Looking for more advice on PR, social media, and marketing? Why not get in contact or submit a brief to inject a little ingeniousness into your brand.
It’s the first month of the year, and that means one thing at least- as we promised immediately after everyone got back to work two weeks ago, here at Smoking Gun PR we are dedicating the entire four weeks to trend predictions and what you might call the ‘January 101’- advice, hints and tips on best practice to ensure you won’t get left behind this year.
First up, 5 Facebook posts that social media marketing pros love to use, because they know these are (almost) guaranteed to boost engagement amongst fans and followers. Given engagement is like the holy grail of social media marketing it’s probably wise to take either a few actual or plenty of mental notes because the following will see your brand’s likes, comments and shares increase, if you use them at the right time and in the right way to match your audience. Without further ado then, let’s do this.
[Tweet “Smoking Gun’s top tips for better #socialmedia engagement through #Facebook posts “]
The simple picture (and the not so simple photo)
There’s a reason why Facebook altered its look and layout to better display photos and other types of images. People love a good shot, the more unique the better, and studies have shown that photos with simple explanations or captions are frequently engaged with better than a status update, link to a source, or even videos. The latter largely because some 3G mobile can be a little sticky for streaming videos depending on signal, something 4G has revolutionised but we’re not all on 4G just yet…
Questions
This is so easy to do it’s any wonder you’re not being asked more every time you log in to Facebook. For this it’s important to stay relevant to the brand, so perhaps ask people to share their tips on how they best use your products or services, something that will kick start a conversation between fans, rather than between fan and brand. Other popular choices include simple Yes/Nos on whether customers actually like a product or proposed change to a product, and then there’s the old ‘What are you doing now?’ quandary, which is great for stuff like company birthdays (‘What are you doing to celebrate?’) and sales (‘What are you going to buy first?’).
Quotes
We recently started posting a ‘Quote of the Day’, and for good reason. People love a good quote, particularly if it’s either motivational or witty. Keep your eye on which of the two are working best when it comes to engagement, and that’s what should become brand standard. Once you understand this, start looking at how quotes could be combined with visual content, perhaps to create something that’s hilarious or meaningful.
[Tweet “The best types of post for boosting engagement via @SmokingGunPR “]
Competitions
An obvious one, but a good one providing you know how to run a competition properly and have something worth giving away. The old mantra ‘people like anything as long as it’s free’ really is hogwash, and there’s nothing worse than launching a context on Facebook only to see a grand goal of 0 entries- don’t forget, everyone else can see this too, and it doesn’t look good. At all. Facebook even has tools to quickly create visually engaging competitions if you really do want to look like a pro. And let’s face it, everyone does.
Complete the [_______]
This might not work for every company on the network, but when it does work it works very well indeed. Asking your audience to complete the sentence relies on engagement, and is a redundant post if nobody engages. As with competitions, then, you need to be shrewd in judging what sentences would prove successful, and whether or not your fans would engage with this, but for the majority of companies this one is definitely doable.
Call to action
It’s easy to forget that people respond well to, and are more liable to do what you hope, if you tell them what you would like them to do. That might sound counterintuitive, but requesting shares can work in your favour as it may not be clear exactly what you want the public to do with your most recent post, so consider this one of the most vital things you can add to the posts you consider to b the most engage-able, and the improvement should quickly become obvious.
[Tweet “Want to know the most effective #Facebook posts for engagement? @SmokingGunPR has the lowdown…”]
Looking for more advice on PR, social media, and marketing? Why not get in contact or submit a brief to inject a little ingeniousness into your brand.
