Over the years, Facebook has changed the way its business pages work, especially in terms of engagement with your audience. Over the past few months, I’ve noticed my photography business page has suffered and is no longer getting the attention that it once had.

Engagement is the name of the game here. And there’s a few tricks in order to help boost your numbers on the world’s most popular social network.

Post Regularly

It’s important that you put something on your Facebook page on a regular basis. This can be daily, twice a day, a few times a week…you name it. But wait too long and the chances of your posts being seen on your audience’s news feed will suffer. Posting too often can have a negative effect, too. You don’t want to spam your audience to the point where they’ll unlike your page.  For me, I’ve been trying to post on a daily basis during the week. If you own a wedding or family photography business, you might want to consider posting more on the weekend. Be sure to schedule your posts when you’ll get the most engagement.

Schedule Your Posts for the Most Engagement

By checking your Facebook insights, you’ll be able to see the best times to schedule your posts. For me, it looks like my audience is online pretty consistently throughout the day. During the week, it seems to slightly peak mid-afternoon. On Friday, Saturday and Sunday, it peaks in the evening.

From here, it’s a matter of experimentation. What posts have gotten the most engagement in the last few months, and when have you published those posts?

Diversify Your Content, But Stay Consistent

As photographers, obviously, we’re going to post a lot of photographs to our Facebook page. Think about how likely it is that your post will be shared to other Facebook users. By adding an interesting caption, a memorable quote or joke, you increase the likelihood that your post will be shared. Emotion will definitely lead to an engaged audience.

At the same time, it’s important to stay consistent. If you aren’t a wedding photographer but decided to shoot a wedding for a friend, that doesn’t belong on your business page, unless you want to start being known as a wedding photographer. Instead, you want to post photos and other media with a similar look and feel, and that match your business’ vision.

Don’t Get Personal

Your photography business might be your personal business. But that doesn’t mean you have to share your personal views. For instance, you’ll never find me posting political or religious views on my business page. It’s not because I don’t have an opinion — but rather, it’s because I don’t want my opinions influencing my potential clients.

About a year ago, a local pizzeria went on a pro-Trump rant on Facebook. The owner described Hillary Clinton as the “most evil corrupt dishonest lying person on the planet.” To each their own. But why does your pizzeria clientele need to know your political views? They’re there to eat pizza. Just like your photography clients — they’re there to get great photos taken.

Specify Your Audience

Your posts won’t always apply to all of your Facebook audience. By targeting each post to a specific subset, you can increase your chances of engagement with that subset of people, while not giving other audience members the desire to unlike your page.

Tag, Tag, Tag

When you’re posting client work, tag them (when appropriate). It’s also important to ask your clients to tag you whenever possible, as that will help boost your audience. By tagging clients or other interested parties, you get them to see your work. This doesn’t mean you should spam the biggest company in town that you’ve always wanted to work for, but think about the benefits of tagging the local city government in your post about a cool skyline photo you took.

Conclusion

While some of these ideas might be common sense, a lot of them are overlooked by photographers and other business owners alike. By keeping these in mind whenever you set up your Facebook posts, you can hopefully influence your audience, and make them more active on your page.

 

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