Google, in its quest to drive people away from Facebook, or maddeningly over the edge of digital sanity, constantly changes its search engine algorithm. (Sorry Google for your failure to compete with Facebook with Google Plus. But it’s not really their fault.) The organic reach of Facebook has significantly declined, and the result has been a failure to continually engage its target markets for many businesses.
We Like to Look
Fortunately, there are some very simple ways to consider when refitting your marketing strategy to adapt to the loss of organic reach. People are visual creatures at heart. According to research, about 90 percent of the learning people do is through visual means. The new research in neuroscience shows that much of what we learn is through what we see and how we interpret, or reinterpret, the patterns wired into our brains.
To take advantage of this reality, use images to amplify your message. Avoid creating images that are text-heavy because it defeats the purpose of using an image. Let the reader decide for themselves what you are saying. This is an important factor in deciding what images to use and how the image connects with the message. At the beginning you may choose to experiment with a variety of images and colors, keeping track of which images give you the greatest feedback.
Counting
Speaking of keeping track, there are four basic ways that Facebook gets your posts noticed: Likes, Comments, Shares, and Clicking on links you provide. The goal is to get some sort of feedback from each reader in one of these ways. Your message and image should define a clear call-to-action in one of the forms listed above. If you are new to this method, be patient and creative. You may find yourself getting far better results than you imagined.
To rank the likelihood you will get the reader to act on a call-to-action, the general rule is the less you require of the reader, the greater of their chance of responding. Comments tend to rank low on responsiveness because the best comments are reasonably well thought out, and that requires time. Likes and Clicking are simple, single actions that will bring you the highest number of responses. When evaluating the success of your image choices, remember that Comments may be the fewest in number but the most valuable in evaluating the image’s success.
What Not To Do
Every business owner is the best judge of who their target market is and who is the most likely to respond to a particular Facebook ad image. Do not pay attention to what competitors or even successful web sites are doing to increase engagement. This may seem counterintuitive, in that we should all be learning from and looking to models of success that will help us to be successful. But because Facebook is a personal site, your primary concern should be creating a personalized image-ad for the potential customer you know best.
Some people swear by Apple, while others swear at it. Keep this in mind as you work through your own Facebook engagement process and you will understand the best approach to reach your desired goal.
