Have
you wondered why you are getting a very low engagement on your Facebook
posts? Here are nine common reasons that result in low Facebook post
engagement and tips on how to fix them.
Other Social Media posts that you might have missed:
- You are posting on wrong day and time – You should
time your posts according to your audience’s (fans/targets) most active
time on social media. If you are posting your messages when majority of
your audience is not active then you are not achieving the maximum
benefit from your posts. Below is an infograph that is based on analysis
conducted by Bridge.com, which provides general information about the best time for Facebook posts.
However, rather than blindly accepting these suggestions, you should use your own data to figure out the best day and time to posts. There are several tools that will allow you to see when your audience is most active. For example, simply Measured provides you stats such as “Top Day For Comments” and “Top Time For Comments”.
- You are posting too many or too few posts – As shown by the Track Social (image below), the more you post in a day the lower is the engagement. According to SocialBakers.com,
if you post fewer then 2 posts a week, you will not engage your
audience enough and you will lose engagement. If you post more then
2 per day (as a brand) you also will typically lose engagement. That
means the ideal number is between 5 – 10 posts per week as a brand, and
as a media company, this is typically 4 – 10× higher, as news are
information people engage with all day long. However, you should not
just rely on industry data, instead try to look at your own data to figure out the best frequency for your posts.
- You are not posting engaging messages – Before
preparing your post, think about who are you trying to reach and why
will they care about what you are posting. Give them a reason to engage
with your posts. If you a grocery store and promote a can of beans at
regular price, then do you think you will get any engagement? Give them
something to engage about. Give them more than just an image of the
product. May be show some urgency on why they should click on the image,
watch the video, click on the link, share or comment. Think about other
ways to prompt then to take actions – Is there a limited time offer? Is
this a limited edition product? Is this fresh crop? Here is an example
of two post by PCC Market in Redmond:
- There is no call to action or links – Call to actions prompts audience to engage. Ask and you shall receive. Ask them to click on a link, like a photo, participate in the giveaway are some of the examples to get you fans/followers to take action. The post of mushrooms above has no call to action. What is PCC expecting from the fans? Just posting a picture is not going to work, provide a call to action.
- You don’t have the right fans/followers – This generally happens when you pay to acquire fans. People who do not like your page organically are less like to be engaged with your posts. Also, paid Fans not always genuine, according to Huffington Post, you might be getting fake users to like your pages.
- You are relying on organic reach – Organic reach has been declining in Facebook. According to Oglvy report,
the organic reach was about 6% for pages less than 500K fans and 2% for
pages with over 500K fans. This reach is a lot lower today. Lower reach
results in lower engagement. This means that if you want your fans to
see your post then you will have to pay Facebook to put your post in
front of them.
- You are targeting the wrong people – As you decide to promote your post by using paid ads on Facebook, you might be trying to maximize reach (within you budget) and in doing so might be reaching people who are not likely interested in your brand/product/post. In this case the impressions of your paid post are increasing but you are not getting any clicks/like/comments/share.
- Your content looks too much like an “Ad” – You are pushing ads for your brand and products and your posts look too much like advertisements. People are ad blind, according to Techcrunch article, 6 in 10 people totally ignore the ads. Do not just push ads, follow tip on this page and make people engage with your post.
- You are not using video – Photos used to be the
king of engagement on Facebook, now pretty much everybody is using them.
According to analysis done by Quintly, videos generate more engagement followed by photos.
This post had just 22 likes even tough the page has 45,800 fans. Why is that? Likely because there is nothing for fans to get engaged with?
This post on the other hand a lot higher engagement (though it can still be improved). There is a sense of urgency here “Seasons First Catch of fresh halibut” and there is link to halibut recipes (a call to action, see below). Also, it is possible that PCC has more halibut lovers than mushroom lovers. The key is to understand your audience and give them something relevant and engaging.
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