By Charles Mburugu
Everyone would want to have their Facebook posts shared by as many people as possible. A share is somewhat like a vote of confidence, showing that someone values your content enough to share it with others. Therefore, getting many shares enhances your credibility and exposes your Facebook profile or page to a wider audience.
Here are some guidelines which will help you increase your Facebook shares.
1. Post at the right time
When you post on Facebook is as important as what you post. Therefore, you need to take time to study the Facebook habits of your audience. In most cases, people look at their updates first thing in the morning, during their lunch break, after work or on weekends. This means that anything posted during business hours might be missed by your target audience. However, not all audiences are the same. Study your audience and find out what would work best for them.
2. Be relevant
People like Facebook pages or follow profiles which cover topics of interest to them. Therefore, you cannot afford to just post anything on your Facebook profile. Make sure all the content published on your profile is relevant to your theme as well as your audience. For instance, if your page is for a gym, it would be inappropriate to post anything about home improvement.
3. Use videos and photos
Sharing visual content can be very powerful way of capturing the interest of your audience. When people are scanning through text-only updates, they could easily miss something. However, when updates are accompanied by videos and photos, your audience is more likely to pay attention and even share with others. Therefore, sharing relevant visual content on your Facebook profile is a very effective way of increasing the level of audience interaction.
4. Have a clear call to action
If you want people to follow your profile, like a page, share updates or simply comment, ask them to do so. This means that all your posts should be accompanied with an appropriate call to action. When you tell people what exactly you want them to do, they are likely to heed the call to action.
5. Post educational content
Most people would love to learn something new in their topics of interest. This is why it is important to occasionally share relevant educational material on your Facebook page or profile. Every time you publish a how-to post on your blog, remember to share the link as a Facebook update, as well as a brief summary of what the post is all about.
6. Share useful lists
People love lists. Take time to create a great list on a relevant topic and share it with your Facebook followers or fans. Where possible, you could present it in form of an infographic. If the content is great and presented in a professional way, it could easily go viral, thus ensuring more visibility for your page name or profile.
7. Inject some humor
Your Facebook page or profile does not have to be dull and boring. A sprinkling of humor can do wonders in getting the attention of your audience. When people come across something funny, they are likely to share it with others in their social network. Therefore, take time to look for humorous content which can be shared once in a while.
What are you doing to increase your Facebook engagement?