that is casual and clear and offers value to the user.
Encourage Engagement & Buy-In
Moving along with the clear call-to-action mentality, keep in mind that your users appreciate directness. Clear verbiage that indicates without ambiguity what your intended goal has been found to generate the best results. For example, using strong words like “Share now,” “Subscribe today,” and “Let us know what you think” has resulted in greater follow-through rates. By connecting with them on a personal level, you begin to create an environment of trust and community. Ask your users to share stories of their experiences with solving problems or how their interaction with your product or service benefited them in some way. Utilize common engagement practices such as asking your readers to fill in the blank to a proposed question or having them provide a creative caption for a photo. Tip: Try not to ask your Facebook followers to post something to their own friends’ pages, as Facebook considers this a form of spamming and may close down your page. Using “share” words is acceptable, but do not require them to post on their friends’ walls/timelines in order to participate in a contest or deal.
Apply Visual Storytelling
Since we are largely visual learners (retaining memories and associations through the visual center of the brain), posts that are accompanied by a photo applying visual storytelling have a significantly larger engagement record than those without. If your post includes a photo with the link you post, make sure that it transfers through to Facebook as well. If that isn’t an option, don’t worry – create a simple, clear photo with a link. Before posting, test the link to make sure that it works properly (so that you don’t miss a letter in the URL or link to the wrong page).
Simplify The Message
Content is important, but the fewer the characters, the better when it comes to Facebook posts. Your content strategy, but take care not to promise something that you cannot deliver. Stay true to your brand voice, and keep it simple. Since the purpose of having a Facebook account is to generate a sense of community, remaining ethical and honest will ensure a loyal audience. If they feel as though they are being manipulated, you can turn them off from your brand, and lose them as followers.
Be Consistent, Not Constant
Finally, nothing turns users off more than constantly being bombarded with promotional material. Companies are increasing their advertising spurts, and your audience is bumped from all sides by promotions, offers, and “50% off sale: today only”! Of course, some promotion is expected from your company, but if your users are receiving useful information and interaction from your social media, they will build trust and increase brand credibility. The ratio changes often, but seems to stay with a 30-70 or 20-80 ratio of promotional material and valuable (non-promotional) content.
Keeping the above tips in mind will assist your brand in providing a better user engagement experience for your social media audience. Stay true to your brand voice, using content that allows for lively conversation accompanied with clear photos, and watch your Facebook engagement flourish.