The way Facebook works is that they like posts that get a high engagement – like, comment or share – and will put that post out to more of your followers. The more people that like, comment and share, the more people will see it. That is why it isn’t a good idea to get all your massage therapist friends on Facebook to like your page – it dilutes the reach of your post. It will go out to your Facebook friends but it might get out to the local people who like your page who are your potential clients.
Right now the posts that go the farthest are posts that stir emotion: cute cat/dog/animal videos, crazy things like the blue dress phenomenon, outrageous news and events. You have to compete for attention on Facebook. The average user just scrolls through their feed a few times a day and your post will be on amid hundreds of posts from pages/friends.
How to Write Posts that get more engagement and more page likes.
How will you get noticed? Here is what I have found.
- Video posts currently have a higher engagement rate according to Facebook, especially Facebook Live.
- Link posts get the next highest visibility. To create a link post, just place a link to your website into the post box. It will scan for a second and pull up images from your page. Choose the appropriate image to share. You can then also delete the actual link and the user will still be able to click on the link to get to your destination. To do this you will need to use OG tags (Open Graph tags). For WordPress: To get Facebook to pull the correct picture, you will need a plugin such as the WordPress Open Graph or the Facebook Official Plugin . You will have to find out how to add them to whatever website system you are using. The image size is also important for this. Be sure to use image dimensions that match up well with the 484×252 space given (1200×627 is the optimal upload size.)
- Find posts from other people that get a lot of engagement. Quotes, nice pictures, funny pictures with sayings on them.
- Create your own photos with sayings on them and place them on your website so when you create a link post, Facebook will pull that photo up and show it in a post. Use metatags on the page that also will be pulled into the post on Facebook and will make people want to click on the link to find out more. Use free photo editing software: www.picmonkey.com and/or www.canva.com
- Ask a question. T or F questions are good. Also things like “What would you do if you won a million dollars”?
- Create a fill in the blank question.
A Week without a massage is like _________ - Use one of these massage related quote photos that I have collected on my page for you.
The only way people will see posts for sure is if they use the ‘Get notifications’ feature and then actually see it in the notifications. This still is not a guarantee they will see the post.
So it gets harder and harder to get your posts seen.
The idea behind all of this is to get more engagement per post to get more people to like your page. When creating your posts you can add a call to action for some of them that are more related to massage or stress. In a way this all really seems silly. You have to be more of an entertainer than an informational provider. You have to decide if this will work for you and your business. There are also other ways to get more clients like having a really good website (That you can actually even do yourself!).
When you then create a post asking people to make an appointment, you most likely will get little response but because you have a full page of fans you can now pay for posts and try to reach them to make an appointment.
So the idea is to create posts that get high engagement. Then when you go to boost a post or create an ad, it will be seen more. It will also cost you less per click! (See Facebook advertising section.)