Nowadays, you blink and a new social network is created. This seems like an exaggeration, but the truth is that this boom of the social-virtual era is increasing and with it, the need arises to create new social network formats.

However, despite this boom in new social networks is totally true, there is one in particular that, instead of losing its market share because of new networks, gains increasingly more power, more versatility, preference and demand: Facebook.

Nowadays, we have a particular statistic: Facebook has almost 2 billion users worldwide, an amazing number, right? And it promises to get larger.

However, we all know that Facebook is a part of the most important digital marketing strategies, thanks to its flexibility in the presentation of audience and formats as well as the possibility that allows any type of brand or business to be promoted and generate sales.

In the same manner, we know that the help that Facebook provides to our brands in communication is important; however, being on Facebook is not enough to obtain results, connection and engagement with users involves work, method and a lot of research.

That’s right! Having a Facebook business account demands time, planning and monitoring, since one of its main characteristics (and of any social media) is the immediacy and rapid expiration of information; hence the importance of knowing how to generate content that can remain in the user’s mind and continue to generate engagement, even when the publication has already left the timeline feed.

Before proceeding, we have a question:

What is Facebook engagement?

In the paragraphs above we mentioned the term “engagement”, but do you know what the term means when we talk about Facebook?

In most cases, engagement is a commitment to a relationship. Although it makes sense in this manner, we use engagement here meaning participation, involvement, or better yet, how a user interacts with a brand.

That’s right! On Facebook, engagement refers to the number (in percentage) of interactions you get from a post and is in fact, the main variable that the Facebook algorithm takes into consideration is whether content can be interesting for a certain amount of people and thus make a post more visible (or not).

In the same manner, in social networks we understand interactions as follows:

• Number of times a post is shared;
• Number of reactions you receive:

• Number of comments
• Clicks on links
• Image or video views

How is engagement measured?

To measure the level of your brand’s engagement on Facebook you will need the following information:

• Total Reach of a post = # of people who viewed the post

And total number of interactions =

• Number of reactions
•   Number of comments
•   Number of times shared
•   Number of clicks on the link
•   Other interactions that were generated in the post

And you apply the following formula:

Total # interactions x 100

  Reach

Example:

15 “Likes” + 10 Comments + 2 Shares x 100

1,400 people reached

27/1,400 x 100 = 1.9%                         

Now, back to the main subject:

How do I obtain Facebook engagement?

Before you jump right into the types of content that generate engagement, it’s important to know under what conditions you can create engagement on the social network.

Learn about the 6 key principles below:

1.  Posting value content

We sound like parrots always repeating that we should always choose to generate quality content that is useful for followers. Although it is a repeated idea, it is worth highlighting it as a mantra for any type of communication you wish to post on the media.

By generating useful and valuable content, you will ensure that it is consumed. And to see if the content you are creating has quality, always do the following:

– Read the content before posting it to find possible mistakes or confusing information.

– Post content focused on your followers, to ensure that you will generate interactions with the people you really want and who want to hear from you.

2. Listen and speak to your followers

By listening and talking to your audience, you will not only be able to absorb and know what they want to know about you, but it will also strengthen your relationships with people, turning the dissemination process into a task carried out by the most loyal followers.  

To learn how to start a friendship and monitor what is being said about you, such as key words or hashtags that are important to your market niche, use tools such as: Hootsuite , commun.it and Twazzaup .

In addition to followers, it is also good to listen and follow professionals in your field and see everything that is generated around them to learn and put into practice if appropriate.

Be careful! You don’t have to respond; you should understand how other ideas work and see what is useful so you can rethink your own communication.

3.  Find an image and a tone of voice

When we talk about image and tone of voice, we mean the style that will make you identifiable on the network. Create a line, a style that is about you, use colors and drawings that will become your seal of quality, and that the tone of the communication you use also meets the interest, understanding and tastes of your persona.

4. Be unique

Although this is very much like the previous item, being unique refers to always seeking the originality and transparency from your consumers. There is nothing wrong in observing what others are doing, but never copy them. Apart from the fact that it might show poor quality of the content you offer, you may end up being legally penalized.

In order to be unique, find how to be useful as well as different. Learn how to be different in marketing and on a blog by reading the following article: How do I stand out?

5.  Use the 80/20 rule

A golden rule; the 80/20 rule is a recommendation that social media experts make when selecting content to be posted.

What this rule says is that you should devote 80% of your posts to content that relates to your business in an indirect manner; in other words, containing topics related to your business but that are part of the community’s interest, problems and focus which consumes them.

And the remaining 20% ​​may be focused on posting content directly related to your business; for example, showing your products, brand communication, price announcements, your presence in events, among others.

6. Stay optimized

In addition to optimizing the content of your blog, it is also important for example, to optimize the key messages that you want to share on social media.

When you optimize your messages with the hashtags, keywords, etc., you will have the possibility that the social network will also appears in search results.

This is called Social SEO. Learn more by accessing the link!

In short, these are the 6 fundamental pillars so that content can generate engagement on Facebook. In other words, what these 6 pillars are looking for is that your content creates interest, addresses real problems of your followers; be flashy, embrace brand ideals, image and personality and always address the basic aspects of content marketing: quality, usefulness and originality.

 Types of content that generate engagement

Finally, the long-awaited moment: content that generates commitment on Facebook. Before we tell you the 10 ways to prepare this type of content, never forget the 6 fundamental pillars, since they must always be applied.

Now we can continue:

1. Images and videos

The classic forms of content on Facebook are images and videos. That’s why we placed them in the same format category. Of these two forms, many others appear to make attractive content.

Images

Images are the main complement that any action on Facebook can have. It has been found that posts with images perform better than those that contain only text.

Therefore, join forces and if you plan to post a good text, add a compatible and flashy image, or use your text in an image. There are different types of images that you can use: photos, illustrations, vectors, montages, etc.

Videos

Videos are the content format that is most shared on Facebook, especially when they are loaded directly into the social network.

Be adventurous to create fun and informative scripts that are related to both your business and your followers’ interest!

2. Lists

Lists are the type of content on Facebook that usually creates most interactions. This is a demanding format, since it requires that minimally you will always to keep the promise. If you talk about 10 tourist destinations in Latin America or 15 ways to gain Instagram followers, users will always expect to find the promised amounts.

3. Questions

This type of content is intended to generate conversations (comments) and makes the audience feel important from the moment their opinion and knowledge are taken into account.

You can ask questions both in writing and with pictures, and they can be used in different ways. For example:

– Questions to receive feedback for the company

– Questions about trends

– Or questions about a particular topic that you can answer immediately.

Another way of creating this content is that instead of asking questions in texts or images, create phrases with blank parts so that users can fill in those spaces in the comments.

4.  Infographics

You can choose different types of infographics: from the most complex to key information summaries that you can complement with a link to other websites of interest. Here’s an example:

Source: https://visual.ly/community/infographic/business/4p%E2%80%99s-marketing-mix

5.   Arouse curiosity

Post incomplete content; i.e., through texts or images, start talking about something interesting and stop before providing the vital information and invite users to access a link to satisfy their curiosity. This will attract more clicks.

6.  Mentions

This type of content activates the sharing action. Mentions are phrases of well-known authors who are experts in their area of ​​activity that inspire others.

You can use quotes, epigraphs, phrases from a book; always reconciled with the theme of your Facebook page.

7.  Surveys with interactions

To encourage interactions, generate content where followers can participate by leaving their opinion with a “like”, “love”, “wow”, “sad”, “angry” emoji. Let users know that you seek their reply through one of these interactions.

An example of this is when brands publish messages like:

Like if (option A)

or love if (option B).

8.  News and trends

Use news and trends that appear daily about your market and always be one of the first to post them. To stay up to date with what’s happening; pay close attention to major events, news on major websites, issues that generate controversy. You can use Google Trends and similar tools; be a researcher!

–     Share posts from other pages

As in point B, you can also share posts from other blogs or content from other profiles to your page that addresses topics similar to yours that are of interest to your followers.

Many administrators view this with suspicion but it is actually very useful when you don’t have a lot of time to create your content or when you feel that other content is really worth it. First of all, your users will value you because you are meeting their information needs and the other websites will thank you to the point that the day will come when they compensates you by doing the same with your content.

9.  Create stories

Although this is a specific type of content, it can be inserted with the others we mentioned above. Creating stories (better known as storytelling in the marketing world), is a very special way of creating engagement.

For users who like stories, take advantage of this feature and tell users about your company in an enjoyable manner. Take a look at this example from Lego:

You can also use the feature by introducing those who work with you, reveal interesting cases, anticipate the news coming to you from your audience; and all this can be told by using texts, videos, images or any other format that you find interesting.

10.  Ask users to activate notifications

Not everything we post on Facebook reaches all of our followers. However, you can ask them to turn on their FanPage notifications so they can be sure to find your content of their interest in their timeline feed.

In Content Marketing, we take advantage of several of the features we mentioned earlier to ask our followers to activate their notifications and create content that not only benefits us but also teaches.

You can use this idea to create your strategies to attract users and thus, activate their engagement in the social network.

Conclusion

In this article, we have reviewed the concept of engagement, the fundamental pillars and the content formats we can use to increase interaction. Although it’s a long article, we still have many additional types of content, but I invite you to tell us about other key principles and types of content you know about and that generate engagement!

This article was produced by Marketing de Contenidos, Rock Content and translated by Hotmart.