I know I’ve written a blog post before about how to bring ‘likes’ to your Facebook Page, but what do you do then? You’ve worked hard to get your ‘likes’ or fans there – by means of a competition, or promotion or advertising your Page to an audience of friends, maybe. But the hard work doesn’t stop there as now you need to be creating compelling reasons why they should stay with you, on your Page – you’ve got to get them engaged!

This means finding or writing content to post on your wall which is going to be interesting or amusing or challenging for your audience. This centres on the first step in the process – identifying who your audience is. Once you have this clearly in your mind it is a lot easier to focus your attention than if you just have a vague idea which never quite gets pinpointed!

The key action then is to get content on your Page which encourages your  friends, fans or ‘likes’ ( maybe the word ‘community’ is better, but I just find that so formal and theoretical!) to comment back, link to your website, or whatever else it is that you have suggested they do as an action.

I must say that working with clients recently has shown me that one of the most effective ways of getting engagement, particularly in the early stages of a Page’s involvement, is to have an offline event. This could be offline as in – in person, or offline using another media source – think of the fantastically successful Rowse honey campaign! They linked a competition on an app on Facebook with a TV ad campaign and gained thousands of ‘likes’ and huge amounts of engagement on their new Facebook Page in 6 weeks!

Now we obviously don’t all have their budget at our disposal, but whatever you can do should prove really effective. At an event (in person) you can actively encourage people to come and ‘like’ your Facebook Page (with an incentive if you like, but there doesn’t have to be one!) – make sure you get the icon and your link printed on any promotional material you hand out. Alternatively, you could use a QR code, but I’m thinking this technology is still a bit in it’s infancy over here compared with the States – give it a few months! As the use of smartphones increases, you may well get people popping into Facebook there and then to ‘like’ you – fab news! This could work very well if you are, or are promoting a venue such as a hotel. Hold an event and get people to talk about it on your Facebook Page!

As I’ve alluded to above, after the event you talk about it on your Facebook Page! Draw in all the people who were there, in an inclusive way so that those who weren’t don’t feel left out! Ask for your ‘community’s’ take on the event – questions really do tend to get conversation going, just as in real life! Once the conversation is going well, continue feeding other bits and pieces in and the magic should start to work so that others pick up the threads and run with them. You’re then well and truly engaged!!

What works for you? I would love to hear your top tips!! Please comment below!