Marketing does not just mean being seen. It is not the sole objective of a marketing campaign to get your adverts seen by as many people as possible but rather it is to try and get your visitors to actually engage with you and thus to remember you and to consider you when they’re looking for services.
This is where the true power of social media and of Facebook comes in. With Facebook and other social media sites, you will have the ability to actually communicate with your audience and to interact with them. This will make them feel much more engaged with your marketing message and it will make them far more likely to use your services and buy your products in future.
The question is though, how precisely do you go about encouraging this kind of engagement? Read on and we’ll look at what you need to do to get users to really engage with you through Facebook.
Respond to Comments
The most obvious and easy way to increase engagement through Facebook is to respond to comments. If people feel as though they can actually get seen by you and get a response from you then they’ll be much more likely to try messaging you. At the same time, they’ll be much more likely to read what you have to say and to look out for future opportunities to communicate.
So if someone comments on a picture – thank them. If they ask a question about your service, answer them publicly.
Ask Questions
You might find that at first, you don’t get many questions. This is because people often feel nervous to approach big bloggers and/or brands because they aren’t used to getting responses.
Actively invite your users to talk with you then by asking questions. This way, you’re creating the opportunity for a discussion.
Just be careful when doing this to remain professional. While you want to seem human and reachable, there is definitely such thing as “oversharing” for a business’ social media account.
Ask for Help
Better even than asking questions is to ask for help. If you ask people for advice, ideas or resources, then you will find that they actually gain more of a sense of attachment to your brand going forward. We love feeling needed and we love feeling like a part of something.
Once someone helps you, your brand almost becomes a part of their identity and they’ll want to follow this through by supporting you going forward.
Run Competitions, AMAs and Events
You can also increase engagement by using various marketing events including competitions, AMAs (Ask Me Anything) and other events. Anything that generates buzz and that gets your followers to spread the word about your Facebook page.
Show Behind the Scenes
While you don’t want to get too personal, you can show your visitors a view behind the curtain. Upload photos of your team at work in the office, or of your new project and you will make yourself seem more relatable and trustworthy as a small business.
These are some of the steps we have found useful for increasing engagement through social media, especially with Facebook Marketing. If you’re also a small business and have found other useful methods that we don’t have here, please feel free to share them with us in our comments section below.
