Many of us struggle with growing our Facebook pages. Despite many people’s beliefs that it’s now a “pay to play” system, there are actually ways to massively grow your community WITHOUT paying. You just have to be engaging, and as my friend Sasha Gray, blogger, entrepreneur, and proud Facebook page owner with over 205,000 likes (check out Lipstick, Margaritas, and Hairspray) – THE MOST IMPORTANT thing is to Post Sharable Content! So how do you do that?
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Make Your Facebook Ads Feel Personal and Conversational
Client case studies show that ads feeling like a normal part of your fan’s feed—like posts—have a noticeably higher conversion and click-through rate than ads that are obviously advertisements.
(Notice the difference between the comments, Likes and shares between these two ads. The first add is a conversational post from Steve Harrison; the second a traditional ad from Infusionsoft. Jack Canfield—the subject of Harrison’s ad—and Infusionsoft have relatively equal visibility and authority: Yet Harrison’s conversational-post-style add gathers a stunningly higher number of comments, Likes and shares.)
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Focus on Your Fans
When we post on our Facebook feeds, it is natural to first think of what we need to say—that’s why there are so many self-indulgent, cryptic or “empty” posts. Before you ever log onto Facebook (or any other social media platform) think about your ideal client. What is she interested in? What would help her, interest her or entertain her?
Get into the habit of focusing on your ideal client before posting, and you will soon see your engagement rate rise.
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Don’t be Afraid to Post the Occasional Bit of Pure Fun
Something that genuinely makes your audience laugh is always a hit—and it needn’t spoil your branding, if you pick your subject carefully. (For example, the photo above would be perfect if you know that a high percentage of your clients have cats, and post about them regularly.)
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Make Sure Your Boosted Posts Are Always Relevant
For example, if a post was related to a particular holiday, remember to stop the post once the holiday is over!
And don’t boost popular posts if their timeliness and relevance is past, no matter how many shares they got.
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Post All the Time
There’s really no way around it, you have to post consistently in order to keep people—and Facebook—engaged with your feeds.
Creating a post plan and logging into content idea/scheduling sites like Post Planner or CoSchedule will help you keep on top of this in minimal time per day.
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Explore Curated Content
In addition to rotating your post media types, explore sharing other people’s relevant content. A mix of your own posts and curated content seems to work best on Facebook, according to Facebook expert, Mari Smith.
Just make sure you introduce your curated content with why you are sharing it (why your ideal reader will care).
