In today’s digital world, having an active and engaged social media presence is crucial for businesses and brands. With over 2 billion monthly active users, Facebook is one of the most important platforms to establish a strong connection with your target audience.
Organic reach on Facebook has been declining over the past few years as more businesses and influencers join the platform. Paid advertising and promoted posts have become the norm to reach more people. However, gathering a highly engaged community of brand advocates through organic efforts is still possible on Facebook.
This comprehensive guide will provide tips, strategies and best practices on how to increase engagement organically on Facebook in 2023 and beyond.
Why is Facebook engagement important?
Having an engaged community on Facebook provides several benefits:
- Increases brand awareness and establishes credibility.
- Drives website traffic when people click from Facebook.
- Provides marketplace insight from user-generated content.
- Creates brand advocates who actively promote you.
- Grows email list by encouraging opt-ins.
- Boosts sales conversions when fans buy products.
The more engagement your Facebook posts generate, the more people you can reach for free. This organic reach saves money on ads and provides higher ROI.
Active engagement also improves your content’s position in the Facebook algorithm. Posts with the most likes, shares and comments get shown more prominently in followers’ feeds.
How does the Facebook algorithm work?
The Facebook algorithm controls what appears in users’ News Feeds. It is optimized to show them the most relevant and engaging content.
When you post content, the algorithm analyzes over 100,000 different factors to determine its relevancy. This includes:
- Likes, comments and shares on the post.
- Your past engagement with people who reacted.
- Type of post (photo, video, status update etc).
- Caption length and text.
- People’s profiles who engaged with it.
- Frequency of posting.
- REUSE – External links.
Content that receives genuine engagement signals like likes and comments in the first minutes and hours of posting will appear higher in more News Feeds.
This is why growing your organic reach requires understanding user behavior and creating content tailored to generate authentic engagement.
How many followers do you need to increase engagement?
The number of Page followers does not directly correlate with the level of engagement on your posts. Many huge brands have millions of followers, but still only see engagement rates of 1-2% on their content.
What matters most is having an audience of ideal customers who genuinely care about your niche and actively interact with your brand.
Even if you have 1,000 engaged followers who comment and share your posts, you can generate higher visibility on Facebook than a Page with 100,000 inactive followers.
Focus first on creating high-quality content and engaging your current audience instead of trying to grow your follower count. Organic reach and engagement will snowball over time.
Best practices to increase Facebook engagement
Here are some of the top tactics and best practices brands can use to improve engagement organically on Facebook:
Post at optimal times
Analyze when your target demographic is most active on Facebook and schedule posts during those high traffic hours.
Early morning and late afternoons on weekdays are often engagement sweet spots. You can use Facebook Insights to determine your own Peak Times for posting.
Go live frequently
Facebook Live videos have 10X more comments on average than regular videos. The real-time aspect makes audiences more likely to respond and interact.
Go live to engage your audience – give tours, host Q&As, share behind-the-scenes footage etc. Save your videos to re-share as well.
Use visual content
Posts with photos and videos get higher reach and engagement than plain text updates according to Social Media Today.
Visuals make your posts stand out in crowded News Feeds and are naturally more engaging. Use relevant high-quality images for each update.
| Content Type | Engagement Rate |
|---|---|
| Photo posts | 2.3% |
| Video posts | 4.4% |
| Link posts | 1.9% |
| Text-only posts | 0.9% |
Leverage giveaways & contests
Running contests and giveaways is a proven way to quickly increase engagement on Facebook. Offer prizes and free products relevant to your target audience.
Ask people to like, share or comment to enter – this spreads your content wider. Use a contest promotion app to easily manage entries.
Engage users proactively
Actively engage with users who comment on your posts by replying, liking comments and answering questions.
Thank people for tagging your Page and sharing your content. This builds community and inspires audience members to keep interacting.
Use natural language
Write Facebook post captions conversationally using natural language. Avoid overly salesy or promotional language.
Ask questions, tell stories and use emojis to create an authentic and approachable brand voice. This invites users to engage with your posts.
Partner with influencers
Work with relevant influencers in your industry to promote your brand to their engaged follower base. Offer free products or commission in exchange for organic influencer posts.
Even micro-influencers with just 1,000 engaged followers can earn you high-quality engagement. Pick those with an authentic voice.
Go live with influencers
Livestreaming with influencers allows you to tap into their audience in real-time.
Plan a schedule of guest live videos with influencers to talk about industry topics and highlight your products organically.
Run lead generation offers
Promote freegiveaways like ebooks, reports and cheat sheets that provide valuable resources for your audience.
In exchange for downloading them, request visitors to follow your Page or join your email list. This grows your follower count and list.
Leverage user-generated content
Encourage customers to post photos of your products on Facebook by running a user-generated campaign. Offer discounts for participating and re-share the best photos.
This user content shows real people engaging with your brand authentically. It often gets higher engagement than company posts.
Share local events & news
Keep your Facebook community updated on local events, store openings and company news. This content feels exclusive for your followers and gets good engagement.
Post polls and questions
Spark engagement by asking interesting poll questions and sharing opinions related to your niche.
Posts that invite responses through polls see 95% higher engagement according to Social Media Today.
behind the scenes
Give your audience insider access by sharing behind-the-scenes videos and photos showcasing your products or office culture.
The inside look makes fans feel special and incentivizes reactions.
| Post Type | Engagement Rate |
|---|---|
| Poll posts | 15% |
| Standard posts | 3.9% |
Cross-promote content
Repurpose your best performing Facebook posts on other channels like Instagram and LinkedIn.
Cross-promoting expands reach and leads to new engagement from new audiences when done right.
Reply to negative comments
Don’t delete or ignore negative comments. Reply professionally explaining your stance. Other users will see you responsibly engaging even with critics.
This builds trust and your comments might get more likes than the original negative one.
Share Facebook Live replays
Get more mileage from your Facebook Live videos by sharing the replays. Not everyone is able to catch your live broadcasts.
Re-sharing gives them a second chance to view, like and comment on the video.
Post consistently
Post high-quality content consistently to train the Facebook algorithm to show your posts. Analyze which post types work best and post those more frequently.
Consistent posting establishes you as an authority and gives audiences content to look forward to.
Optimize posting times
While posting consistently is important, make sure to analyze your Facebook Insights and only post when your audience is most active online.
Schedule posts for weekends or weekday evenings when your followers have free time to engage. Avoid posting content when your fans are asleep or at school/work.
| Weekday | Optimal Posting Hours |
|---|---|
| Monday | 9 AM – 1 PM |
| Tuesday | 1 PM – 3 PM |
| Wednesday | 9 AM – 3 PM |
| Thursday | 1 PM – 3 PM |
| Friday | 9 AM – 1 PM |
| Saturday | 9 AM – 2 PM |
| Sunday | 9 AM – 2 PM |
Join Facebook Groups
Join relevant Facebook Groups in your industry and niche. Provide value by answering questions and establishing yourself as a subject matter expert.
This showcases your knowledge without self-promotion. You can include links to your Page and content where relevant.
Use clickbait headlines
Using clickbait-style headlines will make people curious to open your posts and engage further. Listicles and how-to posts work particularly well.
For example “The 7 Biggest Mistakes People Make with Product X” gets more clicks than “How to Use Product X Correctly”. Test different headlines.
Run retargeting ads
Create custom audiences of people who have engaged with your Facebook content already. Retarget them with ads to turn them into loyal followers.
Lookalike Audiences also help find new cold traffic that resembles current warm followers. ads expand reach.
Measuring Facebook engagement
To determine whether your efforts are paying off, you need to actively measure and track Facebook engagement. Here are the key metrics to monitor:
- Post reach – how many unique users saw it
- Engagement rate – interactions divided by reach
- Likes, comments, shares per post
- Video views – at least 30 seconds
- Clicks on links or tags
- Contest entries
- Lead signups
- Website traffic from Facebook
- Sales attributed to Facebook
Study these metrics over time, and for different post types, to understand what content works best for your audience. You can then fine-tune your organic Facebook strategy further.
Analyze both new and existing posts. The Facebook algorithm will show old evergreen content to new audiences if it continues getting engagement.
Tools to improve Facebook engagement
Here are some of the top tools you can use to streamline and boost your engagement efforts:
- Facebook Creator Studio – analytics and post scheduling
- Facebook Business Suite – manage Pages and ad campaigns
- Buffer – schedule and recycle posts
- Canva – create engaging graphics and videos
- Iconosquare/Later – track performance
- Hotjar – see user behavior
- Buzzsumo – analyze influencers and competitors
- Audiense – identify new influencers
- Shortstack – run contests and promotions
- Google Trends – find trending topics
Many social media management tools like Agorapulse also provide advanced analytics and listening capabilities specifically for Facebook.
Reasons for poor Facebook engagement
If you notice low and decreasing engagement rates on your Facebook posts, there are some common issues that could be causing it:
- Irrelevant content for your audience
- Low-quality content (typos, dull videos etc)
- Not using enough visual content
- Posting at bad times when audience is inactive
- Not engaging back with user comments
- Too many promotional and sales-focused posts
- Bad clickbait or misleading headlines
- Similar repetitive content
- Not using analytics to optimize
- Sudden rule changes on Facebook’s end
Carefully analyze which types of posts generate the highest reach and engagement. Then double down on creating more of that content, while phasing out what doesn’t resonate.
Conclusion
Growing your organic Facebook engagement requires consistency, optimization and genuinely connecting with real fans.
Focus on value-driven education-based content that entertains, inspires or helps your target audience. Engage constantly with your community.
Measure different posting times, post formats, captions and topics to see what content your specific fans respond to best.
Keep refining based on Facebook Insights analytics. With persistent yet strategic trial-and-error, your engagement rates and organic reach will expand steadily.