I recently worked with a team to launch World Elephant Day (WED) on August  12th, 2012. In the lead up to WED our Facebook campaign was going well; however, we wanted to increase our overall engagement. To do so we implemented 3 key tactics to increase the campaign’s Facebook engagement.  As a result our total reach boosted from 1500 to over 200,000 people in the days leading up to and right after the campaign.  Below outlines the 3 most successful tactics used to generate this increase.

#1) Message Pages Directly

If you want influential pages to share about your campaign, charity initiative, new product, etc… try asking them directly through Facebook message.  Facebook does not allow a page to contact another page directly through the message option but there is an easy way around this. Sign into your personal account, go to the page you want to message and like their page. Once liked, an option to message them directly should appear (note: some pages have this setting shut off). In the message you send introduce yourself as a representative of the business/charity, ask for their support and ensure that you include a link to your Facebook page.

I messaged many elephant related pages and non-profits asking them to support WED and 80% of the time got a response (much better response than email!). Here is an example of what I would send (see image to the right). This message is to the Elephant Family. They responded and ended up sharing about our initiative to their 18,766 fans. The post they wrote about WED was shared 94 times and received 309 likes. A ton of relevant exposure from a simple email!!

 

#2) Create Images with Pre-Existing Content

The WED website has a lot of informative information about elephants however to share it in a creative way on Facebook, we pooled the information into a simple infographic using a free site called Piktochart.  We shared the image on Facebook with a link to the corresponding page on our website. To the right is the infographic we posted which was shared 89 times, liked 65 times, and seen by 2381 people. This post obtained the 5th highest reach of any post on our page. It’s not a secret people love images, especially infographics. This is a fast and easy way to increase the number of shares and likes for your content.

 

 

#3) Leaving Facebook Comments on Others Pages

This tactic may not apply to everyone, however it can be very useful if the slipper fits! Review your backlinks and find blog posts that have been written about your company/campaign. Then, go to the Facebook page of the website that wrote the blog. If they shared their blog post on their Facebook page (which, more often than not they have), comment on it. If you have something related to their post (ie. video or a photo) include it in your comment as well. This way if people are interested in their blog post they will have an easy way to learn more about you and can quickly find your Facebook page. Frontier Official posted an article about World Elephant Day on their blog GapYearBlog.com and shared it on their Facebook page. They did not link to us directly from it or notify us that they were posting it. I found the article through a backlink report, went to their Facebook page and thanked them for sharing about us. I did this with as many Facebook pages as possible which significantly expanded our reach to relevant target audiences.

 

These are just a few of the ways you can increase your Facebook engagement. If you have ideas for others please leave a comment and/or share your social media tips on our new website SocialMediaTips.com.

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