With Facebook’s (new) news feed rules, many pages are suffering with loss of “likes” and post visibility. But complaints never helped anyone, especially a business wanting to stay or get back into a news feed.

When it comes to Facebook (Google is the same) it really is business as usual where fancy “tricks” won’t work for long (like click-baits). The lazy scheduled posts, completely boring marketing speak that is great to share on a generic pamphlet that sits in the corner to get dusty until some tourist picks it up as a memento would never have worked for long in reality anyway as well, so why complain now? Sorry for being harsh. But come on…

Many marketers or business owners are saying “it’s easier to engage on my personal profile than on my page“. Well, let’s examine that and get us back to our happy place.

Why not treat your Facebook Business Page like your personal profile for a week and see if it changes how much engagement you receive on your page?

Forget the perfectly crafted brand messages, the strategically placed keywords and the image perfect photographs that only a professional could take in the first place and just relax and do this; talk like you would on your personal profile. Be silly, be sensible, be a family man/person/woman/girl/boy/whatever, ask questions, share happenings and simply see what happens.

It is time to get real about engagement on the social media’s. Time to smarten up your social media actions and inspire those conversations again. What do you so in your day that will inspire a conversation?

 

Here’s 6 Really Simple Ideas

Passion. Everyone loves enthusiasm. You know those people who attract others like a moth to a flame. When you are passionate about something you naturally exude these traits. If you are a wine label you will naturally exude passion for vines, wine colour, vintage, bottle shapes, labels and taste. Use that passion to write your posts. Similarly, if you like electric gadgets, cars, motorbikes, dogs, country drives, or craft… whatever, write about it/them. Sometimes your passions will align with your business, other times not… but it will help to show a deeper side to you and encourage engagement with your customers. Heck, many customers might even have the same passions. Let them join your party.

Routine. Create a daily post that shares what you’ve done with your day or a thought you’ve had or a good morning welcome with a smile. Anything that makes you smile or made you smile at the world. Try and generate a conversation around it in your head… “I felt strongly about this today and was wondering what others thought” or “big day today with xyz arriving, what’s everyone else up to?” for example. People love to be asked questions, and, if it’s current and relevant even more so as you go into the trending topics concept, helping get you back into the newsfeed.

Share. People love to be loved. Share a post from ANOTHER page onto your page and explain why you like (or dislike) it. This is no time to be dissing other brands. No negativity please. This is engagement on topic. It might be a comment about the weather, a community topic, an event to consider, a restaurant (that stocks your wine) or simply a great photo from your region or area that you loved.

Thumbnails. Change your Facebook Business Page Thumbnail to a picture of your face (it is Facebook after all). If it can’t be “your” face, perhaps a group of people or people associated with your business. It will appear in the newsfeed as a person – and we all know people like talking to people.

Visuals. The most basic of all engagement strategies. Included here simply to remind you that it STILL WORKS. You don’t need to be a master photographer, you just need to share an image and go “wOw” or “Check this guys” or “What do you think of this?”. Take a phone snap… It’s spring so show buds on a bush, photograph the new menu offerings, show a person you had a meeting with, get a selfie and state “on the job, what are you up to”. Anything really. Quotes and jokes always work – but no overkill. Multiple photos on topic (single posting) is a good idea too. Get followers to send in pictures. Take snaps with customers. Take event photos and share the crowd. How many options can we think of? Many. Go for it.

and finally…

Explain. Always make sure all the elements on your Facebook Business Page are completed in FULL. That means, every field is filled out with something and if you get the opportunity to use long form copy (lots of words), then do that. This may not help with your news feed but it sure as eggs will help your SEO (search engine optimisation) and that’s equally as good… traffic to the website is what we are after!

 

Most importantly, have fun and enjoy. No one likes a boring party.