Case Studies and Customer testimonials have always been the best way to showcase the credibility and success of a business.

Through your social media channels it is so easy to upload your Case Studies but by using video to share a story about your company or by asking customers to provide video testimonials, you will really engage with your target audience and encourage them to take action. By interviewing customers about their experience with your company, not only will you have a powerful case study, you create a real human story and this reaches people on an emotional level.

The 2014 #IceBucketChallenge (yes it started in 2014!) was a perfect example of how to raise awareness of a brand. Facebook declared that over 2.4 million video challenges were shown on Facebook and over 28 million had liked, commented on the videos or posts.

Why did it work so well? Because people like to support great causes if it is something they can do easily but they also like to demonstrate their personal achievements. The challenge then encouraged friends to do the same.

By the end of the year the ALS (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis) Association raised $115 million, against $2.8 million in the previous year. The UK MND Foundation also benefitted from the challenge – in August 2014 alone it received donations of around £2.7 million.

​So what is stopping you? You have time, so create your short videos and just see how your engagement increases across your social channels.

Today I ran another online training session in Facebook for Business and a question that came up was "How do I increase my business page likes?"  There are a number of things that can do but adding great content that encourages likes, comments and shares is the best way to grow your page organically.  

Invite existing contacts (your friends) to like your Facebook page
Facebook makes it easy to invite personal Facebook connections to like your business Page, but be careful about how you use this feature. Simply sending out mass invites is more likely to get you unfriended than to bring in Facebook Likes for your Business Page.

How to Invite Friends to like your Page:

1. Go to your Page and click Community in the left column. You might have to click See more.
2. In the right column, click Invite your friends to like [your Page's name].
3. Enter a friend's name in the search box and then click Invite next to their name.

You can also see invitations to like a Page by going to your invites tab https://www.facebook.com/pages/?category=invites
 
Invite People Who React to Your Page's Posts
If your Page has less than 100,000 likes, you can invite people who react to your Page's posts to like your Page.

To invite people who react to your Page's posts:

1. Go to one of your Page's posts.
2. Click the reactions section of your Page's post. This will show who has reacted to your Page's post.
3. Next to a person's name, click "invite" to invite the person to like your Page.

Keep in mind that if your Page has more than 100,000 likes, you'll see the option to add people as a friend rather than invite them to like your Page.
 
Invite People to like your page
You can’t directly invite people (other than your Facebook friends) to like your page from your page but there are lots of other ways of directing people to your Facebook page.

But you can increase:

1. Likes on your Facebook posts
2. Likes (fans/followers) on your Facebook page

Both kinds of Likes are important. In fact, they drive each other.

The more "Likes" you get on your posts, the more Likes you'll get on your page and the more Likes you get on your page (the more followers you get), the more Likes you'll get on your posts. Getting more engagement on your posts will benefit your Facebook page more than anything else you do.

So how do you increase your engagement on Facebook:

1. Get people to pay attention to your posts
2. Get people to engage with your posts (ie. click on them)
3. Get people to share your posts with friends

If you get people to do these 3 things, your posts will reach a lot of people and they'll spread your brand far awareness across Facebook. Then people who've never heard of your brand will see your posts and many of them will "Like your page" in hope of seeing more. 

If you keep sharing great posts, they'll keep engaging with your page and every time they engage with your page, they'll send a signal telling Facebook to show them more and more and more of your posts without you having to pay a penny for Facebook Ads.

If you need to know about how you can increase your brand awareness on Facebook then please get in touch with SunflowerVA

There is not just one reason for this, there are many reasons why your Facebook Business Page organic reach is dropping:
 
Facebook defines organic reach as "how many people you can reach for free on Facebook by posting to your Page." Prior to 2012, that number used to be much, much higher than it is now. Changes in Facebook algorithms over the past few years is making it more and more difficult for "posts by pages” to be seen in news feeds.
 
Facebook has done this on purpose to encourage you to run paid ads. This is how Facebook earns money! When you check your analytics, you see the reach is dropping, you get frustrated and see there is a paid option. Lots of people get into this trap and start running ads without much knowledge on targeting the right audience.
 
When you set your page up you invited lots of people to like your page to increase "page likes" but the people who did so, are not necessarily your target audience. This is why when these people are not engaged or interested in your page content and therefore Facebook won't show your updates on their page.
 
You post too much or not at the right time. When you check your analytics, see when your audience is most engaged and active, post that time only. Facebook is not like Instagram so having 5 posts a day isn’t the best thing to do. Post 3-5 times a week using quality content that your fans will love and react to.
 
Do you follow your competitors? Constantly follow your competitors, do some research and see what strategy works for them. I am not saying copy what exactly they are doing but checking competitors' posts and strategy is always a good idea.
 
If you can’t post your content in real time, then ensure you schedule your posts directly on the Facebook platform – don’t use a third party app such as Hootesuite. Facebook will penalise your posts, by reducing the overall reach, if you use third party apps.
 
A few things you can do to increase your reach:
 
Remind your Fans they can go to Pages Feed on the left sidebar of their News Feed to see content from Pages they've Liked.
 
Encourage fans to engage with your posts when they do see them, so they see more of them. This can be as simple as adding a reminder to "Please Like and share" at the end of your posts.
 
According to a recent study Facebook videos have an 186% higher engagement rate and are shared more than 1000% more than videos linked to from other hosting sites, so start using video on Facebook to build interest in your posts and your page.

If you found these tips useful please like or share them with other business owners who are looking for some inspiration!