The Best Way to Engage People on Social Media
Without being desperate or pushy
Note: This article took me a few days to write and edit. It might seem disjointed. I’ll try to edit this before hitting publish.
I have always had this problem. I create a page and no one responds to any posts. What am I doing wrong? Are these posts self-serving? Is my grammar so bad? I edit those posts using grammar apps. Even after I accidentally press publish, I even edit my articles.
Recently, I posted about finding people to be in a pagan coven. I received some responses. They also contacted me. I met with four of them on Zoom. Our next step was creating a Facebook group.
I did that and posted a few messages. Nobody responded. My first post introduced me and encouraged others to do the same, but nothing came of it. What am I doing wrong?
People are busy, and I understand that. I have other posts I want to mention, but I decided just to do it every two days. Hopefully, they will respond. However, I doubt it. In the first place, I thought Social Media was supposed to be that: social. I’m puzzled why this continues happening to me.
There is hardly any interaction on my podcast page, where I am the only one posting. The same holds true for my author and freelance pages. I need to do more work on the latter one.
Then I thought it might have something to do with not engaging others. In the past, I’ve tried that, but people have been put off by me being too pushy and desperate.
I noticed that my group members responded a few days later. More like a like than a comment. But that is okay. At least they read it.
In order not to sound too narcissistic in this article, I will do my research and let you know how you can get more people engaged with your social media posts. But without being pushy or desperate. I hope both of us learn something from this.
In my research, I found many answers to this question on how to engage your FB members. I have tried some of these unsuccessfully.
The First Thing You Should Do Before Creating A Facebook Group
The first point is primarily for those who haven’t yet formed a group. What kind of community do you want to create?
- What is your passion that you would like to share with others?
- What kind of atmosphere do you hope to create? Exciting and fun, or caring?
- Who do you want to include in your group to engage with? Could be singles, couples, single parents, etc.
- What conversations would you like to have or not have?
Another question is how often you should post. Ten times a day (not good. You don’t want to appear desperate to your members), three times a day, once a day, every two days, or once a week?
Build a sense of belonging. This advice is hard for me because I never felt a part of any group. How can someone do this after being mistreated their entire life? That’s something to think about.
Set some rules for your Facebook group. In mine, the only ones are no bullying or discrimination. However, I may add more rules in the future. After all, this is a brand new group.
The biggest mistake that admins make when they first start a group (I have also done this) is to talk a lot about themselves. Members don’t care about you. The goal of this group is to get some value out of it, not to read about your day or your experiences. What can you do to get people to respond to your posts?
I just posted one or two comments in that group, but since I have so many ideas, I created a sort of social media calendar for myself (to control my ADHD impulses and not to alienate my members).
Finally, I had at least one person post something, and that is good. There is something else I have noticed, forgotten, and realized is true. I will discuss it later.
Engaging your group members and getting them to respond to you.
So, aside from controlling your impulsive fingers, here are some other things that you can try to engage your Facebook groups on:
- Engage the audience with questions.
Whenever I have done this in the past, no one has responded. However, I had an impulse issue and maybe I posted it at the wrong time. I’m not sure. You can ask both closed and open-ended questions.
2. You should ask for their email address or you can message them.
This was something I forgot to do. Maybe I’ll do it on Messenger instead of email. But then, what if Facebook suddenly shuts down again? Plus, not many people are on it all the time.
3. Tag all members on the welcome page.
This works. Trust me, it gets their attention.
4. Use Facebook Live video.
I haven’t tried it yet, but it’s something we’ll need in the coming months. However, rather than seeing what you type on the keyboard, your members need to see your face.
5. Play fun group games on Facebook.
I have seen this in other groups. I don’t know of any online games for pagan groups. Something will come up, I’m sure. Think of a fun wrong answer questions, type your phone’s predictive text, or other similar games you can play with your members.
6. You can run contests and giveaways.
I have done this on my podcast, and no one entered. This one I would question until you get enough members in your group to enter. Otherwise, don’t do it once you have only five members.
7. Conduct polls.
I would also question this one, and it depends on what type of group you are in. I was last in a pagan coven that used it, but only one or two people answered it. When I conducted polls, only one person replied. There is a literary fan group, which I am in, that gets a lot of responses. I think you get the idea. I wouldn’t use polls right away if you’re starting a new FB group. It depends on the group you’re creating as well.
8. Post at the most engaging time.
You can find this out by going to Facebook or Meta Insights. This is the one rule I have forgotten. I just realized what time and day my members are most active online and this is without using Insights. Thus, I added that day to my Social Media calendar, however, you still have to post on the other days as well. In my case, on this particular day and time, they read past posts (and the welcome one I tagged them on, too). If you are having difficulty getting any response to an important message, find out when your group is more active and post it then.
9. Post about what your members are talking about.
I’m scratching my head over this. I don’t know what we’re talking about, other than organizing something. But, let me give you an example. If you created a fan page for your favorite TV show, you could discuss the latest episode.
10. Promote successful posts as the best engagement ones for Facebook.
If you are just starting out with your group, you might have to wait awhile before you can do this. But it is a good idea. Which brings me to another thing that you can get your members to engage in.
11. Repost some of the least popular ones at the most engaging time.
I have read about a member of another group who had this problem. It’s unlikely that Admin even noticed this person’s post. Find out which day is the most active in Insights and repost on that day.
12. Make use of badges.
I intend to try this with my group, but I doubt it will work. I got a few badges for being the most active in other groups. However, I do not believe that this would lead to more engagement with other members.
13. Eliminate spam.
In groups, there will be people with different intentions. Obviously, these so-called members did not read your rules or forgot about them after they spammed you and your group members. The only thing that you can do is to kick these spammers out.
And you can, of course, write some gatekeeping introductory questions for new members to answer. People do, however, lie. That’s where the next point comes in.
14. Specify what members can and cannot post in Facebook groups using the rules that you have written.
If you have a specific group in mind, you know what you want everyone to post. For example, you don’t want your members talking about politics since you want everyone to get along.
At the moment, my FB group’s rules prohibit bullying and discrimination. However, I have gotten two additional items that I may add to the Facebook group rules.
15. Make pinned posts.
I had never thought about this before. I might try it. You can pin the most or the least popular post you find interesting.
16. Post recurring Facebook days of the week.
My group, I’m not sure I’ll try this. I’ll give you an example of what I’m talking about. Assume you created a Facebook hobby group, where most of the members run businesses connected to the same interest. You don’t want them to constantly spam your other members, though. You can designate one day every week for small businesses to promote themselves. The rest of the week can be more generic.
17. Share articles about your topic with your members.
It’s much better to post an article and write something about it, instead of just saying nothing (and I’m guilty of this when I promote my podcast).
You can do more to engage your Facebook group. Maybe you can come up with something that isn’t mentioned here. However, one of the most important things you should remember is to stop posting comments about yourself and what you are doing. Nobody cares about that. They only care about what they want to get out of this group.
References
Dhamija, T. (n.d.). 25 Highly Effective Facebook Group Engagement Ideas For 2022. Convosight. Retrieved April 9, 2022, from https://www.convosight.com/blogs/best-strategies-to-increase-facebook-group-engagement-rate/
How to Boost Your Facebook Group Engagement. (2020, November 23). YouTube. Retrieved April 9, 2022, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqcnU5o5_A8
How to Create an Engaged Facebook Group: 5 Steps. (2020, December 9). YouTube. Retrieved April 9, 2022, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-m1lVaMQXN4
How to Improve Your Facebook Group Engagement. (2020, January 27). YouTube. Retrieved April 9, 2022, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flagNleLD9M
Keefe, C. (2021, September 7). 3 New Ways to Improve Your Facebook Group Engagement. Social Media Examiner. Retrieved April 9, 2022, from https://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/3-new-ways-to-improve-your-facebook-group-engagement/
Patel, N. (n.d.). How to Get More Engagement on Social Media (Without Being Pushy). Neil Patel. Retrieved April 9, 2022, from https://neilpatel.com/blog/how-to-get-more-engagement-on-social-media-without-being-pushy/
Patel, N. (n.d.). How to Keep Your Facebook Group Active and Engaged. Neil Patel. Retrieved April 9, 2022, from https://neilpatel.com/blog/facebook-group-marketing/