5 Facebook updates you can use to increase engagement today!

Increasing your engagement on Facebook is all about creating content that is easily consumable and highly relevant to your community. Before I jump into the five types of Facebook updates that will increase your engagement, I want to run over the basics of EdgeRank.

The Basics of Facebook’s EdgeRank Algorithm:

Understanding how Facebook’s algorithm, Edgerank, works will help you increase exposure and engagement for your posts.

Edgerank is based on three tenants:

  • Affinity: Affinity is how friendly you are with someone. For example, if you comment on someone’s Timeline and they respond, Facebook will increase your affinity score with them and thus your posts will show in their News Feed more often (and vice versa).
  • Weight: All content is not weighted equally. Videos, photos and links all tend to be weighed more than other content, and thus show up more often and higher in a News Feed.
  • Recency: Old news is less likely to appear front and center in someone’s News Feed regardless of what type of content it is. Schedule your posts at intervals to ensure you always have good content showing up in the News Feed.

For more information about EdgeRank, Econsultancy provides a comprehensive guide to understanding Facebook’s EdgeRank.

5 Types of Posts that Increase Engagement:

  • Posts that end with a question: Ending a Facebook update with a question is equal to inserting a call to action for engagement. The question will automatically prompt the reader to think of an answer that he/she will hopefully share. Without asking a question, the reader may skim the update and move on without thinking twice about it.Birchbox uses questions to increase facebook engagement

  • Picture + Link posts: Since we know pictures are weighted very heavily in Facebook’s EdgeRank, you should aim to use a picture whenever you want to really kick up your engagement. This means if you’re making an important announcement you will probably want to upload a photo + add a shortened link in the update area vs. simply adding the link as an update.Fossey Fund increases Facebook engagement with photos

  • Shareable discount posts: Facebook is making it easier than ever to share discounts with your community through its introduction of Facebook Offers. Whether you have access to this new tool or not doesn’t matter. You can still offer promotions to your community and ask them to share the post with their friends!
    Einstein brothers bagels use Facebook Offers

  • The Ask for Engagement post: There’s no shame in asking your community for a little help as long as you make it exciting for them. One easy way to create this type of post is to ask your Facebook connections to help you reach a goal. Be sure to offer your community incentive for helping you get there!
    Rent the Runway ask for engagement on facebook

  • Caption contest post: Encourage your community to have a little fun with your brand. Post a picture and ask everyone to caption the image! Your community manager can choose the winnner or you can encourage others to ‘like’ their favorite caption as a vote. Be careful when offering a prize for caption contests so that you don’t violate Facebook’s Terms of Service for promotions.Miami Heat increase Facebook engagement with caption contests

As your Facebook engagement increases, be sure to have someone actively responding to posts. Once your page hits a certain level of engagement, the community will come to see your Timeline as a place to ask you questions, share new ideas and potentially voice some complaints. Your community manager should monitor the page and track any important comments in a social CRM.

While answering a question/comment in real time is important. Your brand will really win brownie points if your social CRM reminds you to follow up again in a couple of days, weeks or months. After all, a relationship isn’t built with one comment. It’s built around an on-going dialog.

What type of posts have increased engagement for your brand? Leave a comment below!