When you know what you’re trying to accomplish on social media, all parts of your social media presence benefit. Before scheduling your next Facebook masterpiece, think about how that post contributes to your overall marketing goals. Good social media fundamentals mean following a social media marketing plan that aligns with your business objectives. After all, successful content marketers are six times more likely to have a documented strategy in place.
2. Know what your audience wants to see
To make content that your audience will engage with, you have to spend some time finding out what they like. Making decisions based on data from your specific context will help you make posts that get more likes.
Luckily, there are plenty of tools to help you analyze your data. You can use Facebook’s official analytics platform, Business Manager, to dig into data from all of Meta’s social media platforms.
3. Know when your audience is active
One simple way to get more likes is to post when your audience is most active. Although the chronological timeline has gone the way of the dodo, the algorithm still prioritizes recent content.
It’s simple, but not always easy. First, you have to find out when the best time to post on Facebook is. There are general trends that apply across the board. Between 8:00 a.m. and 12:00 p.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays is the best time in general.
4. Stay up-to-date with Facebook trends
You’ll attract more attention when you stay on top of the latest trends. Facebook users are looking for content that’s relevant to them.
Facebook Reels are the fastest-growing format on the platform, and Facebook promotes them pretty much everywhere. Take advantage of the rise of Reels to get more likes from your short-form video content.
5. Pin a popular post
A lot of these tips boil down to “figure out what’s doing well and do more of that.” When you pin a popular Facebook post, you’re giving it more visibility. This gives a post with a lot of likes the chance to get even more.
6. Work with Facebook influencers
Brands are engaging in influencer marketing more than ever. In 2022, two-thirds of US social media marketers report using influencer marketing. Just three years before, in 2019, only half did. Collaborating with an influencer, especially one that can speak directly to your target audience, can help you produce engaging content your followers won’t want to miss.
7. Take advantage of cross-promotion
If you’ve got a great following on other social channels, take advantage of it! More than 99% of Facebook users have accounts on other social media platforms. Try promoting Facebook-specific content on other social media to increase your posts’ visibility.
Just over 80% of Twitter users are also on Facebook. By tweeting about an upcoming Facebook event, Singer makes it easier for their audience to stay up to date with their social media activity.
Cross-promotion isn’t limited to social media, either. Don’t forget to link to your Facebook page on your website and include it on your business cards. Make it easy for people to find your brand on social media— after all, they can’t like your posts if they never see them.
8. Run ads
Some of the tips here will help you improve your organic reach, but unfortunately, organic reach is in decline on social media. Without paid promotion, a brand’s posts will only be seen by about 5% of its followers. But if you do choose to run ads, you can take advantage of Facebook’s detailed ad targeting to make sure your posts reach your ideal audience.
9. Invite People to Like Your Page
The easiest way to increase Facebook followers is by inviting people to like your page. The lowest-hanging fruit here is to invite your friends and family. However, keep in mind that it’s better to have a small, targeted audience than to have a big, broad one, as it could limit the effectiveness of your future ads.
10. Create Viral Content
On my most popular store’s Facebook page, I’d share memes, funny videos, and relatable quotes.
People would tag their friends in the post, which usually helps increase social media engagement but also helps increase social reach.
11. Host a Giveaway
Giveaways are a great way to increase Facebook likes.
You can host a giveaway on your website using a tool like Rafflecopter.
Share your giveaway to niche Facebook groups or forums, giveaway websites, and of course on your Facebook page.
By making one of the ways to enter “visit Facebook page”, you’ll be more likely to increase the number of Facebook followers you have.
12. Add a Facebook Likes Pop-Up
Some online stores ask for emails upon exit intent.
However, if your main objective is to increase Facebook likes instead of subscribers, you can create a Facebook-like pop-up instead.
OptinMonster is a popular pop-up tool that allows you to gain new leads and can be repurposed to fuel Facebook likes, as well. You can also choose to set a timer so that after a person has been on your website for a certain number of seconds, the pop-up appears.
13. Get Tagged by Other Facebook Pages
Getting organic shoutouts from bigger Facebook pages can help you get more Facebook followers.
To get a shout-out, look for brands that regularly feature their customers or other non-competing businesses on social media sites.
Then pick the brands that have a similar audience to you or one that’s at least somewhat related.
For instance, if you sell watches, you might post a picture of your watch with another brand’s sunglasses, tagging the brand in the picture. This could coax them into sharing your post with their audience.
Here’s an example of Samsung sharing a picture taken on their phone that a customer posted on their Facebook page.
14. Engage with Your Community
Some of the biggest e-commerce brands don’t engage with their customers. That gives even the smallest retailer a huge competitive advantage.
But engaging with your community isn’t only about customer service like responding to questions about delivery times. It’s also about building relationships. And there’s no better way to do that than to be a bit playful or respond in a way where the customer feels like they’re chatting with their buddies.
Netflix is a great example of a brand on Facebook that regularly engages with customers. Their comments are almost always hilarious which makes you want to engage with the brand.
By engaging with your followers, their friends might end up following you as a result.
15. Hashtag It Up
While “hashtag” makes most people think about Twitter or Instagram, you can also increase followers on Facebook by using hashtags in your Facebook posts.
When it comes to hashtags, there are two key approaches. You can either use a literal hashtag like #fashion for a fashion post, or you can use an audience-focused hashtag like Sephora does.
This Sephora post isn’t about #fitspo (fitness inspiration) at all. However, they likely used the hashtag to attract users who are interested in fitness inspiration to their brand.
In this case, the hashtag helps Sephora reach a new audience with their post – an audience that could potentially become Facebook followers.
- For hashtags, I can suggest mixing and matching with the following:
1) Ideal Audience hashtags – what will they normally think Ex: #makeup
2) Places hashtags – if you have a physical store or you want to target a certain location popular for that niche Ex:#ParisMakeUp
3) Occasion Hashtags - #FashionWeek
4) Industry Hashtags
5) Featured Hashtags
6) Branded Hashtags - #SephoraChallenge
You may also use some tools like Ritetag to help you.
16. Get Tagged by Customers
After a product has been delivered to your customer, send an email (if they accepted marketing) and ask them to tag you when they post their photos.
People often share their products on social media and getting tagged by customers can help you get more Facebook followers… and more sales.
The audience pull will be smaller, but this word-of-mouth marketing is more impactful since it’s authentic.
