How to Engage More Fans on Facebook

Last month I listened in on Mari Smith's free webinar 10 Essential Facebook Money-Making ‘techie' Tips.
At the time of the webinar, I had a fan engagement ratio of less than 1%. I had 6962 fans with only 74 people talking about my page.
Mari said the average for most Facebook pages is 2% fan engagement. Of course, I wanted to be above average!
As of this writing, the Art Biz Coach page on Facebook has 7166 fans with 229 people talking about my page. That's more than 3% fan engagement. And it continues to go up when I pay attention to it.

Alyson's Art Biz Coach page on Facebook
My page on Facebook that shows fan engagement circled in orange.

Here are some other key things that I learned from Mari's seminar:

  • Try to write updates with fewer than 160 characters.
  • When adding a link to an update, it's best to do so directly from Facebook rather than from a third-party application (like importing your RSS feed or updating from HootSuite).
  • Use photos or videos in 90% of your posts.
  • Respond to comments! Facebook rewards posts that have more comments and seems to throw these posts back to the top of the feeds. The more comments you have on a post, the more likely it is that your fans will see it.Likes are good, but comments are much, much better.

Something else that took me a long time to figure out is to 1) Like other pages as your page and 2) respond to others' page updates as your page. This leaves your business page link and picture on other pages.
Though not specific to pages, I also found this post from SocialMouths to be valuable regarding engagement. It has lots of visuals and stats. Notice his comment about long posts getting more shares. Interesting!

One More Thing

As an aside, Mari knows how to do webinars! There was not a single bad PowerPoint slide in the entire presentation. In fact, there wasn't a single slide. Mari floated seamlessly between talking to the camera and showing us her computer screen.
Click here to watch the replay of Mari's webinar.

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15 thoughts on “How to Engage More Fans on Facebook”

  1. Thanks for the great post about engaging more fans on Facebook! I’m engaging fans but would like more and don’t know what’s considered an inoffensive way to do that. What do you suggest is the best and/or proper way to request more fans? Or is that another post coming up?!? Thanks, Libby

    1. Alyson Stanfield

      Libby: Instead of asking people to be a fan, why don’t you put irresistible content on your fan page and tell your friends about it?

  2. Pingback: How to Engage More Fans on Facebook — Art Biz Blog | | Maxfolio - L'annuaire webMaxfolio – L'annuaire web

  3. When I asked for help and posted a question on my Facebook page, the reach of just that one post (according to FB stats) went viral.
    People are generous when you put yourself out there. I received some really good advice, including yours Alyson, thank you.

  4. Hi Alyson, keep up the great work!
    It took me a long time to figure out that when people like my page through their page, it doesn’t count as a like. Only people, not pages, are counted as likes (fans). I find this discouraging, because I have at least twice as many fans as what’s showing up as the “official” count. Does this bug anyone else?

    1. It bugs me as well Deborah. I’ll go in and see what pages have like mine and sometimes post a count. I do this because more and more it’s other pages that give me the thumbs up and I like to reciprocate.

    2. Alyson Stanfield

      Deborah: I don’t let it bug me because that’s just the way it is. I can’t do anything about it. I encourage you not to look at total numbers, but the percentage of the fans you’re engaging.

  5. I cant even use your practical and useful tips until I resolve a huge FB issue. So here’s the question, which I will preface with the fact that facebook certainly puzzles me sometimes, how can you like peoples pages from your professional page – I tried FB’s instruction to make another page and set it (according to their instructions) but it didnt work. I ended up with another page that people could like not one that I could ‘like’ other pages from. Also, I personally keep my biz and personal life separate and find this incredibly frustrating that you are required to create a second page. Anyway, anyone know how to be able to create a 2nd users page that you can like others pages from? Thanks.
    ps I feel fb stupid since I can actually develop and program websites but their instructions are just not working for me.

  6. Katherine Ernst

    Glad to hear others are having problem with pages as well. I thought it was my mistake or FB stupid. New word for the dictionary.Every suggestion in Fb help section created more problems or simply did not work.Ready to give up.Waste of time not painting especially when cannot get results. Likes not adding up and cannot add mail contacts. Refused by FB as spam.
    K. Ernst

  7. This webinar is so hugely helpful. You should see the spike of interaction on my charts after I did the first few things Mari suggested!

  8. Pingback: Bundling To Increase Your Income — Art Biz Blog

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Get a transcript of episode 182 of The Art Biz (Rethinking Mailing Lists for Artists) followed by a 3-page worksheet to evaluate the overall health and usage of the 3 types of artist lists.

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