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5 Ways to Increase Post Engagement on Your Facebook Business Page

StrategyDriven Online Marketing and Website Development Article, 5 Ways to Increase Post Engagement on Your Facebook Business Page

Are you using Facebook as a platform for your business? Do you notice your post engagement losing some steam?

Post engagement is one of the key metrics that say how effective your Facebook business page is. It measures your followers’ loyalty to your brand.

With 80% of businesses using Facebook in their marketing strategies, you need to increase your Facebook page post engagement. But how do you do it? What are the techniques that you need to start practicing?

Continue reading below as we look at five effective ways to increase your post engagement.

The Value of Post Engagement

What is post engagement on Facebook? As we mentioned earlier, it is a metric that measures the activities your Facebook posts generate.

But why is it important?

Facebook engagement helps increase your social media reach. Your brand will get more exposure. In turn, you will generate more leads faster.

Furthermore, post engagement also serves as a cost-effective way of marketing your products. Instead of paying for expensive TV ads and billboards, social media engagement will cost you very little.

5 Techniques to Boost Your Post Engagement

Part of learning how to grow a Facebook page is managing your posts. Here are five effective ways that will boost the number of interactions on your Facebook account:

1. Timing is Key

Don’t just post on Facebook anytime you want. Instead, schedule your posts accordingly. Post during times when most of your fans are online.

Use a Facebook scheduling tool to determine the best times to publish your posts.

2. Create More Videos

Do most of your posts involve plain text? Try upping the ante by posting more videos.

Users love watching videos. They find it more engaging than plain text. But you need to make your videos entertaining and informative at the same time.

Moreover, post the videos directly to your Facebook page. Avoid posting a link to your videos coming from your YouTube account.

Also, consider publishing interactive Facebook posts. Try doing a Facebook Live once a week. Users love it when they can directly interact with the brands they follow in real-time.

3. Boost and Recycle

Remember your top posts from a month ago? Consider boosting them to increase engagement. Boosting will only cost you a minimal fee.

Alternatively, you should consider recycling your top posts.

When recycling them, tweak the posts a little. You may add a question or incorporate a video or image.

4. Brevity and Quality

Another effective way of increasing engagement is to shorten your posts. Keep them brief as much as you can, as longer posts may bore users.

But make sure your posts do not fall short in quality. Try using witty statements or ask them quick questions.

5. CTA Matters

Last but not least, you need to include a call-to-action (CTA) to your posts. A CTA sends the message that you want to hear from them. Throwing a question at the end of your post is a good option.

You may also create polls to see how they feel about a certain topic. You can go here to learn how to create a poll on Facebook.

Take Your Facebook Business Page to the Next Level

By increasing your Facebook post engagement, you can build your brand faster and create new leads for conversion. But post engagement is only one area you must work on.

Learn more strategies by reading our different articles. We discuss other techniques that will help take your social media pages to the next level.

Tips on hotel marketing 2019 (including email marketing)

StrategyDriven Marketing and Sales Article | Tips on hotel marketing 2019 (including email marketing)Promoting your hotel to your target audience, increasing occupancy rates and online bookings, maximising your ROI and engaging with guests can often be an overwhelming task. This is where hotel marketing comes to the fore, because it includes a range of strategies that can be combined into one cohesive marketing campaign. These strategies include internet marketing, social media marketing and email marketing, but basically it’s all about understanding how to make your hotel stand out from the competition.

Larger hotels can afford to employ individuals who specialise in just one of these strategies, building a team of marketers who design specialised campaigns to promote specific aspects of their hotels. Smaller hotels however, usually rely on one or two individuals to organise all their hotel’s marketing strategies. If you are feeling overwhelmed with the concept of hotel marketing and don’t have the backup of a team of marketing professionals, your first goal is to identify your hotel’s target market and then explore the different types of vehicles you can use to run your campaigns (including internet marketing, social media marketing and email marketing).

Who is your target market?

Unless you can clearly identify your target market, any marketing campaigns will likely have limited success, at best. It’s essential that you know the type of guests you want to attract to your hotel, their likes and dislikes, and where they hang out online. Once you have this information at your fingertips, you can craft numerous campaigns to specifically target different sub-groups of this audience, pushing their buttons and giving them every reason to book accommodation at your hotel.

Your target market will depend on your brand, whether it’s young and trendy, modern, conservative or traditional. It will also depend on the size of your hotel, whether it’s part of a big chain or a small and independent boutique establishment, even whether it focuses on luxury or budget accommodation, and it’s location.

Once you understand your brand, you will start to understand your target market and be able to identify the type of holidays they prefer, their budget and their reasons for traveling. For example, your target market might be couples with young children who have a limited budget and like to visit the beach, researching hotels online and avidly reading reviews to help them make their decision.

Alternatively, your target market might be empty nesters or single people who have a large budget and look for luxury accommodation in unique locations and are willing to pay for a one-of-a-kind experience. Then there are groups of friends or large family groups who love company and socialising with others of like mind. If they have children they look for accommodation that offers child minding services and plenty of activities to keep their kids occupied. If they are groups of friends, they look for lots of exciting activities and trips they can do together from one location.

Understanding your brand and your target market is only the first step in creating a successful hotel marketing plan. Let’s take a look at online marketing, email marketing and social media marketing and identify how each of these can have a significant impact on your hotel’s success in a very competitive market space.

Online marketing

With the massive increase of online shopping, it’s no surprise that hotels need to market their brand online to their target audience. Many travellers now research their accommodation online, reading reviews, researching the area and once they have made their decision, actually making an online booking. With more than half of all bookings made online and half of these bookings made using mobile devices, you can understand the importance of online marketing to the success of your hotel. In fact, without an online presence and a professionally crafted marketing campaign, hotels don’t have much hope of outwitting the competition and increasing their occupancy rates.

Online marketing is actually an umbrella term for a variety of marketing vehicles, including email marketing, social media marketing, SEO and video marketing. This wide variety of platforms gives hotel marketing teams the opportunity to flex their creative muscles and find unique ways to engage with their target audience. For example, some people are visual and respond to images or videos better than to text, whilst others are happy to settle down for a good read. All of this information comes from thoroughly understanding your target audience and what motivates them to travel.

One of the most important aspects of online marketing is that it must be tailored to your target audience and it must come across as a personal message, rather than a generic promotion. People like to believe that they are special and by personalising your marketing messages you will be speaking directly to their goals, motivations, needs and desires. Ignoring these needs or simply not understanding what your target audience wants from their accommodation often leads to low occupancy rates, fewer repeat bookings and poor reviews.

Email marketing

Email marketing, if it’s done correctly, can make a massive difference to your occupancy rates and repeat bookings. This is one of the most cost-effective marketing strategies available to hotel operators, because it’s estimated that for every $1 you spend on email marketing, you receive a return of $38, which is a massive ROI.

Your first step is to put together an email list of potential guests who may want to stay at your hotel and guests who want to be kept informed of any special offers. You can encourage people to sign up to receive your promotional emails by simply adding a sign-on box to your website or Facebook page, as well as asking them in person during their stay at your hotel. Research has shown that it’s much more cost-effective to spend your budget on repeat business, rather than trying to attract new guests to your hotel, and email campaigns are the perfect vehicle for engaging prior guests with an offer.

If you personalise your email marketing campaign to your target audience, you might be quite surprised at how many recipients will make a booking, simply based on the information in your email. This type of marketing is ideal if you know that there is a quiet period coming up and you want to increase your occupancy rates. Here are a few tips for putting together this type of email marketing:

  • Target repeat guests.
  • Focus on peak times.
  • Personalise email promotions.
  • Identify the best days and times to send your marketing materials.
  • Create engaging subject lines.
  • Use stunning photos to increase engagement.
  • Optimise your CTAs to encourage direct online bookings.

Social Media Marketing

With the popularity of social media, using this vehicle to promote your hotel is a given and the most popular platforms are Facebook and Instagram. This is where your guests and potential guests will spend a lot of their time online and where you can engage them with your marketing promotions. It’s well-known that people tend to trust the opinions of their friends, so it’s no surprise to learn that more than half of Facebook users are inspired by holiday snaps they see on Facebook. This is a huge opportunity for hotels to build a loyal following online and to increase their occupancy rates using engaging promotions aimed specifically at their target market.

To make the most out of social media marketing you will need to create a large online following on Facebook and Instagram, both of which can be achieved by adding share buttons on your website and asking guests to write reviews and ‘like’ your online content. Writing quality content with great photos and videos of unique locations in your area will all help to engage your target audience with your promotional materials.

You can even include links to your social media sites as part of your email marketing campaigns, encouraging recipients to visit your Facebook or Instagram page. On the subject of video marketing, you can create videos and upload them to your own YouTube channel or website, even ask guests to create their own videos that they can post on their own Facebook page or allow you to upload them to your website or Facebook page.

Facebook marketing

On Facebook, you can not only post your own content to engage your target audience, but you can also create and promote paid ads that will reach thousands of people, all over the world. For example, you can offer exclusive accommodation offers or discounts to people who have ‘liked’ your page, if they book online within the next five days.

To further enhance your social media offerings, you can now add a BOOK NOW button to your Facebook page and even your Facebook ads, which connects directly with your booking engine. The great benefits of Facebook marketing is that you are only limited by your budget and you receive virtually instant feedback from your ads.

Instagram marketing

With a focus on high quality images, Instagram is the perfect platform for hotel marketing. Travellers and holidaymakers love Instagram because they can view thousands of images that help them to decide on their next trip. You can advertise your hotel on Instagram by including a BOOK NOW button on your Instagram page and also respond to customers enquiries via Instagram.

Although Instagram has mainly been popular with a younger demographic, it’s now becoming popular with an older audience who appreciate its functionality. Here are some examples of images that will engage your target audience:

  • Hotel staff interacting with guests.
  • Guests enjoying themselves at the hotel.
  • Highlight your hotel’s facilities – spa, pool or beach.
  • Guests dining in your restaurant.
  • Local attractions and scenery.
  • New menu items.
  • Guest and staff selfies.

It’s also a good idea to engage with posts from other operators in your area, for example travel operators or local attractions. Don’t forget to use hashtags in your Instagram posts, as this will make your content searchable and you can identify people who use these hashtags, commenting on their accounts and promoting further engagement.

Take home messages

Internet marketing, social media marketing and email marketing are all vital strategies that will help your hotel to engage with your target audience, increase bookings and improve your ROI.

However, you also need to make sure that your website is responsive, so that it opens correctly on all mobile devices and allows people to book online using their smartphones. Also invest in SEO as this will help to increase the visibility of your website in Google and other search engines, encouraging more traffic to your website. If you combine all of these strategies together, you will soon see a significant increase in engagement and bookings at your hotel.

Top 5 Facebook ads strategies for ecom or dropshipping

StrategyDriven Online Marketing and Website Development Article | Top 5 Facebook ads strategies for ecom or dropshipping | Facebook Ads | EntrepreneurshipIf you are looking forward to boost the popularity of your dropshipping business and get more orders, you must take a look at Facebook marketing. In fact, Facebook paid advertisements are in a position to provide outstanding results to you. At Strategy Driven, our favourite course for ecommerce is Franklin Hatchett’s ecom elites course. The ecom elites review on aaronsreview.com goes into great detail as to why you should buy the course.  As an alternative, you can also work with Facebook advertising agencies.

As the first thing, you need to understand that Facebook advertising is completely different from Google advertising. If you are familiar with Google advertising, you will not be able to apply the same strategies in here to end up with positive outcomes. You must be aware about the specific strategies, which can help you gain positive results in Facebook.

Here is a list of 5 such effective Facebook ads strategies that you can follow for dropshipping or ecommerce. All these strategies can provide amazing returns to you and you will be able to go ahead with any out of them.

1. Make sure that you create a sense of exclusivity

Facebook is all about exclusivity. Therefore, you need to make sure that your advertisements on Facebook are also in a position to create a sense of exclusivity. This can provide you with a clear advantage by being on a social media network such as Facebook. You should always provide exclusive content via the Facebook ads. This can consume a lot of time and effort. But when you compare it with the returns that you get, you will be able to have a clear idea about the benefits that come on your way.

2. Highlight before and after

In the Facebook advertisements, you need to highlight the conditions that exist before a specific action and the conditions that exist after a specific action. No matter what kind of a product you are trying to promote with Facebook, you need to take it out of the box and snap a photo to be uploaded to Facebook. Then you need to snap another similar photo after you use the product. Both these photos should be combined and uploaded on Facebook.

For example, assume that you are going to sell running shoes through your ecommerce store. The first thing you need to do is to take out the running shoes, keep them along with the wrapping and then capture a photo. Then you need to take another photo, which indicates a person wearing the running shoes. This photo should be taken with a nice background behind it. If you can follow this strategy, you will be able to get the best possible results out of your Facebook advertisements.

3. Receive benefits from the fame of your competitors

When you are promoting a dropshipping or an ecommerce business on Facebook, you need to pay special attention towards the competition. However, you will be able to take advantage from the fame of your competitors.

Many people worry that having famous and reputed competitors is a disadvantage. That’s because people often tend to go ahead with the brands that they can easily recognize. However, you will be able to talk about those recognizing brands and then tell that there is something even more interesting and better. With that approach, you can promote your product. This will provide you with a better opportunity to grab the attention of your audience.

All you have to do is to upload a post with information related to the product offered by your competitor. Inside the post, you can promote your product according to the above-mentioned approach.

4. Highlight the contrast

You must be selling variant or customizable products through your ecommerce store. In such a situation, you need to make sure that you upload Facebook advertisements, which highlight the contrast between them and the ordinary products available in the market.

You can even do with the help of exact same shoes as well. All you have to do is to introduce the different colors and textures, when your customer keeps on scrolling through. This can give life to an outstanding advertisement in the long run. It can also highlight all the variants that you have got for sale under your store as well.

However, you need to understand that it is not possible to receive effective results by paying attention only towards the colors. You should also take a look at the fonts and background colors as well. That’s where you need to think about handing this over to a professional designer. Then you can completely focus on promoting your dropshipping or ecommerce store on Facebook.

5. Create excitement about products on the minds of customers

Through Facebook advertisements, it is also possible for you to create excitement about your products in the minds of customers. You just need to think the most exciting moment for your customer would be in the product lifecycle. In most of the products, unboxing is the most exciting part. For that, you need to select a product and then promote it via Facebook advertisements. Due to the excitement that you create among customers, they will be tempted to visit the ecommerce store. As a result, you will be able to generate a significant income out of it as well. That’s because you can get more people from Facebook to purchase the product that you offer. It can create a positive impact on the other products available for your purchase in the ecommerce store as well.

Any ecommerce or dropshipping store owner will be able to follow these strategies. Then you can easily end up with outstanding results. You will also fall in love with Facebook advertisements due to the amazing returns that are offered to you in the long run.

StrategyDriven Podcast Special Edition 54 – An Interview with Gail Martin, author of 30 Days to Social Media Success

StrategyDriven Podcasts focus on the tools and techniques executives and managers can use to improve their organization’s alignment and accountability to ultimately achieve superior results. These podcasts elaborate on the best practice and warning flag articles on the StrategyDriven website.

Special Edition 54 – An Interview with Gail Martin, author of 30 Days to Social Media Success explores approaches to effective business marketing using social media outlets such as Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and blogging; marketing that drives traffic and ultimately results in increased sales. During our discussion, Gail Martin, author of 30 Days to Social Media Success: The 30 Day Results Guide to Making the Most of Twitter, Blogging, LinkedIn, and Facebook, share with us her insights, approaches, and real-world experiences regarding:

  • what social media marketing is and several examples of this type of communication channel
  • quantifiable results businesses realize as a result of implementing an effective social media strategy
  • how social media marketing results can be quantifiably measured
  • costs associated with implementing a social media marketing strategy in terms of time and money
  • how Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and blogging can be effectively used as marketing tools

Additional Information

In addition to the incredible insights Gail shares in 30 Days to Social Media Success and this special edition podcast are the resources accessible from her website, www.GailMartinMarketing.com.   Gail’s book, 30 Days to Social Media Success, can be purchased by clicking here.

Final Request…

The strength of our community grows with the additional insights brought by our expanding member base. Please consider rating us on iTunes by clicking here. Rating the StrategyDriven Podcast and providing your comments online improves our ranking and helps us attract new listeners which, in turn, helps us grow our community.

Thank you again for listening to the StrategyDriven Podcast!


About the Authors

Gail Martin, author of 30 Days to Social Media Success, is a marketing expert and international speaker, and the owner of DreamSpinner Communications. She is the ‘Get Results Resource’ for marketing that works; helping small and start-up businesses, consultants, coaches, authors, and solo professionals succeed through affordable publicity. To read Gail’s complete biography, click here.

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Tips on hotel marketing 2019 (including email marketing)

StrategyDriven Marketing and Sales Article | Tips on hotel marketing 2019 (including email marketing)Promoting your hotel to your target audience, increasing occupancy rates and online bookings, maximising your ROI and engaging with guests can often be an overwhelming task. This is where hotel marketing comes to the fore, because it includes a range of strategies that can be combined into one cohesive marketing campaign. These strategies include internet marketing, social media marketing and email marketing, but basically it’s all about understanding how to make your hotel stand out from the competition.

Larger hotels can afford to employ individuals who specialise in just one of these strategies, building a team of marketers who design specialised campaigns to promote specific aspects of their hotels. Smaller hotels however, usually rely on one or two individuals to organise all their hotel’s marketing strategies. If you are feeling overwhelmed with the concept of hotel marketing and don’t have the backup of a team of marketing professionals, your first goal is to identify your hotel’s target market and then explore the different types of vehicles you can use to run your campaigns (including internet marketing, social media marketing and email marketing).

Who is your target market?

Unless you can clearly identify your target market, any marketing campaigns will likely have limited success, at best. It’s essential that you know the type of guests you want to attract to your hotel, their likes and dislikes, and where they hang out online. Once you have this information at your fingertips, you can craft numerous campaigns to specifically target different sub-groups of this audience, pushing their buttons and giving them every reason to book accommodation at your hotel.

Your target market will depend on your brand, whether it’s young and trendy, modern, conservative or traditional. It will also depend on the size of your hotel, whether it’s part of a big chain or a small and independent boutique establishment, even whether it focuses on luxury or budget accommodation, and it’s location.

Once you understand your brand, you will start to understand your target market and be able to identify the type of holidays they prefer, their budget and their reasons for traveling. For example, your target market might be couples with young children who have a limited budget and like to visit the beach, researching hotels online and avidly reading reviews to help them make their decision.

Alternatively, your target market might be empty nesters or single people who have a large budget and look for luxury accommodation in unique locations and are willing to pay for a one-of-a-kind experience. Then there are groups of friends or large family groups who love company and socialising with others of like mind. If they have children they look for accommodation that offers child minding services and plenty of activities to keep their kids occupied. If they are groups of friends, they look for lots of exciting activities and trips they can do together from one location.

Understanding your brand and your target market is only the first step in creating a successful hotel marketing plan. Let’s take a look at online marketing, email marketing and social media marketing and identify how each of these can have a significant impact on your hotel’s success in a very competitive market space.

Online marketing

With the massive increase of online shopping, it’s no surprise that hotels need to market their brand online to their target audience. Many travellers now research their accommodation online, reading reviews, researching the area and once they have made their decision, actually making an online booking. With more than half of all bookings made online and half of these bookings made using mobile devices, you can understand the importance of online marketing to the success of your hotel. In fact, without an online presence and a professionally crafted marketing campaign, hotels don’t have much hope of outwitting the competition and increasing their occupancy rates.

Online marketing is actually an umbrella term for a variety of marketing vehicles, including email marketing, social media marketing, SEO and video marketing. This wide variety of platforms gives hotel marketing teams the opportunity to flex their creative muscles and find unique ways to engage with their target audience. For example, some people are visual and respond to images or videos better than to text, whilst others are happy to settle down for a good read. All of this information comes from thoroughly understanding your target audience and what motivates them to travel.

One of the most important aspects of online marketing is that it must be tailored to your target audience and it must come across as a personal message, rather than a generic promotion. People like to believe that they are special and by personalising your marketing messages you will be speaking directly to their goals, motivations, needs and desires. Ignoring these needs or simply not understanding what your target audience wants from their accommodation often leads to low occupancy rates, fewer repeat bookings and poor reviews.

Email marketing

Email marketing, if it’s done correctly, can make a massive difference to your occupancy rates and repeat bookings. This is one of the most cost-effective marketing strategies available to hotel operators, because it’s estimated that for every $1 you spend on email marketing, you receive a return of $38, which is a massive ROI.

Your first step is to put together an email list of potential guests who may want to stay at your hotel and guests who want to be kept informed of any special offers. You can encourage people to sign up to receive your promotional emails by simply adding a sign-on box to your website or Facebook page, as well as asking them in person during their stay at your hotel. Research has shown that it’s much more cost-effective to spend your budget on repeat business, rather than trying to attract new guests to your hotel, and email campaigns are the perfect vehicle for engaging prior guests with an offer.

If you personalise your email marketing campaign to your target audience, you might be quite surprised at how many recipients will make a booking, simply based on the information in your email. This type of marketing is ideal if you know that there is a quiet period coming up and you want to increase your occupancy rates. Here are a few tips for putting together this type of email marketing:

  • Target repeat guests.
  • Focus on peak times.
  • Personalise email promotions.
  • Identify the best days and times to send your marketing materials.
  • Create engaging subject lines.
  • Use stunning photos to increase engagement.
  • Optimise your CTAs to encourage direct online bookings.

Social Media Marketing

With the popularity of social media, using this vehicle to promote your hotel is a given and the most popular platforms are Facebook and Instagram. This is where your guests and potential guests will spend a lot of their time online and where you can engage them with your marketing promotions. It’s well-known that people tend to trust the opinions of their friends, so it’s no surprise to learn that more than half of Facebook users are inspired by holiday snaps they see on Facebook. This is a huge opportunity for hotels to build a loyal following online and to increase their occupancy rates using engaging promotions aimed specifically at their target market.

To make the most out of social media marketing you will need to create a large online following on Facebook and Instagram, both of which can be achieved by adding share buttons on your website and asking guests to write reviews and ‘like’ your online content. Writing quality content with great photos and videos of unique locations in your area will all help to engage your target audience with your promotional materials.

You can even include links to your social media sites as part of your email marketing campaigns, encouraging recipients to visit your Facebook or Instagram page. On the subject of video marketing, you can create videos and upload them to your own YouTube channel or website, even ask guests to create their own videos that they can post on their own Facebook page or allow you to upload them to your website or Facebook page.

Facebook marketing

On Facebook, you can not only post your own content to engage your target audience, but you can also create and promote paid ads that will reach thousands of people, all over the world. For example, you can offer exclusive accommodation offers or discounts to people who have ‘liked’ your page, if they book online within the next five days.

To further enhance your social media offerings, you can now add a BOOK NOW button to your Facebook page and even your Facebook ads, which connects directly with your booking engine. The great benefits of Facebook marketing is that you are only limited by your budget and you receive virtually instant feedback from your ads.

Instagram marketing

With a focus on high quality images, Instagram is the perfect platform for hotel marketing. Travellers and holidaymakers love Instagram because they can view thousands of images that help them to decide on their next trip. You can advertise your hotel on Instagram by including a BOOK NOW button on your Instagram page and also respond to customers enquiries via Instagram.

Although Instagram has mainly been popular with a younger demographic, it’s now becoming popular with an older audience who appreciate its functionality. Here are some examples of images that will engage your target audience:

  • Hotel staff interacting with guests.
  • Guests enjoying themselves at the hotel.
  • Highlight your hotel’s facilities – spa, pool or beach.
  • Guests dining in your restaurant.
  • Local attractions and scenery.
  • New menu items.
  • Guest and staff selfies.

It’s also a good idea to engage with posts from other operators in your area, for example travel operators or local attractions. Don’t forget to use hashtags in your Instagram posts, as this will make your content searchable and you can identify people who use these hashtags, commenting on their accounts and promoting further engagement.

Take home messages

Internet marketing, social media marketing and email marketing are all vital strategies that will help your hotel to engage with your target audience, increase bookings and improve your ROI.

However, you also need to make sure that your website is responsive, so that it opens correctly on all mobile devices and allows people to book online using their smartphones. Also invest in SEO as this will help to increase the visibility of your website in Google and other search engines, encouraging more traffic to your website. If you combine all of these strategies together, you will soon see a significant increase in engagement and bookings at your hotel.