6 Quick-Tips that You Can Use to Gain More Likes

Everyone loves raking in likes and shares – whoever says otherwise is probably lieing! If you have ever run a Facebook page you will have probably found yourself in a rut trying to figure out why your posts are getting the same 12-or-so likes or why your competitor gets all those shares on their content. Fortunately for you, I’ve piled together what I have learnt during my time with Adduco in order for you to apply and ramp up your engagement numbers!

From WeChat to Facebook – and all networks in-between – I’ve seen slumps in engagement. The platform with the highest fluctuations in engagement levels would most certainly be Facebook, due to it’s highly-responsive, vast audiences. Your audience is always active on the network, seeking out and interacting with content that takes their fancy. To put some perspective around it, from 2004 to 2012, Facebook’s monthly active users shot up from 1 million to a whopping 1,056 million. Today, the platform has around 1.71 billion monthly active users and is growing rapidly.

Alongside the huge user base, Facebook is the most popular social channel for consuming content. This means that users are more likely to read and click on content that engages them more than any other network. This right here should be enough to convince you that promoting your page, products and updates on Facebook is an imperative component to your marketing mix.

Due to the sheer volume of content being posted every second of every day, Facebook’s algorithm is very picky and selective. In fact, to get your posts seen by your fans they must instantly engage your followers and get likes and shares almost immediately. Stale content just won’t get you anywhere these days – you need to understand how it all works and generate consistent, attention-grabbing content in order to swim at the front of the pack.

Here are my tips that should take you to the next level –

 

Command your Audience
We’ve chatted with a load of research firms, marketers and even psychologists over the years and all have unanimously agreed upon the importance of directing/funnelling your audience to an action with a CTA (Call To Action). More often than not you’ll find that you want your posts to be promoting something or that you wish to make your audience do something – it is up to you to lead them there by utilising quick, snappy phrases like ‘Please Share’ or ‘Learn More’.

Research has proven that postings that contain the word ‘share’ or ‘like’ received twice as many shares or likes than posts without it – this sounds stupidly obvious, but can you remember the last time your post actually included one of these? Funnily enough, popping the word ‘share’ into your post can also drive up nearly double the number of likes than posts without.

Takeaway: Use CTA’s in your postings – but use them sparingly to preserve their effectiveness.

 

Boosting Posts 

If you are just starting out, or struggling to get your audience engaged you need to start Boosting your content ASAP. With the fast stream of Edgerank, you could be waiting a long time and putting in a lot of effort to even begin to get a roll on with good engagement. Yes this is a cost, but then again – no quick digital marketing methods come without a cost.

Starting from $5 per post, simply set your target audience, your date range and the amount and you are ready to go. Your content will be pushed out and prioritised within the Edgerank system. Over time, you can also use the statistics from your boosted posts to determine your main demographic, their interests and what topics they prefer to read.

Takeaway: Throw a $5 boost on your next post and see what happens. You’ll find a little blue ‘Boost Post’ button on the bottom-right of your post frame.

 

Know How Your Content Is Ranked
The only way that you can truly decipher how to get more likes and shares is by understanding how Facebook’s algorithm – Edgerank – affects how, where, why, when and to who your content is displayed. Edgerank calculates and decides what a user is going to see and not see on their timeline which includes the visibility of your brands posts and content.

In short terms, your post will be determined upon;

• How recently you have posted
• Your engagement history
• The level of relationship between you and your audience
• When your content is determined as having a high ranking within the algorithm more of the people who have liked your page will see it
• With a low ranking, less of the people who have liked your page will see it

With this basic understanding of the Edgerank algorithm you should determine that in order for your posts to be shown to your audience they must be highly shareable, engaging and attract lots of comments and likes. In short terms this means that you may need to consider sharing a picture of a fluffy cat or an inspirational quote along with your blog links in order to boost engagement.

Takeaway: If your engagement is down/poor, consider what you post out and change it up to a different content mix.

 

How about You?
Social platforms are user centric. Everything they see on their news feed are things that they have ‘liked’, people that they have followed and updates from friends. This means that your posts need to feel like part of that equation. Your posts and updates need to feel that they have been written exclusively for your fans.

If you want to put your user first, think about what type of content you share on your feed. Once you have highlighted what your brand shares on Facebook, it is time to start thinking about ways to personalise it – we like to use the word ‘You’ within these posts.

An example of this is the very post that we used to direct you to this article –

“6 quick tips that you can use to gain more likes”

Takeaway: Personalise your content around your audience. Making it about them is the way to get quick likes.

 

Jump on the Bandwagon
You need to be on the ball 24/7 if you want to truly shine amongst your industry on social. To be positioned as a thought-leader, an active influencer or as a witty/savvy/responsive page you need to leverage trending topics, stories and content to your advantage.

Your only worry will be finding trending topics that are relevant to your business or content, especially if you don’t work in a field that is very buzzworthy. But chances are that if you’re passionate about your page/company/hobby, you will soak up all relevant trends almost subconsciously. A witty example of this was us capitalising on the Pokemon Go trend halfway through this year:

Takeaway: Start by sharing a relevant post/article that you come across – just remember this has to be very timely (within a few hours of posting, or right in the midst of a trend).

 

Spice up your Images
Hopefully you should already know that visual content trumps static/text content every time. But scrolling through my timeline I often see postings from companies that include;

• A blurry photo of their work, taken in a hurry
• Well-put-together graphics but with no CTA, reference to them or additional info
• Bland, boring photos taken via a cellphone camera
• and more…

It takes 30 seconds to beautifully edit your on-the-go snap into a delicious, like-inducing image using an app such as VSCO. If you’re putting out valuable, informative content, pop your company logo down in the corner there – when people share it or steal it (it always happens) you’ll still be referenced.

Takeaway: Put in an extra few moments of effort with your visual posts. A filter, a share-CTA or even cropping a screenshot will go a long way.

 

Summary
Take a shot at using these tips and try to incorporate them in your future posts. I would be very surprised if they don’t help you bump up engagement even the slightest amount.

Taking an extra minute or two to truly think out your next social post can be the difference between you pulling in 12 likes and pulling in 120 likes.