BLOG: How to attract and engage Facebook users, by Lukas Debski
Lukas Debski is a social media professional and trainer at Isobar Poland. He creates social media strategies for clients including Raiffeisen Bank, Macmillan, Coty, Ferrero and LEGO. In part two of the ‘Your Salon on Facebook’ series prepared in collaboration with salon management software, Versum.com, Debski offers his expertise on how to attract and engage Facebook users.
Part 2: Attract and engage Facebook users
How to engage Facebook users?
Not all of the users are aware of the fact that by publishing a post on Facebook, they don’t actually reach all the people who like their fanpage. According to studies, organic reach (the total number of people who were shown your post through unpaid distribution) is 15 per cent. If you have a fanpage with 1000 fans, it follows that only about 150 of them will see your posts.
What can be done to reach more users and encourage them to like, comment and share your posts? There are several ways to do it:
- Focusing on quality, not quantity – do not publish so-called ‘LOL’ content (kittens, puppies, coffee etc.). It’s not the reason why Facebook users like beauty salons’ fanpages. What’s more, Facebook reduces the reach of such posts automatically. Publishing three valuable posts a week is a much better idea.
Make the published content useful. Here are some example topics to make your posts more engaging:
- Information on your salon, beauty fairs you have attended, prizes you have won
- Effects of cosmetic treatments (‘after’ photos of your clients following treatments in your salon)
- Free advice for fans on your salon’s area of expertise, e.g. hair, beauty, skincare, nails
- Market information on new technologies in the industry
- If your client is pleased with the results of their treatment or service, ask them to share with their friends by posting on Facebook or adding a photo. You could also suggest adding a positive review on your fanpage.
- Organise a competition for your fans to win products or treatments. Try one of the following:
- Open–ended questions (e.g. about your salon’s history, employees’ experience, treatments offered) with fans’ post answers in the comments.
- Asking clients to perform a task (best party makeup, best manicure) and to share their photos to your salon’s fanpage.
- Add a fun photo from the salon and ask fans to come up with the best caption.
- Use various types of posts – a status, a photo with a description, a link to a website or a video – observe and identify which of your posts are the most engaging for the audience and then publish them more frequently.
Currently, videos have the largest organic reach. So shoot a short video with greetings to your clients, Christmas wishes, invitations to your salon, or information on current discounts for treatments.
- Monitor and constantly improve your Facebook actions using the Overview section (in your Page Insights at the top of the page). Here you can check the time of day and days of the week when people who like your page are most active on Facebook, the reach of your posts, the number of times your page was liked during a specific date range and the external sources that are referring traffic to your page.
- If you are taking part in any shows or trade fairs, don’t forget to share this with your fans on your page. And vice versa – make sure to tell people about your social media channels at your fair stand!
Ok, you’ve got you fanpage, and you have started to attract and engage actual Facebook users. But how do you get them to buy your services? Stay tuned for the third instalment of this guide, coming next month.
– Lukas
