With over 2.7 billion monthly active users, Facebook is the biggest social media in the world. Little wonder millions of businesses (both large and small) are on the platform. Facebook provides businesses with the opportunity to share information about their business, raise brand awareness, generate sales, and more. To reap these benefits, businesses need to interact effectively with their audience. This is even more crucial given the fact that two-thirds of people visit a local business page on Facebook at least once a week.
Facebook posts are messages – either in the form of text, pictures, or other media – that help businesses connect with their audience. The end game is usually higher engagement. How do you create Facebook posts that are guaranteed to help your business? In this article, we explore seven tips that we’ve found to be effective at The Real Social Company.
Limit Self-Promotion
How frustrated do you feel when a favorite show you’re watching is suddenly interrupted by a commercial? Pretty annoyed, right? Now imagine if new commercials keep popping up one after the other. You’d quickly get pissed. Why? Because you’re watching your TV primarily for entertainment – not to watch commercials.
The same is true of Facebook. People are on Facebook to engage with fun content and interact with others. If all you post is about your business, chances are most people will skip over it. As a rule of thumb, for every 10 Facebook posts you make, only two should be about your business!
Get Visual
As the saying goes, “If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a video is worth 1.8 million words”. Humans, by default, respond more to pictures and videos – it’s in our DNA. Take advantage of it!
Ensure that your visuals are of high-quality to make them appealing. You can experiment with different orientations. Make your video content as short as possible, but more importantly, you want to make the first seconds super-interesting to grab the attention of viewers.
Be Human
It’s a no-brainer that people like to communicate with other humans like themselves – not a faceless corporation. Let your audience know and feel that there are ‘real’ humans behind your business. Posting content that softens your professional image is a great place to start.
A simple strategy is to post behind-the-scenes content. This gives your audience an idea of how your business works. Taking it a nudge further, you can put up even more playful posts. For instance, now that most people are working from home, you can try uploading a picture with a caption about what your pet thinks about the new norm. Get creative!
Be Frequent and Consistent
Your goal is to seamlessly allow your business to permeate the subconscious of your viewers. That’s why you must post frequently and consistently. While there’s no definitive answer to the ideal frequency of posting, posting randomly is a recipe for disaster.
Furthermore, it’s very easy to fall into the category of posting too much or posting too little. Facebook recommends that you post at least once or twice a week. Other experts suggest that you may post as frequently as 1 – 2 times per day.
What we’ve discovered at The Real Social Company is that the ideal time varies from business to business. You have to experiment and find what works best for you.
Sustain Conversations
Facebook is a social media platform, meaning it’s for interacting! That’s why it’s not only about posting engaging content. You also have to start and sustain online conversations.
You can create posts in form of a question or include one at the end of a regular post. This will encourage your audience to speak up. Make sure you respond to their comments, questions, and concerns, even if they’re negative. Doing so helps make your brand relatable, and it helps develop trust.
Listen to Your Audience
It’s easy to forget that you’re posting for the audience – not yourself! Why not let your audience tell you to want they want from you? It’s easy to know what they want – you just have to listen to the clues.
For instance, if lots of people aren’t seeing your post, it could mean they don’t like it, or the timing is wrong. Try posting it at different times to eliminate that possibility. If your audience doesn’t like your posts, maybe they don’t like it!
However, if one of the posts receives lots of engagement (likes and comments), you know your audience loves it. Then you can create contents that are more like the successful posts. Therefore, it’s prudent to keep track of your analytics. You can even directly ask your audience what they’d like from you and observe what’s most pertinent.
Include a Call to Action
We underestimate how much people love to be told what to do. It simplifies the decision they have to make. Tell your audience what you want them to do! This can be applied in different ways.
Something as simple as “Click like if you agree and comment if you don’t” can astronomically increase the engagement of a post. However, make sure not to use it on every post, so it doesn’t lose its effect.
If you’re making a promotional post, then creating posts with buttons that can help them take the necessary action can be effective. Luckily, you can easily create such action buttons, either to allow people to start an order, buy tickets, or do any other thing.
Conclusion
Creating effective Facebook posts can dramatically boost your business by increasing brand awareness, improving engagement, generating more leads, and ultimately boosting revenue. The tips we’ve examined have helped us at The Real Social Company. We are certain they can help you too.
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