19 Things Your Competitors Do To Increase Facebook Engagement And You Don’t

increase Facebook engagement organically

Have any idea why your Facebook engagement’s graph is going down? Well, it has become a common question for everyone who spends their time in social media marketing.

Though, some of your competitors are not at all worried for this because their graph is perfectly fine. Want to know what they are doing to increase Facebook engagement organically? Well, if yes, then stay tuned with this blog and know what your competitors are doing to increase their Facebook engagement.

So, here, in this blog, I am trying to introduce you to some of the major and important things you can do to increase Facebook engagement organically. You can then easily compare your graph with your competitor’s one and feel better.

But before that, if you are new to social media marketing platform and don’t know the importance of Facebook in your business field then it is worth to know the things you need to do for better Facebook engagement.

What Is The Importance Of Facebook For Your Business?

Importance Of Facebook

NO matter whether you have a big or small business, Facebook can help you make your business better in many ways. If you have a well-managed Facebook page then it is good but why it is important to be present and active on this social platform?

Do you know that business targets their audience more on Facebook than any other social media?  Yes, this is true. Facebook is now considered as the largest platform to explore your business. I hope, now you will don’t have any doubt and will believe that it’s a marketing necessity.

You can create a page of your business on Facebook at free of cost but if you want to launch advertising campaigns on Facebook then you have to pay for it.

Facebook helps business owners to manage their communications better and let their business expand on a global scale. If you have a better profile in Facebook as a company page then anyone and anywhere in the world can come across your business

Facebook – a social media is just not that social; you can also interact with your target audience in real time while answering their queries and solving their issues.

You May Also Like: 11 Visual Content Types to Boost Your Social Media Engagement & Marketing

Why People Prefer Facebook Rather Than Any Other Social Media Platform?

 

This is a tricky question because all the social media platforms have their own values and benefits. But, Facebook is one of the most widely used social media platform than any other.

Well, you can consider here some reasons that make Facebook more preferable than any other social media platform:

  • It offers better API (Application Programming Interface)
  • Offers easy sharing options
  • Have user-friendly interface
  • Used for internet marketing purpose
  • Easy to create business pages, groups & communities
  • Provides online gaming experience
  • Easy to tap on like button concept
  • All in one option: family, friends, social network circle at the same site
  • Social networking app through a smartphone

Things You Can Do To Increase Facebook Engagement Organically

Increase Facebook Engagement

Here comes the main thing for what you have come to this blog. I have collected some information on the basis of daily activities done on Facebook by any business owners. It may be possible that your competitors may also be doing the same and so their Facebook engagement is increasing day by day and you are missing out all these activities.

So, do not waste your time anymore and start following these activities on your business Facebook page to get more engagement. Here are some must-do things if you really want to know how to increase Facebook engagement organically:

#1: Post When Your Competitors Are Asleep
#2: Build Your Presence And Authority
#3: Post When Your Fans Are Online
#4: Sometimes It Is Good To Go Live In Facebook
#5: Recycle Your Top Posts
#6: Experiment With New Content
#7: Create A Linked Facebook Group
#8: Ask For Opinions
#9: Share Curated Content
#10: Create Specifically For Facebook
#11: Post Less
#12: Test Your Posting Frequency
#13: Take Advantage Of New Updates To The Facebook App
#14: Use Hashtags The Right Way
#15: Create Invite-Only Groups For Your Most Engaged Audience Members
#16: Post More Links (Or Don’t). Respect Your Audience’s Choice
#17: Work To Become A Valuable Resource In Your Niche
#18: Use Different Types Of Content
#19: Run Contests

#1: Post When Your Competitors Are Asleep

competitor-asleep

This is most difficult to find out but with some hints, you can do so. You have to first consider:

  • Your audience profile (interests, age, occupation, etc)
  • Your location and your audience’s location as well
  • Type of content that you create

The optimal time to post content on Facebook is from 1to 4 PM in the evening.

However, if you want to know about each day of the week, then you can follow this timing:

  • Wednesday at 3 PM
  • Thursday and Friday at 1 to 4 PM
  • Saturday and Sunday at 12 to 1 PM

It has been found that posting any content at 3 PM works even b\more better to get clicks and boost post views.

#2: Build Your Presence And Authority

building-presence

You must be thinking if organic reach decreases as the size of the audience increase then where is the value in growing your presence?

Well, you have to do a lot in building your presence and authority; it’s not only about increasing your page likes. The thing that matters here is that your build enough authority to command your audience to action. If you have enough authority then your audience will engage with your content more favorably.

Know what you can do to increase more engagement:

Attract the right people to your Facebook Page

Having large fans are useless if there is no positive influence on your marketing campaigns. You need to find people who are actually tunes to your business interests. Look below what you can do to build a target audience:

  1. Have A Strong Brand Presence: For a strong brand presence, you should have a brand image that sticks in the audience’s mind. You need to post relevant content to your business page.
  2. Use Your Audience Insights: Try to flesh out with information like what are your audience pain points, their interests, beliefs and attitude towards your business, their objections and more.
  • Target Them To Promote Your Posts: After fleshing out all the above information, you can create a custom audience modeled. With this, you can promote or boost your post and will be more likely to reach those people.

Apart from targeting people or running campaigns, you can also invite people to like your business page who have personally liked your individual posts.

Bonus Tip: You can also leave a link to your Facebook page in the bio of other social media accounts. Also, broadcast to your other social networks about your Facebook page and ask them to get engaged. You can now easily manage your social networks with the help of Social Jukebox tool.

#3: Post When Your Fans Are Online

facebook-page-fans-online

It is believed that there is a universal time to post content on Facebook and it is early afternoon. But every people do not believe this. This is because now people also used to believe that every brand has its own perfect time to post on Facebook.

Generally, the best time depends on several factors like what industry you are in, when do your followers use Facebook, where your actual audience comes from and more.

Well, the best way you can try to find out the best time to post on Facebook is to look at your own data. You can find out this by following the below steps:

  • Go to your Facebook Page Insights option
  • Now, under the Post tab, you will get the data about your Facebook Page fans are online for each day of the week.

 With these data, you can make guesses regarding your posting time.

#4: Sometimes It Is Good To Go Live In Facebook

Facebook-Live

In the past few years, Facebook has introduced a new feature that is to post live videos. Facebook has tweaked this algorithm to rank live videos higher when they are live than when they are no longer live.

It has been reported by Facebook that “People spend more than 3x more time watching a Facebook Live video on average compared to a video that’s no longer live” and “people comment more than 10 times more on Facebook Live videos than on regular videos”.

The CEO and founder of Facebook, Michael Stelzner, believes that when you go live, your fans are exposed to your brand even if they don’t watch your posted live video.

To post live videos on Facebook, you can get some ideas from here:

  • Host a Question-and-Answer or Ask-Me-Anything session
  • Explain or demonstrate how to do something
  • Share behind-the-scenes of an event
  • Share weekly tips
  • Interview industry experts
  • Discuss breaking news

#5: Recycle Your Top Posts

repost-top-post

To increase Facebook engagement organically, you can also recycle your top posts. This will help you get more value to your content. If you re-post any high-quality content then it can also generate as much engagement as the original post.

As for example, you post a blog post as a link to a list as the caption. You find that your followers loved that post; you can re-post it with a video. However, instead of reposting the top-performing post as it is, you can make little changes in your post. You can even try these to make your post look fresh:

  • Add an image
  • Add a video
  • Ask a question

To re-post your content on Facebook, you have to wait for several weeks before you repost the same post. This will prevent your followers from seeing the same content or post and avoid getting bored of your Facebook posts.

Also Read: 11 Creative & Fresh Ideas for Social Media Posts to Grow your Followers

#6: Experiment With New Content

facebook-experiments-2-632x385 copy

For better Facebook engagement, you can also now experiment with your content. There was a time when images were the only attraction for Facebook users to drive engagement. But, now the time has changed. Videos are now attracting people more. You can also take help of DrumUp to share great content.

Here are some techniques you can apply to test new Facebook content:

  • 20% of your content should be improvements and iterations of your 70% like new types of videos.
  • 70% of your content should be the types of content that are already performing very well now like images and videos.
  • 10% of the content should be experimental content which might become the next big thing.

#7: Create A Linked Facebook Group

linked-facebook-group

A possible resolution to the decreasing number of reach and engagement on Facebook is to start a Facebook Group and then link it to your Facebook Page. People in Facebook Group with your most engaged followers will generate more discussions than your Facebook Page. It is my intuition that your Facebook Group will benefit your Facebook Page in several ways:

  • Facebook Algorithm Boost: This is just a guessing. As we all know that Facebook Group is linked to Facebook Page and the engagement in your Facebook might influence how your Facebook Page posts rank on your member’s News Feed.
  • More Awareness: As it is clear that members engage with one another in the Facebook Group so they likely have your brand at the very top of their mind. So, you can also post and comment on your Facebook Page. These may also encourage your members to check out your Facebook Page, as for example, live videos did for Social Media Examiner.

If you are now thinking of creating a Facebook Group then you should do it now to increase Facebook engagement organically.

#8: Ask For Opinions

ask-opinion

It is quite possible that people used to comment when they have something to say. But most of the time it happens that we don’t offer them a chance to say anything. So, in this context, asking a question is a good thing to offer our followers a chance to share their thoughts.

It is a good idea to share relevant blog or news and ask your followers for their personal opinions. What you should share might be depending on the audience. As for example, if you have a professional audience then you might want to share industry articles or news. Or if you are a lifestyle brand then you might choose to share lifestyle news instead.

So, just try to ask your followers for their opinion and try to implement such things in your Facebook posts.

#9: Share Curated Content

curate-content

Sharing curated content sounds so weird but it has been found that experimenting with sharing high quality curated content, the results have shown improvements. By sharing top-performing posts sites, you will be able to reach a much bigger audience.

With the help of sharing curated content, your Facebook page likes will actually grow and will definitely increase Facebook engagement organically. You can also get live updates about your brand social media like Facebook with the help of Loomly tool.

Generally, there are two types of curated content that you can share on your Facebook Page:

  • User-generated content from your customers
  • Third-party content from your brands

Most commonly, people used to share content from other brands on our Facebook Page because this type of content generally resonates with the Facebook Page followers. Also, once in a while, it is also good to share user-generated content from the communities. They also perform so well.

#10: Create Specifically For Facebook

speciofically-for-facebook

Sometimes it happens that what actually works on Twitter and Instagram might not always work on Facebook. As for example, hashtags are great for Instagram posts, and GIFs works so well on Twitter but they both work so less on Facebook.

It is a good idea to create your Facebook posts most specifically for your Facebook Page. With the help of Buffer tool, you can easily customize your social media posts for each platform when you share your content to multiple platforms at once. You can also go one step further by simply customizing your article headline for your Facebook post.

#11: Post Less

post-less

Do you know that posting less grew our reach and engagement by three times? Yes, this is absolutely true. The reason behind this conception is not because we are posting less; it is because posting less will actually allow focus on quality instead of quantity.

When we have to share only one or two posts once in a day, we are able to share the best content. However, when we have to share five to six times a day then we have to struggle a lot to find the best content to share on Facebook.

If you are a solo social media manager or even a small business owner who used to handle your own social media then you might have experienced this before. It takes too much to find great content to post on Facebook and there is always a lack of time if you are the only person to manage your social media.

#12: Test Your Posting Frequency

posting-frequency

There are some websites like Telegraph, Huffing Posts and The New York Times publishes a large amount of content every day. Further, they push their content aggressively on Facebook too. But, you should always take care of the frequency of Facebook posts. You can take some tips from the below points to know the frequency of Facebook posting:

  • Try to always post high-quality content so that you can engage your audience with inspirational, humor and educational content.
  • Avoid posting more than 3 times a day as it can overwhelm your audience.
  • You can also post a higher number of posting but with good quality content. You can also mix your posting schedule and post types together.
  • Keep an eye on page frequency because your data can reveal your audience’s exact response.

Look Here: How to Create an Effective Social-Media Strategy for Your Business

#13: Take Advantage Of New Updates To The Facebook App

facebook-update

The constant app updates of Facebook are no secret. The changes and updates come so fast and frequently. You can take the advantage of these updates and take the benefit of your business. Some of the recent updates that provide you to grab the golden opportunities are:

  • More Intuitive And Flexible Video: Now users don’t have to manually tap to play a video. In addition to the autoplay update, you can now watch a video while scrolling through a news feed.
  • Facebook Messenger Bots: With this update, you can now engage with users and persuade them with targeted messenger sequences.
  • 360 Degree Videos And Photos: With the help of this update, you can now have the ability to capture a 360, panoramic view. You can use this feature to showcase the human element of your brand by just capturing group shots, workspaces, events and more.
  • Facebook Offers: Here, with this, you can now share discounts, coupons and other promotional offers on the Facebook business page.
  • Facebook Stories: If you are familiar with Instagram and Snapchat stories, then you are no stranger to this format of visual content.

#14: Use Hashtags The Right Way

facebook-hashtag

As we all are very well familiar with the hashtags and also know how they work. But do they have any impact on a Facebook post’s reach? Yes, they have a great impact on Facebook. Let us look here how we should use hashtag in any Facebook posts.

It has been found that Facebook posts with hashtags interact the most when there are 1 or 2 hashtags used. So, here are some tips mentioned to know how to use hashtags in your Facebook post.

  1. Create Your Own Hashtags: Always make your hashtags unique to your grand so it does not get confused with anyone else’s. It is also a good idea to always use the same branding style hashtags on all social media platforms so there is familiarity across channels.
  2. Use Hashtags As A Navigation For Your Groups: Facebook always creates a unique URL for each hashtag used. It means that you can easily use them to search for content. It is very useful in groups when you don’t want evergreen content to be buried.
  • Use Hashtags In Facebook Trending Topics: Have you heard about trendjacking? Yes, this is the term used to describe when someone piggybacks on a trend in order to gain exposure for their brand. Here, you can use hashtag on a trending topic.

#15: Create Invite-Only Groups For Your Most Engaged Audience Members

Create Invite-Only Groups

It should be clear to you that Facebook is all about building communities. If you have a community with a large number of people included in it then believe me you will definitely get more Facebook engagement. For communities, you have two options:

  1. Start your own group
  2. Join a highly engaged and relevant group that serves your business goals

Concentrating on the first point, it is the best thing to add to your Facebook marketing arsenal. There may be several reasons to start a new group or community. Most of the people form groups around their business or brands, products or services, a specific lifestyle or even a specific topic.

It has also been found that the most valuable groups for business are those that are either product specific or brand specific. Do you know why this is so? This is because you can use a branded group to build and explore your community around your business. Similarly, product-specific group will help customers get the most out of a product or service that you offer.

You can look at the steps below to how to create a new group:

  • Step 1: Create and name your group
  • Step 2: Write your value proposition in your group description and lay down clear rules for posting in the group.
  • Step 3: Now you need to pin your rules at the very top of the group feed. Also, you need to set up your group’s privacy settings properly.
  • Step 4: Invite your most engaged audience members to join the group.
  • Step 5: Start the conversations related to your industry to boost post engagement.
  • Step 6: Come up with a content strategy for your group.

This is it for setting up a new group for your business to increase Facebook engagement. But make sure that you give more time to your group because it needs time commitment.

#16: Post More Links (Or Don’t). Respect Your Audience’s Choice!

Post More Links copy

Links always work to drive traffic to your page. It has been found that pure links generated 82% more pageviews than posts with links and photos in the caption. Photos have become an unpopular post type with users and so with marketers.

I always recommend you to post all types of updates that add value for your fans, be it images, links, status updates or videos.

Do not force one content form into another just because some type of post is currently performing so better on Facebook. You can analyze your data from Facebook Insights to find the type of posts that actually resonate with your audience.

#17: Work To Become A Valuable Resource In Your Niche

Valuable Resource In Your Niche

You have to work a lot to become a valuable resource in your niche. They are the pages that always have something interesting to share and they used to help you stay up-to-date with what is going on.

Try to make your goal to be a valuable resource like that for your niche. Here are some tips you can follow to start moving in the right direction:

  • Give Away Your Knowledge: You can engage more people to your page by giving a reason why they should like your page and stay connected with your content. This will really help you get more Facebook engagement,
  • Share Other People’s Content: if you share other people’s content then you can show your audience that your focus is on them, not the audience. So, try to share a piece of content that will be quite valuable for them.

#18: Use Different Types Of Content

Different Types Of Content

It is quite vital to know the anatomy of a successful Facebook post to get the greatest value for your effort. With the use of different types of content, you can really engage more people to your Facebook page. Here, you can know the key features of a successful Facebook post and you will be about to win:

  • Brief Title: Your Facebook post should be less than or equal to 10 words.
  • Informative: If you give your Facebook post an informative title that satisfies their needs then it will attract more people.
  • Image: It is common that visual content attracts people a lot and is also easier for people to perceive information. So, do not forget to post photos on Facebook as it receives 53% more likes than the average posts.
  • Relevant: Always keep in mind that the information you post on Facebook should be relevant to your Facebook page and should be up to date because users are interested to get breaking news.

You should try all these to your Facebook post because this type of content will reach the maximum audience and turn possible fans into subscribers and this will improve organic reach.

#19: Run Contest

Run Contests

Last but not the least, try to run Facebook contest. It is a very simple way to increase Facebook engagement organically. Here, look at the steps you need to first look at to run any contest on Facebook.

Step 1: The first thing you should do is to set a goal for your contest.

Step 2: Select the type of contest you want to run and it should be completely based on your goal.

Step 3: Make sure to check out Facebook’s guidelines to run contest.

Step 4: Keep a voting system to pick a winner of your contest.

Step 5: Select your prize carefully, make sure it should be relevant to your business only.

Conclusion

Running a Facebook brand page really requires effort and time but there is a chance to achieve success if you try all the above things that your competitors are already doing but not you. Also, you should always be very attentive to get ideas what your audience actually likes because this is the only key to implement the right method that will help you get more Facebook engagement.

If getting an engagement on your Facebook Page has been challenging for you then I hope that you have found even 1 out of 19 things that might be useful for your Facebook.

Also, keep in mind that using these things to your Facebook Page might take little time to show its results. So, don’t be disheartened if you don’t see the results immediately.

Note: You can also take help of some online social management tools to easily maintain and monitor your social media websites like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and more. Some of the most effective tools are 99 Dollar Social, Ninja Outreach, ContentStudio and more.