Here is the hard truth…your customers don’t want to hear about your products 24/7. When you constantly talk about your products, people will simply ignore it. And when people continuously ignore it, guess what? Facebook edgeerank algorithm kicks in and your post won’t appear on the newsfeed. It may seem unfair that Facebook gets to do that to you, but in all seriousness, why should people listen to what is essentially a form of advertisement all the time?

Don’t worry! It’s definitely not the end of the world (end of the world is in December 2012). What you need to understand are your customers, and how do you get to know them? Why, by chatting  to them of course! While it might seem hard to engage with hundreds and thousands of people on your Facebook page, there are some tricks that I’ve learnt which can help you to increase engagement on your Facebook page. It’s not only about making them listen to you; engagement is also about them speaking up. Here are three simple tricks to make them do just that.

1. Know the trend on Facebook and follow the trend

Bruce Barton, a great businessman once said “Talkers have always ruled. They will continue to rule. The smart thing is to join them”.  Although he wasn’t talking about Facebook then, he was right about ‘joining them’! How do you take advantage of this? Know the trend or know what your customers are talking about and join them.

For example: Valentine’s Day just passed a few weeks ago. If you noticed then, the topic Valentines day was one of the top news. What you should have done was posting content revolving the word “Valentine”. Here is an example of what we did with our Facebook page. It not only helped us to increase engagement but helped us to increase our fans as people were sharing this with their friends and asking their friends the question too.

2. Add a simple call to action on your Facebook page

If you want your fans to do something, let them know. Rather than saying ‘Do you agree?’ try saying ‘Click Like if you agree’. Chances are, people would click the “Like” button if they agree (sometimes we’re lazy to write, we prefer to click the like button) .

If they don’t agree with you, there is a possibility that they would comment instead. Either way, whether it is negative or positive, there would still be engagement. Here is an example.

3) Crowdsourcing 

Get people to participate. Natural Parenting Tips is an amazing community-driven Facebook fan page that provides tips and parenting advices created by an amazing couple and friend of mine @kierapedley and @adam_pedley.

They also answer Q&A from their fans and get other experienced parents to share their ideas and experience with others too.

Here is how they are doing it.

At the end you’ll be able to see that the feedbacks from the community have helped Farah, the one who asked the question earlier. Crowdsourcing is a great way to get engagement not only with the people behind the fan page but also with the community itself. It not only adds engagement, but at the same time it builds the value of your fan page

Those are my three simple tips to help you to increase engagement. Do try them and let me know if it works for you.

YOUR turn….

Are there any other tips and tricks to build engagement that you have learned? Share them on the comments below. I would love to learn from YOU.