If you know anything about Social Media, you will know that almost all Social Media platforms favour content which is meaningful, particularly if you are using Facebook in your social media strategy. Reactions are a way of users interacting with a post to show Facebook that this is content they are interested in and would like to see more of this.

There are currently 6 reactions a user can choose from on Facebook to interact with a post. Like, Love, Ha ha, WOW, Sad and Angry.

So why reactions? Why not just keep it simple with a like?

Consumers are driven by emotion, and emotion is key in deciding whether to purchase something. A like is something a Facebook user can click quickly and move on, like we mentioned earlier, it does not necessarily mean that the person has read the post. They may have liked the image, they may have seen a word they were drawn to when scrolling.

Reactions require thought, they require a user to have stopped, read and decided which emotion the post invokes. They allow a business to understand how current, past and future clients/customers feel about their business and brand. They also provide useful metrics for strategy planning for future content and advertising campaigns.

For example: By measuring how many negative, or angry reactions you get on a certain type of post, allows for future planning into ensuring that this type of post and content is omitted in future. Measuring positive reactions such as love allows you to plan more of this type of post or content as it is what your audience want to see.

Engagement Bait

Facebook is cracking down on ‘Engagement Bait‘ posts, the type of posts they believe are undercutting their algorithm. You know the posts. Like if you are an Aries, love if you are a Capricorn etc. They want to see more authentic engagement, users engaging with businesses because they are interested in it.

How can you boost reactions?

Boosting the reactions you get on posts is easier than you think. Believe it or not, business ‘selling’ posts should only actually account for around 25% of your posts. Any more than this makes your audience switch off.

So what should you post instead? You could;

• Make your audience giggle with a meme or a joke post.
• Post about something current but non business related (just be wary of anything that could offend, antagonise or alienate people – that’s a sure fire way to getting an angry reaction).
• Post about something relating to your business – for example; an estate agent could post about tips for moving day.
• Tell a story – this could be a live (or even pre-recorded) video giving insight into your day to day life in your business, showing the production of an item you sell, giving an introduction to a member of your team!
• Post about the office/shop/work environment.
• Post Selfies – you or one of your team happen to be working somewhere other than the office? Having a meeting in a coffee shop? Your environment might not seem that interesting to you but people love to see the people and the places behind the business/brand.
• Have a random thought? Still wondering if penguins have knees? (They do by the way!) Share it… you never know who might also be thinking it.
• Share uplifting and inspiring quotes – tap into the user’s feelings.

There are so many more ideas for posts that would invoke a reaction from the Facebook community. By building a Social Media strategy plan for your business, you can plan your social media content to include all of these reaction promoting post types. If you need any help in building your business’s Social Media Strategy, get in touch.

The post The Power of a Like – Social Media Engagements appeared first on Social Plus.

But here is the thing, many businesses don’t seem to understand that their page likes/follower number is only a number, it means very little!

Facebook is a community, and there is no secret or magic formula to instant success! Gaining hundreds of new page likes in a short space of time is only actually useful if ALL of these new page likes are within your target audience.

Build YOUR Community

Let us pose a question to you. Would you prefer to have an audience of 500 people who were interested in your business, products and services and who are likely to use your business either now or in the near future OR would you prefer to have an audience of 50,000 people who scroll past your posts paying them very little attention or even hide them from their timeline?

We’d hope you would prefer an interested 500 strong audience. People who will stop, react and engage with your posts.

Surely a bigger audience is better!

The biggest issue with the post we spoke about earlier is the types of people being invited to join your audience.

How about an example? Let’s say your business is small nail salon based in Newcastle city centre. You ask your followers to invite everyone on their friends list. Pick out one of your followers who might do this for you. They click Invite All and BAM, they’ve invited their dad, uncle, great uncle, a vast number of male friends who think a manicure is just trimming their nails with the clippers, 138 people with whom they went to University. 112 of these people live in Plymouth, 8 live in Devon and the remaining 18 are scattered across the globe. None of these are YOUR audience. They’re people who will either ignore the request or will accept it and then begin to ignore your posts, the latter being the ones who will affect your page growth the most. They have all just become a pointless statistic on your business page.

So how can you grow your page?

Ensure that you are present and consistent! Post daily, at times when most of your followers are online (information you can get from your page insights).

Build relationships with your audience. If they comment on your content – reply! Have a conversation with them. Conversations with your audience can often highlight what they want to see from you and what you can do to convert their interest into a purchase.

If you feel like you need to, use a Facebook ad to speed up the process. You can target your adverts audience to be YOUR people, people who will be interested in what you do, what you have to say and will have conversations with you.

Think about the type of content that you are posting. Does your post give knowledge, make people laugh or make them think? If not what’s the reason behind posting it? If you sell a service, why do people need your service? What are the issues or pain points which need your service as their solution? Once you find out what problems people face that your service fixes you can focus your content around helping them to minimise or resolve these pain points. If you sell a product, why do people need that product and what difference will it make to them and their lives?

We get it! Right now, we’re living in unprecedented times and we are all doing everything that we can do to ensure that we survive throughout this and come out of the other side strong and ready to go, but don’t undo all of the hard work up to this point by copying and pasting an invite all viral post. If you need any advice on how to grow your business on Social Media either organically or the best way to make use of Facebook ads for this purpose, get in touch. We’d love to have a conversation with you about it.

The post Page Likes! Invite All? Please, Don’t! It’s more damaging than you think! appeared first on Social Plus.