So, you’ve decided how many times a day you’d like to post and know some options for scheduling them (How often should you post to Facebook?)
Now, let’s talk about what to post.
I see so many pages that focus solely on promotional posts. That’s it. That’s all they post to their page. Which I can understand. I mean, you created your page to let others know about who you are and what you do.
BUT that doesn’t tend to get too much engagement. Here’s why…
- People don’t usually come on Facebook to shop. The vast majority of the time, your potential customers are logging into Facebook to be social. (That’s why it’s called social media.) They want to see what their friends are up to, who’s commented on that adorable picture they posted of their kids, and to watch funny cat videos to brighten their day.
- People engage more when it pertains to them in some way. If you’re only posting promotional stuff, people are less likely to engage. Facebook sees that and then shows your posts even less.
So, what do you want to post?
- Inspiration
- Entertainment
- Education
- And then throw in some promotion. My goal is for every 10 posts, 3 of them can be promotional. The rest are to inspire, entertain, and educate.
Here are some examples:
Inspiration
For a fun comparison, here’s the same post shared to 2 different pages I run (which actually does not happen too often). The first to my own fan page with around 4,500 fans. You can see in the top right, it had a reach of 721 people, which is amazing for that page. I aim for at least 10% reach, so in this case 450 people.
In the second example, shared with Kare’s High Frequency Wellness, a page with 16,000+ fans, the reach was 4,912 people. With 16K+ fans, I aim for a reach of 1,600 on this page. So, almost 5,000 is well beyond expectations, but if I’d gotten a reach of 721 to this page, it would tell me this post wasn’t successful. Make sense?
Entertainment
This video of kittens and puppies being introduced to each other was posted on Kare’s High Frequency Wellness. It got a reach of 5,868 with well over 2,000 people watching part of the video. The video is pure entertainment.
By the way, if you look closely under video views and 30-second video views it shows organic and paid reach. Honestly, that is a bit weird because I did not pay to advertise this post. (I only advertise to my own content when I have a particular goal in mind.)
Education
This link gives a recipe for a Grapefruit Avocado Salad. Shown to Kare’s High Frequency Wellness, it reached 1,816 fans, just over 10% of the 16K audience.
Promotion
Below are 2 examples of promotional posts I’ve used with Kare’s High Frequency Wellness. The first I consider a soft promotion, which are probably the majority of my promotional posts, where the comment is really an aside. Its focus is really the photo, not to click the link. So you can see 426 people liked the pic, whereas only 30 clicked the link to go to the website.
In our Testimonial Tuesday post (which I try to post weekly), the reach was not great. With a reach of 1,071 people on a page with 16K, that’s less than 10%, but I know it’s still leading to people clicking to our website and asking questions, which makes me happy.
Now, you might be wondering, why you would even want engagement on non-promotional posts. 2 reasons…
- Facebook’s algorithm. You probably know that Facebook has a super secret algorithm that does many different things. One of the things it does is look at how much someone engages with a fan page. When they engage with a fan page a lot, Facebook’s algorithm is smart enough to think, “Well, clearly they like this page. I will show them more of this.” This is exactly what you want to have happen.
- We buy from those we know, like, and trust. This is true from big brands to individuals. Think about it…Are you more likely to go to Target or Walmart? For me, I will pick Target every time.
When you’re posting and getting into someone’s newsfeed regularly, you’re growing the know, like, and trust factor.I spend most of my time working with my family’s business. The majority of our sales don’t come the first time someone hears about us. Usually, they find us on Facebook, look around, like a few things, check out our website, join our Facebook group (I will touch on Facebook groups in a later blog), and then watch us for a few weeks before making a decision to buy. During that time, we are growing the know, like, and trust factor.
In addition to mixing up what type of posts (inspirational, educational, entertaining, and promotional), you also need to decide how you want they to look visually. You’ve got a few options there as well…
Keep in mind to play with these and see what works best for your audience. I work with a few different audiences and a few different pages, but even if all of my audiences respond in the same way, it doesn’t mean that yours will too.
Text
Honestly, I very rarely choose plain text. For fan pages, it just doesn’t get a lot of engagement. (Plain text will likely do better when you’ve posted it from your personal page.) So, even if I’m posting a simple question, I will usually add a graphic to it so it pops out a bit more in the newsfeed.
And full disclosure: I don’t even know the last time I used plain text on any of my fans pages, so I had to create one just to show you guys.
Photos
Photos are great. They are visually engaging. People love behind the scenes type of pics, and they LOVE inspiring quotes put on photos.
Links
Links take you off of Facebook. These are great for teaching people more about something, taking them to your blog, your website, or to get free content from you.
Videos
Videos are super popular right now because they begin to play automatically in your newsfeed. I definitely suggest sprinkling in videos whenever possible to get more reach.
So now, you’ve got some homework. Hopefully it’ll be fun for you. (Personally, I love this type of stuff.)
- Look back over your last 10 posts. See how many of them were promotional? Inspiring? Entertaining? Educational?
- When you’re scheduling your next 10 posts, make 7 of them inspirational, entertaining, and educational. Make 3 of them promotional. Use a range of text, photos, links, and videos.
- After they’ve posted, see how they did and what got the best response. Adjust what you schedule based on how your audience responds best.
- Post what you’ve noticed about what works best for your audience and any questions you have in my Facebook Group here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/jennpossick
