Neoco

There’s no doubt that Facebook pages are being adapted more and more by brands to help spread their messages and ideas. However there’s one thing that brands always need to remember when building up their Facebook brand presence: although large numbers of followers are a good thing, it’s much more important to encourage a high level of engagement. There are still far too many brands that seem to think a large amount of followers equals a great brand presence – however the true value of Facebook pages lies in being able to interact directly with followers and start conversations.

Nothing’s worse than seeing a Facebook page with a bunch of plain blog post links with no comments or interaction.

Seth Godin made a valuable observation on the value of a TRUE follower when he remarked that 100 truly dedicated die hard followers is much more valuable that 1,000 average “I kinda like that” followers. These are the types of people that will go out of their way to help promote your brand. It’s like having 100 passionate PR people all out there their spreading your message. With this in mind, here are my top tips on how to increase Facebook interaction and get those followers to start speaking and spreading your message.

1. Post on anything that causes debate. Once someone has made a comment, they often feel compelled to check back to see who has replied to their comment. This has the potential to build a big discussion.

2. Ask for feedback. Remember that all your followers have actively chosen to follow you, so by asking for feedback you are helping them to feel more valued and part of the community.

3. Questions work well when you have a steady following. Photos with a question in the caption work even better. This gives you the opportunity to get both comments and opinions from our followers.

4. Avoid automatic posts. Internet users are now becoming more and more web savvy and their barriers are up even more. Automatic reposting of blog links will discourage people from your page. Your Facebook page should be social and a place to engage – not just another dull spamming tool. If you do choose to post blog links, make sure you do this manually and write questions or ask for opinions from your followers in the caption section.

5. Keep your page restrictions to a minimum to allow your community space to engage (by being able to upload their own pics for instance).

Remember that it does take time to get people to engage, and some niches and topics naturally work better than others. However in general there is almost always a good amount of people with an opinion on any given topic so you just need to figure out what buttons to press in order to get people to start talking. Try out new question styles and techniques and you’ll eventually understand what works best for your audience.

Tags  brand engagement engagement Facebook online communities online conversation Top 5 tips