Facebook has over 2 billion users, a number that continues to increase by the day. Therefore it is not surprising that a majority of businesses choose Facebook as their top pick when it comes to social media marketing. Among 2 billion users, a few are bound to like your product or service. Setting up a Facebook business page is the first and simple step, but the next more tasking step is engaging with the target consumer to drive traffic to your website and even generate sales. Here are a few easy ways to help you increase engagement on your feed.

Create Content Tailored To Facebook

There are many social media channels that your business could use to extend its reach, however, it’s important to bear in mind that each platform is different, and what might work well for one might not be appropriate for another. For instance, hashtags are great on Instagram, while GIFs work well on Twitter but either of these will not generate as many Facebook shares. It’s wise to tailor your posts for Facebook pages. If you are struggling to understand how you can do this, don’t worry, there are tools to help you out, the most popular being Buffer for Business. The buffer can help you tailor each post to be optimized for different social media platforms including customizing your headlines, so they stay relevant depending on the trending topics on different platforms.

Post When Your Audience Is Online

The bad news is that there is no single universal time when everyone is on Facebook and therefore you should post. The good news is however that the right time to post depends on a few factors that you can quickly and easily determine. The right time to post is specific for each brand and is dependent on a few things including who is your target audience and where they are located. When are your followers most likely to be on Facebook? What kind of industry are you in? And a slew of many other factors. All these data and more can be garnered from Facebook Page Insights, a feature located on the post tab. Using that data you can make an educated guess for when your followers are most active in terms of time of the day or even day of the week. You can experiment with it a few times during peak and off-peak hours until you get the optimal time to post.

Try videos

If you are looking to spice things up how about ditching the text full articles and posting videos instead? According to a recent study by Buzzsumo, videos posted on Facebook gain engagement that is twice as much as that of other post formats. Another Quietly study revealed that videos uploaded on Facebook had a 487 percent higher sharing rate and 110 percent higher engagement rate when compared to YouTube links. If you do decide to post a video research square videos will be a better choice as they receive more views, completion rates, and engagement compared to landscape formats. 93 percent of videos posted on Facebook are viewed without the sound on. That being said, it’s important to add captions to your videos to engage with the audience.

Go Live

Facebook Live is a relatively new feature that can significantly boost engagement. According to Facebook, “People spend more than 3x more time watching a Facebook Live video on average compared to a video that’s no longer Live” and “users comment more than 10 times more on Facebook Live videos than on regular videos." Another pro is that your followers are more inclined to view your content when you go live. According to Social Media Examiner, when business posts live content more often than their non-live content receives more exposure. When you go live often, your followers are exposed to your brand even if they don’t watch the video when you are Live. On a subconscious level, your followers have seen your brand maybe a few times and they eventually will be included to check out your page.

Share Other People’s Content

There is no monopoly over knowledge and yet many people feel uncomfortable sharing content from other brands. Chances are there are plenty of experts in your industry and some may know a few things that probably hadn’t crossed your mind. Sharing high-quality content from other brands with your audience can help boost sales and even drive more traffic to your site. There are two places you can easily source extra content from. The first is top-performing posts from other popular brands and the second could be content created by your very own followers. Either one of these will likely strike a chord with your target consumers and keep them engaged.

Ask For Input from Your Audience

It is easy to assume that your audience will post something when they have something to say, but this is not always the case. For a few of your followers, an invite to an open and free conversation and sharing of their opinion is warranted. Asking questions on your feed is a great way to get your audience to open up, engage and share their honest opinions. The kind of questions you pose depends on your target consumers. If your followers primarily consist of professionals, then sharing news or blog posts on the industry might think to be appropriate. In Some cases, you can also buy FB reactions and make an impact. If dabble in the lifestyle industry then sharing lifestyle-related posts and asking for their opinions is a great idea.

Recycle top posts

Creating new content regularly is not always plausible. In such cases, you might consider reposting a previous top-performing post. These often generate just as much or even more reach and engagement as the primary post. Rather than post the original article or blog just as it was, you can opt to tweak it a little by adding a video, image, or audio to it. However, take care not to repost too often. Wait for a few weeks to pass by before recycling a post so that your audience doesn’t get bored.