This guide will take you through how to use the Facebook Debug tool so you can fix those pesky images – and any other Facebook sharing problems that may arise!

How Facebook fetches information

If you updated a page or post and it’s still sharing the old image, it means Facebook cached your old image and simply needs to be refreshed. Easy!

They also cache your link and the content itself. They fetch what’s called Open Graph Meta Tags. According to Facebook, the Open Graph protocol “enables any web page to become a rich object in a social graph.” The tags (pieces of code) give Facebook info about what you’re sharing.

How to tell if you’re using open graph protocol

You’re most likely using OGP, even if you don’t know it! Popular plugins like Yoast SEO and Social Warfare use Open Graph Meta Tags automatically, so if you’re using those plugins, you’re using these tags!

For example, take a look at our LinkedIn Marketing guide. If you look at the source code (right click and select “View page source”), you’ll see the “OG” tags, such as “og:locale” or “og:image”. This is how Facebook pulls that information:

<meta property="og:locale" content="en_US" />

<meta property="og:type" content="article" />

<meta property="og:title" content="5 Ways to Grow Your Network and Land Clients With LinkedIn Marketing" />

<meta property="og:description" content="LinkedIn is often overlooked in the social media marketing mix. But LinkedIn marketing is one of the highest converting channels with the lowest level of effort we've seen yet. Big ROI for little investment? Sounds good to me!" />

<meta property="og:url" content="https://revive.social/linkedin-marketing/" /><meta property="og:site_name" content="Revive Social" />

<meta property="article:publisher" content="https://www.facebook.com/ReviveSocialWP/" />

<meta property="article:section" content="Social Media Marketing" />

<meta property="article:published_time" content="2018-04-23T11:00:38+03:00" />

<meta property="article:modified_time" content="2018-04-24T11:30:51+03:00" /><meta property="og:updated_time" content="2018-04-24T11:30:51+03:00" />

<meta property="og:image" content="https://mllj2j8xvfl0.i.optimole.com/cb:kTyM~36eab/w:auto/h:auto/q:mauto/f:best/https://revive.social/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Featured-Image-LinkedIn-Marketing.png" /><meta property="og:image:secure_url" content="https://mllj2j8xvfl0.i.optimole.com/cb:kTyM~36eab/w:auto/h:auto/q:mauto/f:best/https://revive.social/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Featured-Image-LinkedIn-Marketing.png" />

<meta property="og:image:width" content="695" /><meta property="og:image:height" content="308" />

How to properly use the Facebook Debugger

The Facebook Debugger was created to help you solve issues with Open Graph Meta Tags while catching troubleshooting issues. Like all tools, however, if you don’t follow the instructions, you’ll run into more problems than solutions. So here’s how it’s done!

You can find the Facebook Debugger on the Facebook developer site under Tools & Support. Here.

To crawl a post, simply enter the URL and hit “Debug”.

Let’s go through a real-time example. I recently added a featured image for an article I wrote on camping gear that didn’t have a featured image. Here’s what happens when I first debug the URL:

The “Link Preview” is the old, cached data Facebook is fetching from my article. It’s what people are seeing any time they share the article – not good!

As you can see, the tool is giving me an error, saying the og:image URL wasn’t valid. This is because I didn’t set a featured image, so it’s trying to pull data that isn’t there. Now that I’ve updated the image, there are two steps to get this fixed.

Step 1: Clear the WordPress cache for that URL

The first step is to clear the cache on YOUR site. There are technically two layers of caching going on here – your site’s caching, and Facebook’s caching. So if the old information is cached on your site, the debugger won’t fix the problem.

Depending on what caching plugin you’re using, the steps for this vary. Here are a few guides to the most common plugins:

• Clear cache on a specific page/post with WP Rocket
• Clear cache on a specific page/post with Cache Enabler
• Clear cache on a specific page/post with WP Fastest Cache

If you’re still having issues after clearing your cache, it could also be cached on your CDN network. So you may have to purge your CDN cache as well.

Step 2: Scrape again in Facebook Debugger

Once you’ve cleared all your caches, all you have to do it paste your URL in the Facebook Debug tool and click “Scrape Again”.

Now you might get a warning telling you the image file is wrong or too big, or the server didn’t respond fast enough.

From what I’ve found, 99% of the time this problem goes away if you simply hit Scrape Again a second time. That’s what I did after getting this error, and here’s what happened:

The image is fixed! Note that this won’t change images on previously shared posts, only on any newly created posts.

Facebook Debugger tips & tricks

While these two steps will fix the majority of issues, here are some extra things to be aware of to make sure you get your images working.

The provided ‘og:image’ properties are not yet available

If you’re seeing this warning, it typically means your image is too small.

The minimum Facebook image size is 200×200 pixels. If your image is smaller than that, you’ll get an error message.

The best Facebook image size is 1,200 by 630 pixels.

However, you can make your images bigger than that. Just keep in mind that anything over that size will be cropped, so keep an aspect ratio of roughly 2:1 to avoid any issues.

Alternatively, if your Featured Images need to be a different size, you can set a specific share image using Yoast SEO’s social setting.

The following required properties are missing: fb:app_id

This error message should only concern you if you want to track app data in your Facebook Insights reports. If you don’t have an app, you can completely ignore this message.

If you want to track your app data, here are the steps using Yoast SEO:

1. Create your Facebook App: https://developers.facebook.com/docs/apps/register
2. Copy your Facebook App ID from the app dashboard.
3. In your WordPress dashboard, click on “SEO” on the left-hand side.
4. Under the “Facebook” tab you can enter in your Facebook App ID.

And that’s all there is to it! You can now track Facebook App ID data.

What did we learn?

If you have any questions about the debugger or have insights we skipped over, be sure to leave a comment below!

Read next: 3D Facebook Posts: Everything a Marketer Needs to Know

The post How to Use the Facebook Debugger to Fix WordPress Images in Facebook Shares appeared first on Revive Social.

Trying to decide whether or not a Facebook cover photo / video is worth your time? Here are some important facts to keep in mind:

• 85% of Facebook users watch videos with the sound off.
• 80% of Facebook users become annoyed when videos auto-play sound (which ends up giving a negative impression of your brand).
• 110 Million hours are spent watching Facebook videos… per day.

How to shoot a Facebook cover photo / video

Creating your first Facebook cover video may be a bit tricky but with some help, you’ll be able to pull it off in no time!

Before anything, I recommend using a professional camera. If you absolutely have to use your mobile device to film your video, purchase a tripod to minimize the shakiness of the video.

A tripod, good lighting, and a quality microphone are the three most important things to create a high-quality video..

In this video, Jason van Genderen reviews products that will help tremendously with audio quality:

If you feel uncomfortable recording a video on your own, you could always hire a graphic video designer on Fivver (or any other freelance workplace).

As you can see, there are plenty of people to choose from! Just be sure to read through their reviews and ratings before deciding on someone.

How to upload your Facebook cover photo / video

Uploading your Facebook cover photo / video is as easy as uploading a regular cover photo. Simply follow these steps and you’ll have your video uploaded in no time!

Go to your Facebook business page and hover over over the “Change Cover” option.

You’ll then see a list of options to choose from. Choose the one that says “Upload Photo/Video”. Or, if you have the video you want already uploaded to your Facebook page, you can select the “Choose from Video” option.

That is, if you have a video that meets the requirements to do so:

Keep in mind that Facebook will not allow you to upload a video that doesn’t meet the specific requirements.

That’s all there is to it! Next up, let’s take a look at some current video covers from various businesses to give you some inspiration.

Facebook pages using video covers

Here are some cool examples:

1. Out of the Grey Coffeehouse

In this cover video, Out of the Grey Coffeehouse shows pictures (and videos) of their establishment, tells you what time of day they’re opened (as well as what days they’re opened), and (the best part?) auto-plays without sound.

Remember: 80% of Facebook users become annoyed when videos auto-play sound (which ends up giving a negative impression of your brand).

2. Kim Winey Photography

While Kim does implement auto-play sound in her video cover, it goes well with what she’s showcasing: her photography.

Each frame of this video is beautifully picked and draws you into her world. She calls her Facebook cover video a digital business card (which is an awesome name for these!).

3. Buffer

In this Facebook video cover, Buffer shows off their awesome team in a mix of regular and hyperlapse video footage. They also shoot some of the video with a drone which is pretty freaking cool.

They’re able to capture the essence of their team, their workstations, and show just how happy everyone is. It’s a truly awesome video that you can pull inspiration from!

4. National Geographic

It’s no surprise that National Geographic excels when it comes to anything visual…

…why would their Facebook cover video be any different? National Geographic captures the stunning beauty of nature in this quick video, which is the essence of what their brand is all about.

5. See Australia

Viewer beware… you’ll want to pack your bags and go to Australia before the end of this cover video.

All travel agencies (and businesses) would be wise to take notes from the See Australia Facebook cover video. By showing your audience what they’ll be able to do in Australia (or anywhere, for that matter), you’re creating a visual which could prompt people to book a vacation with you!

Three tips for creating an awesome video cover

Now that you know how to create a Facebook cover video, it’s time to go over some quick tips that’ll help you put it all together.

Tip #1: Create a behind-the-scenes workspace video

Want to give your audience a real treat? Create a unique behind-the-scenes video showing off what happens, well… behind the scenes!

Talk about why you chose your product, how you pack and ship it, and, if you have workers that help you, ask them to briefly talk about their role.

Tip #2: Show how your products are made

If you sell homemade products and want your audience to get a better look at how each product is crafted, this may be the best route for you to take!

Keep in mind that competitors may be watching, too! Don’t give away all your secrets – the basics will do.

Tip #3: Ask customers to film/photograph themselves with your products

It’s one thing for your audience to hear from you how awesome your products are…

… it’s another thing for your audience to hear from previous customers how awesome your products are! Like testimonials, videos and pictures of customers using your products will surely give that wow factor you need to get ahead of the competition.

Three more quick tips for you:

• Your video must be between 20-90 seconds long in order to upload properly.
• Part of the height of your video will be cropped out. Be sure to keep important information in the center of the video to avoid this.
• The resolution of your Facebook cover video must be 1080p in order to upload properly.

Bonus: Two awesome tools to use

You didn’t think we’d give you all of this information just to leave you hanging when it came to the technical stuff, did you?

Below are just two tools we believe are the best to make some magic videos – there are plenty more to choose from though!

1. Wave.Video

Wave.Video is an awesome tool that helps you create professional looking videos in no time.

With Wave, you get access to over 200 million stock video clips to choose from (which seems overwhelming, but comes in handy more than you realize).

You’re able to add music to your videos, combine as many clips as you’d like, and you can add your brand logo and watermark to your video!

There are three plans to choose from:

• Pro – For professionals and small businesses $39 per month
• Agency – For freelancers and agencies $49 per month
• Ultimate – For large agencies and corporate markets $149 per month

2. Animoto

Animoto allows you to create videos whether you’re creating them for business, families, or photography.

Like Wave.Video, you’re able to choose music, add text, and fully customize your slides to make them your own.

Unlike Wave.Video, you’re unable to add your watermark to the videos (that we know of).

The plans are a bit cheaper to choose from, too:

• Personal – $8 per month
• Professional – $22 per month
• Business – $34 per month

No matter which software you choose to go with, you’ll be able to pull of professional looking videos in no time.

The ball’s in your court now!

Conclusion

What route do you think you’ll take? Will you hire a graphic designer to create a professional Facebook cover video or will you take on the challenge yourself?

The post How to Set Up a Facebook Cover Photo / Video to Keep Viewers on Your Page appeared first on Revive Social.

But LinkedIn marketing shouldn’t be ignored.

And while LinkedIn may primarily help B2B businesses, there are some benefits to B2C people as well. So let’s explore how you can gain those benefits.

Step #1: Use your personal profile

According to Melonie Dodaro, a LinkedIn marketing expert and best-selling author, a personal profile is the way to go.

While it may be tempting to post updates through your company account, it’s much harder to connect with people through a logo. People go on LinkedIn to network with other people, not faceless companies.

Posting from your personal account has other advantages as well, such as a boost in LinkedIn’s algorithm, the ability to join, create, and post in groups, and the ability to privately message almost anyone.

That said, you should still create (and update) a company profile so you can run Sponsored Updates and show up in search engine results when people Google your company.

Easy enough – moving on.

Step #2: Post frequently (even if it’s not ground-breaking)

The purpose of LinkedIn marketing is simply to be top of mind.

This is due to the mere-exposure effect in psychology: we tend to like things (and people) who we’re familiar with, simply because we’re familiar with them.

For example, I spoke with an old manager of mine from eight years ago. Turns out he opened his own Verizon store, and he called me because he kept seeing me on LinkedIn. The engagement led to a few leads for my business and a renewed relationship with someone who had connections.

Another example – I was approached to be a trainer at a local business event on social media marketing and SEO. This all came about simply because a local startup investor saw my frequent high-quality statuses on LinkedIn.

So what should you post about?

Just share your knowledge. I post frequently about SEO, content marketing, and general entrepreneurship. I share what I’ve learned that day, what I’m excited about, or just a random tip.

Here are some things you can post about:

• Share relevant news or blog content that pertains to your industry
• Ask questions (like what books people are reading or what people do for productivity)
• Engage with industry influencers. Tag them and ask them something about their craft
• Share something new you learned today
• Share a struggle you’re currently dealing with, and ask people to comment with their own struggles

To give you an example, here was a status update that did particularly well:

Let’s break down why it did so well:

First, it played on people’s fear. “You’re going to lose 96% of your website visitors today… Poof – gone!” That captures people’s attention and arouses curiosity for them to click “read more” and read the whole status.

Second, I shared someone else’s content and tagged them. This is perfectly okay because it gives them a notification and prompts them to like/comment on/share it, which increases the post’s (and my face’s) reach.

Third, I played on a little LinkedIn algorithm hack. LinkedIn loves these status updates that have single lines. This is because people need to click “read more” to read the full status and because people have to scroll down to read it all. These engagement signals tell LinkedIn to show the status to more people, which increases its reach.

Finally, it had a clear call to action. It literally says to read the article and “Click here”. When people click on a link in your status, that also boosts who LI shows the post to.

Step #3: Become a copywriter

Going back to the status above that did well. Notice how I wrote the opening:

It creates curiosity. But you have to click “…see more” to read the rest of it.

By writing an enticing opening to your statuses that evokes curiosity, fear, or humor, you will get more engagement on your content.

I like to use two sentences just like I did in the format above.

Something that gets people to read the next line…

Something that makes people want to read more!

Here are a few more examples:

I think you get the idea. You don’t need to become a master copywriter for this to work – you just need to put a little more thought behind your words.

Some other ideas include asking a question, sharing shocking statistics, telling stories, and making bold claims (like making money while you sleep, for example!).

Remember: the purpose of every sentence is simply to entice people to read the next sentence.

Step #4: Use video content

Videos are more shared and engaged with than any other type of content – and LinkedIn marketing is no exception.

My own experience backs up the stats – my videos are viewed, liked, and commented on more than my text posts.

See the difference? Pretty amazing, right?

Here are some video post tips:

1. Don’t worry too much about quality. Your smartphone should be just fine, as long as you put it on a stand so it doesn’t move while filming.
2. Invest $20-$30 in a microphone for better audio quality. This matters more than video quality. I use this Audio Technica microphone which runs $29.
3. If you’re camera shy, do screen share videos showing how you do something, or use a slideshow. I use this $20 clear chat microphone and Loom for recording screenshares.
4. Add closed captions to your videos. That way, people can watch them with the volume off if they’re at work or somewhere they can’t listen in. I used to use Fiverr to find people to help with small tasks like this, but now I have a virtual assistant who handles it all.
5. If you’re going to use your video across multiple platforms (like YouTube, Facebook, and LinkedIn), upload it individually to each platform. LinkedIn and Facebook’s algorithms give priority to native videos over YouTube linked videos.

You can use Windows Movie Maker to edit your recordings for free. Personally, I use Filmora for all my editing because it’s beginner friendly and has lots of awesome features (like effects and the ability to upload straight to YouTube, Facebook, or LinkedIn).

As for what to record about – it could be a behind the scenes look of your workspace, sharing some advice on how to do something, or even just sharing how you’re feeling and what you’re struggling with. Go back to Step #2 for more ideas.

Step #5: Engage, engage, engage

This one is easy, but often overlooked – engage with your audience!

If people take the time to comment on or share a post of yours, comment back.

If people reach out to you via a LinkedIn message, respond to their message.

If people tag you in a post, comment on that post.

LinkedIn marketing is all about making connections with people. It’s not about spamming your blog content or making hard sells. Go there to connect with your peers and make new friendships – that’s the only way you’ll get the most out of this platform.

Unlike Facebook marketing, which is about finding the right audience that’s as large as possible, LinkedIn marketing is more about making deeper connections on a smaller scale. In fact, it’s about doing the things that don’t scale (like reaching out to people one at a time to connect with them).

That said, shoot to get 500 connections as quickly as possible. After you reach 500 connections, LinkedIn only shows that you have “500+” connections. So this makes you look bigger and better connected than you really might be.

Check it out:

Strategic emoji use tends to get higher engagement. Plus, it’s a lot of fun thinking up ways to weave in emojis.

There you have it! Five steps to effective LinkedIn marketing.

Now it’s over to you – have you used LinkedIn as part of your social media marketing mix? What strategies have you found to work the best? Let us know in the comments!

The post 5 Ways to Grow Your Network and Land Clients With LinkedIn Marketing appeared first on Revive Social.

And when I say a lot, I mean a lot.

Since Facebook Reactions were launched, we’ve shared over 300 billion Reactions.

This works out to over 800 million Reactions per day.

But what’s the big deal with Facebook Reactions, and why do businesses need to care about them?

We all know that Facebook’s algorithms look at how you interact with the content in your newsfeed in order to decide which posts they should continue showing in your feed.

And when Facebook Reactions were first introduced, Facebook assigned these Reactions the same value as Likes.

Here’s what this means (or rather, what it meant):

If you Like a post from Company A and you react (“Love”, “Haha”, etc.) to a post from Company B, the subsequent posts both companies make have an equal chance of appearing on your newsfeed.

Let’s look at the same example we just shared.

With the updated algorithm, Company B will have a higher chance of appearing on your newsfeed, even though you interacted with both Company A and B’s posts.

What does this mean for your business?

If you want to maximize your reach and appear in as many of your fans’ newsfeeds as possible, you need to post content that elicits an emotional reaction in your audience.

At this point, you might be wondering…

Where do I go to look at my fans’ reactions?

As of now, there isn’t a tool within Facebook that shows you the different Reactions your page has amassed over time.

If you want access to this information, you’ll need to use a third-party platform, such as Socialbakers.

With Socialbakers’ “Evolution of Reactions Over Time” feature, you can look at how your Reactions are distributed over a single day, week, or month.

But what if you want to do a deep dive and look at the Reactions on your individual posts?

Just go to your Facebook Insights page, click on a post under the “All Posts Published” section, and you’ll be able to see all the Reactions that a particular post got.

Cool beans. Now that you know how to track your fans’ reactions, let’s go talk about how you can get your fans to React more to your content.

How businesses are getting fans to use more reactions

The key to encouraging your fans to use Reactions is to curate your content properly.

You could post something funny like Ben & Jerry’s:

Who wouldn’t be licking the screen at this point?

Or, you could be a bit more personal, like Humans of New York:

But, let’s face it…

… you can’t just post a picture with a quirky caption and expect to get hundreds or thousands of shares right off the bat.

First, you need to build brand loyalty and have followers who interact with your posts daily.

How do you get to that point? Keep reading to find out!

1. Post content designed to evoke specific emotions

Take a good, hard look at the posts on your company’s Facebook page.

Are they compelling and thought-provoking enough to warrant a Reaction?

Or are they generic, uninspiring, and just kind of meh?

If your Facebook posts fall into the latter category, you can do better!

Here’s the thing:

It’s actually not that difficult to gauge what sort of content will do well in terms of eliciting Reactions. People are pretty predictable that way.

For example, heartwarming stories and pictures of babies or cute animals will generate Love Reactions…

Jokes and prank-related content will generate Haha Reactions…

And stunts and other impressive material will generate Wow Reactions.

On that note, don’t feel like you should only be encouraging positive Facebook Reactions, and steering clear of the “negative” ones…

…According to Jonah Berger, author of Contagious: Why Things Catch On, content that triggers Angry Reactions in readers is 34% more likely to end up on the New York Times “Most Shared” page.

As long as your Facebook posts make your fans feel something, you’re on the right track.

Pro Tip: If your post does hit it big, it might be a good idea to boost that post. Posts that perform well naturally perform exponentially better when boosted than meh posts that are boosted.

2. Tease followers with “Coming Soon” posts

Quick question… before you go to the movies, do you watch the trailer?

I’m willing to bet you just thought “Yes, of course! Who doesn’t?“.

If I’m right, this proves my next point:

People love teasers!

Product teasers help to bring potential buyers closer to the product (and get them excited for its release).

Eleven Oaks Boutique does this well. Nearly every day, they put together a picture collage of what they’re releasing the next day.

Sounds exciting, right? Their followers seem to think so, as their average post gets anywhere from 50 to 500 reactions.

You might not be able to post a teaser every single day, but including them in your mix of content is sure to get your fans’ attention.

3. Host a giveaway

Giveaways get your audience involved with your launch through shares and feedback.

By giving away items that are relevant to your business (as well as appealing to your audience), you have the ability to expand your social reach.

But your giveaway shouldn’t ask people to give you Reactions to enter. This runs the risk of being labeled engagement bait and penalized by the recent Facebook News Feed changes. Instead, try one of these options:

• “Comment to win it!” posts. Facebook’s algorithms tend to give more weight to comments than likes. Using this strategy will allow your post to get more traction.

• “Caption this!” posts. This is possible the best way to host a giveaway. All you have to do is post a picture and let your followers come up with a quirky caption for it. Whoever posts the best one, wins!

Take a look at how much traction this “Caption this!” post received.

20 people liked it, 20 people shared it, and 10 people commented on it!

Not bad for just posting a picture, right?

Pro tip: Set up your next giveaway through RaffleCopter for a stress-free process!

4. Post inspirational quotes

Not everything you post has to be focused around a like, comment, or shares.

Just like you, your Facebook followers have rough “I can’t do this anymore!” days. Why not spread a bit of positivity, like Marie Forleo, once in a while?

As you can see, this post got a lot of engagement.

One person even reached out to Marie, saying that they “Loved this one”. And, of course, there was a jokester among the comments (eating chocolate is always a good idea).

The point is, a lot of people were able to relate to Marie’s picture quote. Why?

Because it’s easily relatable. People tend to “like” (and share and react to) things they can relate to. So start sharing those types of posts!

5. Question your audience

My final strategy to elicit Facebook Reactions is this:

Question your audience!

Even if the question you ask has nothing to do with your business.

The answer?

There’s no such thing as too much pepperoni.

There are many questions you could prompt followers to answer, such as:

• What’s your favorite…?
• Why do you…?
• How do you…?
• What was your favorite moment from experience/memory…?
• Do you think…?

Asking a question isn’t enough, though.

You’ve got to respond to each answer!

Even if it’s a short “Oh, that’s awesome” or “I feel the same!” answer. Your engagement prompts even more engagement, because your followers feel heard.

Bonus: Prompt your followers to talk to each other.

For example, if two people say their favorite sandwich is peanut butter and pickle, comment back by saying “Really?! [Name] Also loves that! What makes you two enjoy it so much?“.

Not only will you drum up more engagement, you might even start a lifelong friendship.

Final words on Facebook Reactions

I’ve managed many Facebook pages in my time, so hey – I get how tough this is.

Facebook’s algorithm can be absolutely brutal.

You could have 10,000 fans, but (because the algorithm is limiting your reach) get only two measly likes on your status updates.

(And maybe one’s from mom.)

So here’s the deal:

You gotta be on your toes and keep trying new things.

Now you know how to optimize your posts to generate more Facebook Reactions. What’s next?

The post How to Get More Facebook Reactions (Plus Exactly Why They’re Crucial for Your Brand) appeared first on Revive Social.

In this post, I skip the garbage floating around the web. You won’t see re-hashed tips from someone else’s article.

Instead, you’re about to learn the true rules of engagement on Facebook. How to actually get people to like, comment on, and share your posts!

Not just spammy comments, either. True, caring, engaged comments from loyal fans and followers. The kind that turns one-time visitors into lifelong fans and customers.

Sound good? Let’s dive in!

Six Facebook business page tips for maximum engagement

1. Sharing and tagging other people’s content

Just because you have content and a Facebook page, doesn’t mean you should exclusively share your own content. In fact, you should share other people’s content just as much, if not more than, your own – and be sure to tag them when you do!

By doing this, you’ll show up in influential people’s news feeds, gain some goodwill with them, and have plenty of great content to share. Often times, they’ll even return the favor by sharing your posts to their followers.

But what, exactly, should you share? And why? Let’s take a look:

(Charts by Visualizer Lite.)

Search Engine Journal found that 48% of people shared something that they thought their friends would find interesting and 17% of people share something to inform their friends of the things they care about.

Don’t just share random content for the hell of it. Your motive should be to engage, inform, and provide useful information to your followers.

For help with this, plug your niche’s influencers’ sites into a tool like BuzzSumo, and you’ll see what they post that gets lots of engagement:

2. Tagging followers and influencers to get engagement

Whether you have a small or large following on Facebook, it’s important to stay in front of your followers and influencers. Tagging them, as we just discussed, does the trick.

Take, for example, The Wandering RV’s post on Facebook:

After they interviewed 20 people about why they decided to live in an RV, they wrote up a post, posted it on Facebook, and tagged everyone that was involved.

This led to over 45 likes and comments, 66 shares, and 12,255 people reached organically. They also spent $5 to boost the post (which we’ll talk about later).

While The Wandering RV tagged people they interviewed in a post they wrote, you can tag people in anything that you think they’d find interesting.

That’s why it’s important to understand your followers – you need to know what they care about, so you can tag them (and get them to tag others) in your posts, and get real engagement. And consider switching up your posting schedule.

3. Producing videos

We can’t talk Facebook business page tips without talking video.

In November 2015, Facebook hit 8 billion video views daily, doubling its figure of 4 billion from April just six months earlier. In addition, its video impressions rose by 32% in Q1 of 2017 – so the trend is continuing.

Additionally, Facebook videos have a 6.3% engagement rate – much higher than the average post. So posting more video seems to be a great engagement strategy.

How long should your videos be, though? To better understand audience retention, take a look at the image below:

According to the graph above, nearly 30% of viewers stop watching videos after 10 minutes. Unless you’re filming a video showing a step-by-step process, there may not be a reason for your video to be so long.

You’ll also notice that less than 10% of viewers stop watching the video if it’s 1-3 minutes long. Something short and sweet can (and will) get your point across and keep viewers engaged.

Facebook live video is a little different – in a good way. People watch live videos up to 3 times longer than non-live video.

To get the most viewers, I recommend running longer videos of at least 20-30 minutes. That gives your fans enough time to realize you’re live and to share the video with others.

To get even more viewers and engagement, promote the exact date and time that you’re going to be filming and have a consistent live video schedule so your fans always know when to tune in.

To keep your viewers interested, ask them what they want to learn from your video. Have them ask you questions that you’re able to answer while live. Chances are, they’ll stick around until they hear their question answered (and possibly for the whole video)!

If you’re not already sold, take a look at the graph below from Marketing Land:

Who would have thought that Facebook would have more video shares than YouTube? The use of Facebook videos is only going up, too. Which brings the question…

Will Facebook be the #1 site for videos one day? Most likely. Mark Zuckerberg’s goal is to have Facebook become the #1 video platform online.

Mark Zuckerberg believes videos are the future of Facebook. In fact, he even stated that he “wouldn’t be surprised if you fast-forward five years and most of the content that people see on Facebook and are sharing on a day-to-day basis is video.”

Hop on the Facebook video bandwagon if you haven’t already! You’re missing out if you don’t use this insanely useful type of content. Let me say this again since it’s really that important – integrating video into your Facebook presence is perhaps the biggest of all Facebook business page tips.

4. Paying a little on ad spend to boost your best posts

There’s no shame in needing to boost your posts to gain a few extra eyeballs.

In fact, 60% of business users on Facebook pay to boost their posts. That percentage is constantly rising, too.

As you know, businesses can target users with Facebook Ads by their location, demographics, age, gender, interests, behavior, and connections.

You can use Facebook to get in front of specific segments of your audience with some powerful ad targeting options such as:

• Tap into recent purchase behavior
• Use custom audiences to build loyalty
• Create lookalike audiences

So why boost your posts? Get this: AdEspresso analyzed 104,256 ads over a 45-day period and saw a correlation between a higher Relevance Score and lower CPC rates.

In layman’s terms, Facebook rewards well-performing posts with cheaper ads and more clicks. Therefore, if you boost the posts that are already performing well, the ads will be cheaper and more effective. More eyeballs for less money!

Remember The Wandering RV example? They spent $5 and got over 1,000 extra impressions – which likely helped their organic reach because they got a paid share. Not too shabby.

5. Posting quizzes that encourage people to share their results

I’m sure that you’ve seen ridiculous Facebook quizzes about what kind of vegetable you are based on your zodiac sign.

The funniest thing about these quizzes, though? They attract viewers to take the quiz and compare answers.

Take this ‘Harry Potter’ quiz, for example:

This quiz has over 2.7k likes, 2.7k comments, and 1k shares. Furthermore, if you look at the comment section, you’ll notice people were comparing their answers, as well as challenging their friends:

Be sure to share quizzes with your followers and provide a CTA by telling them to compare answers with their friends.

This is one of the funnest ways to interact with your audience, too. It shows that you’re not all business all the time and allows you the chance to open up with your followers!

6. Posting content that brings out emotions

There’s nothing quite like a heart-warming story to attract viewers to your Facebook page. Whether it’s a story of your own, a story about an animal getting adopted, or a family who received the help needed to rebuild their home after a fire, it’ll make your followers sympathize with you.

Take this picture shared by the ASPCA, for example:

Now, I don’t know about you, but I’m a sucker for animals. Whenever I see images like this, I feel mixed emotions: happiness, sadness, and guilt. It’s a compelling social media update.

And that’s exactly what the ASPCA is going for! The reason they post images and stories like this is to bring awareness to their audience and, hopefully, get help.

Strangers from around the world donate to the ASPCA monthly and it’s because of the stories they share. Anyone can drive traffic to their page, but if there’s no emotion behind your posts, who’s going to want to stay? The answer: No one.

This is why it’s so important to know your audience. If you know what they care about, you can tap into their emotions. Doing so causes emotional reactions, like a “love” or “haha” instead of a regular like. These reactions increase your organic reach.

Just don’t make any of these stupid mistakes.

Key takeaways

We made it to the end! By now, you should have a better understanding on how to not only gain more engagement to your Facebook page, but keep it.

A quick recap of all the Facebook business page tips:

• Sharing and tagging your followers’ / influencers’ content will bring you closer together. They may even return the favor as a way of saying “Thank you!”
• Keep your followers in the loop by consistently tagging them in your posts. Don’t go overboard, though. Only tag them in things you think they’d find interesting.
• Pre-recorded videos and Facebook live is a great way to communicate with your followers. Pre-recorded videos should be no more than 5 minutes, whereas Facebook live should run for at least 20-30 minutes to gain maximum traffic.
• There’s no shame in boosting your posts with paid Ads. In fact, nearly 60% of business Facebook pages do this!
• Quizzes can (and will) help you get a conversation started. Tell your audience to share their results and prompt their friends to share theirs, too. Even consider sharing your own results to get the conversation started.
• Post heart-warming and emotional posts. This will help you connect with your followers on a deeper level). Plus, Facebook’s “haha” and other emotional reactions are more powerful than a regular like and increase your organic reach.

Now it’s your turn – have questions about any of the Facebook business page tips shared here? Let us know in the comments! And please share if you found this post helpful.

The post 6 Facebook Business Page Tips You Don’t Want to Miss Out On appeared first on Revive Social.