Let’s talk about engagement! How do you get more people to come to you in 2019? You know, it’s very difficult to find great content and get it posted and then it’s a bummer if nobody sees it. So how do you get people to be more engaged with you?

 

1.) Make sure you have the right kind of business page. This might sound silly, but it’s important that you make sure that the category that you have is right for you. Let me give you an example. I work with a retailer and recently we noticed that their address was gone from their page along with their hours of business. That’s bad for the holidays! I had to file a formal inquiry with Facebook but, very long story short, they discovered when the page was created it was created as a “parent” page to have multiple locations and the parent page couldn’t display hours. Well, they don’t have multiple locations. So it’s a big deal to make sure you’re using the right category. If you go into your About section and click on Edit it will show you how you’re categorized.

 

2.) Optimize your images. Facebook and Google look at what you call your images just like they look at your content. It’s just as searchable in both places. If you load an image called “img6789,” well, nobody’s looking for that. Name your images what people are looking for. It makes it so much easier for you to be found. Also, you really do need excellent pictures. If your pictures are grainy or out of focus or it doesn’t pertain to what you’re talking about, people are going to check out pretty quickly.

 

3.) Use your call to action button. And make sure it works! I was doing an audit the other day and the client’s call to action button was “call” but the phone number didn’t work. Frustrating! Ensure that your call to action button is something you want them to do. “Learn more” is the way to go. “Contact us” is also good. Plus, make sure it’s your best medium. If you’re not a phone person, don’t put your phone number as your call to action. Make it work for you and the best way to contact you, something you check regularly.

 

4.) Post balanced content. That means it’s totally ok to ask for the sale once or twice out of every ten posts. But don’t sell people to death, you will wear your audience out in a hurry. You also want you content to be a mix of things; some of it educational, some of it sales, testimonials, funny content, etc. But don’t overdo any one single area of content.

 

5.) Optimize your posts. Ok, this is a big pet peeve of mine. If you’re going to share an article or a link to something, erase the link! It is so ugly in your post and sometimes it’s super distracting, especially for your users who don’t use Facebook a lot. So if you have a link to “The Best Tips,” you put your link and the article populates with an image, you go back and erase the link, write whatever content you want to write, then post. That way the image is an active link and people can click on it to get to the article. People’s attention spans are short. Unless you are promoting an event or a sale where you need to say “hey, click this link,” the URL is pretty unattractive. I see it a lot from folks who are new to posting. After you put in your link, you want it to say something that’s searchable — something like “Best staging tips for selling your house in 3 days” — and then say something about the article. You will have people who will click through and read the whole thing, and then you have scanners who will just hit the highlights. Whatever you want them to get out of it, that’s what you need to put right there. All those keywords, all that terminology, is super searchable in Google and Facebook. Use it to your best advantage.

 

6.) Leverage your user-generated content. This is huge. People who love you, who deal with you often, are going to tag you in stuff. It happens probably more than you realize. If they have a happy testimonial or they call you out on their Facebook page and they’re tagging  you and it’s positive, use that content! They’re tagging you because it’s ok for you to go in and share it. This is some of the best content you’re going to find. Third-party endorsement is huge. Most people will believe someone who talks about you more than they will believe you yourself.

 

7.) Video, video, video. I know I’m a broken record with this, but video. Video is only going to get bigger. You have to got to integrate video into your marketing plan for 2019. The trends for this year are saying that vertical video is making a huge comeback. I don’t know how true that is because it’s just a prediction, but I know for a fact that video is the way to go. It gets higher engagement, more people will see it, and it gets pushed out more by the platforms. Facebook does not love YouTube, so if you have a YouTube video upload it directly into Facebook and your numbers will be higher.

 

8.) Use Facebook Insights to monitor your progress. Most of the folks I talk to never check Insights, they don’t even know where they are! Your Insights will tell you so much more than you need to know. It tells you how old your person is, where they live, where they work, if they’re male or female, and that’s huge! Not too long ago I had a customer who was doing an ad and he wanted to use male/female in this particular area, but when we went in to check his audience? 98% female. Why would you waste money putting guys in there if that’s not your audience? Make sure you monitor your insights so you can  use them to your advantage.

 

9.) Time your posts correctly. This kind of goes back to using your Insights to monitor your progress. If you are a restaurant and you are putting stuff up at 6 am, you’re probably missing the boat. You need to know when your audience is on. For realtors, most of your audience is on at 3 pm, so we post for those clients after 2 pm. Retail, especially in Birmingham, does better at 10 am. Don’t know why, that’s just how it shakes out. It’s very important for you to check our Insights and see what time your audience is online and optimize that.

 

10.) Take advantage of your audience Insights. We covered checking Insights in #8, but it’s really important. That’s where you audience talks back to you and tells you what’s happening with them. You have Insights on everything. You’ve got in on your Page, on your Group, every single thing has Insights — Pinterest, Instagram, they all have it. And if you haven’t installed Google Analytics on your website, do it today. If you’re using ads, make sure your pixel is installed on your website. You can’t improve if you can’t measure.

 

One last thing, make sure you’re putting you in your social media. As long as you and your team are part of your marketing, that’s what’s going to make you grow. Make sure you are part of your marketing plan for 2019!