Effectively using Facebook

Dan came across this great article by Jim Belosic about using Facebook to your advantage. Wanted to share...

5 Ways to Increase Your Facebook Fan Engagement

By Jim Belosic
Published February 14, 2012

Want to increase your Facebook fan engagement?

Keep reading for some simple techniques to get your fans more involved.

Even if you’re active on your Facebook page’s wall by posting regular status updates, interacting with fans and answering questions, you’re still missing out if you aren’t using calls to action.

A call to action encourages or even incentivizes fans’ responses to your content, and it can be as basic as a simple status update.

Your fans will enjoy interacting with your Facebook page and your page will benefit the most with increased visibility, traffic and marketing opportunities.

Many Facebook page admins aren’t quite sure how to foster an active fanbase, so here are five effective ways to call your fans to action.

#1: Post Fan-Centered Status Updates

You want to get your business in front of your fans. But how do you do that? Too many page admins resort to posting the same status updates over and over as a solution. But in the long run, that technique becomes annoying to fans and it doesn’t play to the power of EdgeRank.

EdgeRank is the algorithm Facebook uses to determine the importance of a status update. The more comments a status update receives, the higher its EdgeRank. The higher the EdgeRank, the higher that update is placed in news feeds. In addition, Facebook will display that update to more people. This means getting comments should be your goal with your status updates.

To get more comments, tailor your status updates to ask for your fans’ opinions, stories and even advice. The comments will float your post to the top of your fans’ news feeds, giving more fans the opportunity to interact.

#2: Start Conversation With Relevant Content

If you’ve tried asking your fans for input but you’re still hearing crickets, it’s time to look back over your status updates and evaluate your posts. Are you posting more about your company or your community?

Facebook users want—and will respond to—relevant content. A car company that posts nothing but advertisements in their status updates won’t get nearly the response they would if they posted information about tire recalls, car seat safety test results and tips to improve gas mileage. Give your fans a reason to chime in by creating status updates that discuss issues they care about.

#3: Enable Sharing and Get Traffic to Your Custom Content

Too often, Facebook page admins create these gorgeous, highly functional tabs, but fail to include a call to action. It’s not just your status updates that are important; every bit of content on your page is important, and you need to get that content spread around Facebook. That’s why all of your content must be sharable.

All of your content can include a share button that encourages your fans to post that content to their walls. If you’re holding a sweepstakes, provide fans with a share prompt upon entry submission so that they can let their friends know they’ve entered your contest. When one person watches your video or enters your contest, that’s great. But if that fan tells their 200-plus friends about your content, that’s more clicks, more traffic and potentially more business.

It doesn’t matter what the content is. If it isn’t sharable, it isn’t benefiting your page as much as it could be.

#4: Sign Up Now! Create Action-Based Incentives

Your custom Facebook tabs are a great place for your newsletter or customer relationship management sign-up form. If you aren’t seeing the number of sign-ups you had hoped for, incentivize it.

Remind your fans what is sent to subscribers (like coupons). It’s a great way both to populate your list and get your fans excited about your product or service.

#5: Like Us to Enter! Harness the Power of Simple but Effective Fan-Gates

Want to drive up your fan count and increase engagement at the same time? Create a custom tab with a fan-gated contest. Serve non-fans a message that tells them about the prize, but inform them that they have to like the page to be eligible to enter. Once the non-fan clicks Like, present an entry submission form that collects your targeted user data, whether that’s an email address or phone number.

If you’re giving away something good, you’ll get the likes and you’ll get the data. However, it’s important to note that if your contest is on a welcome tab, don’t gate the whole thing. You don’t have to let non-fans be eligible for contests and promos, but you can’t hide all of your content from them.

Neutrogena's welcome tab is perfect: it's fan-gated, incentivizes liking the page and includes lots of information for non-fans who may not want to click Like.

The more content you gate—the more abandonment you’ll see.

Remember—Fans First!

All of these steps revolve around fan-centric content. While this looks different from brand to brand, the first step in successfully creating a call to action is to put yourself in your fans’ shoes. So ask yourself—Why do they like my brand? My page? What do they all have in common? What interests do they share? Answering these questions will help you find your starting point.

About the Author, Jim Belosic

Jim Belosic is the CEO and co-founder of ShortStack, a Facebook platform–based application helping businesses build customized tabs for Facebook pages that maximize their social media presence and potential. Other posts by Jim Belosic »