From the demand of their users and the technological-world becoming more advanced, Facebook is consistently evolving. Not only did it get bigger, but also grew much stricter regarding it’s policy on spam to protect users from businesses that have tried to saturate your news feed with irrelevant posts.

Although this makes Facebook a bit harder to use as a business, the changes that were created are for the benefit of the users and should not hurt the quality of marketers. After all, Facebook is one of the most used social platforms available today, which accounts for about 80% of the market share. As a result, it can generate traffic in the thousands for business owners who develop a loyal following.

1. Focus on the Agenda of Your Fans First

This rule is invaluable and should be remembered most of all. Always focus on the agenda of your fans above anything else. If you do this, you will discover that you can never do anything wrong. Facebook is a great tool for encouraging your followers to spread the word about what you offer. For example, passing on your offerings from friend to friend.

2. Host Facebook Competition To Boost Engagement

There are several ways to deal with a reduced reach on Facebook, but one option that works practically every time is to host a Facebook competition. A social media competition will boost your engagement by providing an incentive for people to enter the competition. A good way to host your competition is to provide the incentive for people to enter as a call to action. For example, reward your visitors or fans for actions such as liking a page post, posting an image on a post, commenting on your post or even just for following the page as a whole.

3. Publish Links to Increase Website Traffic

Facebook is not just about increasing engagement on your Facebook page, but also to increase traffic going to your website. To do this effectively, you should aim to post your website link frequently. This can be more effective than text and photo updates alone. Alternatively, links to interesting and useful blog posts are the best types of links, and are equally as engaging. Just remember to focus on the agenda of your fans and keep it relevant to your business/branding.

4. Customise Your Link Post CTAs (Call to action)

Facebook now let’s business owners add ‘Call To Action’ to link posts using a tool called the Power Editor. Some of the most important CTAs you should consider include “Download,” “Shop Now,” “Learn More,” “Book Now,” and “Sign Up.”

5. Using Photos to Increase Engagement

There is no question that the type of content in which achieves the highest engagement is images or photos. But, this in no way means that you should only publish photos. Again thinking back to the agenda of your fans, remember that, although some of your fans may love imagery, some may not. While some people enjoy all types of content, they really enjoy photos- especially ones that have an emotional and immediate impact.

Don’t forget, you can also track what your audience love by looking at your Facebook Insights. Remember to be as reactive and receptive to what they engage with the most.

6. Post Closed-Ended Questions to Increase the Number of Comments

Research has shown that closed-ended questions work much better on Facebook than opened-ended questions. This may surprise most, as open-ended questions clearly would initiate an answer. Research has shown, however, that closed-ended questions will take an advantage of the built-in ability of the brain to “auto-complete”. As opposed to open-ended questions, where you have to really think about your answer, your brain just has to choose a “true” or “false” or “yes” and “no” answer. Therefore, it will increase engagement, as it is more likely visitors will engage and take part in the conversation.

7. Use the Piggyback Method for Trending Topics

In the past few years, Facebook applied the trending topics sidebar to the platform. A trending topic is any story that has displayed an increase in popularity and has gone viral. In this sidebar, Facebook have considered your personal interests and have factored them into the algorithm to determine the trending topics that are displayed on your page.

Trending topics are going to be listed in reverse order with the highest trending being at the top. You can begin leveraging various trending topics if you:

• Get additional reach for your page by posting various updates about the latest trending topics – if it meets your fans and visitors agenda.

• Think about how you can join in a conversation or how your business fits with the trending topic.

• Do not try and force connections, however. This will confuse your existing following. Just try to follow your own initiative and intuition regarding the obvious and natural connection.

8. Use Hashtags in a Simple Way

Again, this rule may come as a surprise to many because hashtags are renowned for being unique to and introduced by Twitter. Facebook now offers support for hashtags, however. They work very similarly to the way they do on Twitter, however they do not offer the advanced search features that Twitter does.

Before you jump to the conclusion that no one is using hashtags or that they don’t look right being used on Facebook, the possibility of increasing your reach is worth adding the hashtag.

9. Share the Posts from Different Pages that Your Fans Like

Another great way to increase your engagement is by sharing posts from other pages out there that work with your business or Facebook page. This will only work if you share the posts that currently already have a high level of engagement. Again, remember that relevancy and the agenda of your fans should always be focused on when sharing such posts.

10. Boost Your Reach by Mentioning Pages

If you mention another Facebook page in your posts, your posts are likely to be seen by fans of that particular page. Having said that, do not force the connection. You should only mention the page if it is highly relevant to the post, what you offer or what you do.