Facebook 101: How to Engage Your Followers with Interesting Status Updates

In last week’s blog post, we showed you how to create an effective Facebook business page to generate sales leads for your company. Now, we’re going to explain how you can build engagement on Facebook by posting interesting status updates.

The Importance of Posting Company Updates on Facebook

While designing your business page and adding custom tabs are important, it’s worth noting that many people who “like” your page may never visit it again. That’s why posting status updates is the key to the success of your business page. Even if people who liked your page never return to it, you can still engage them by posting status updates that show up in their Facebook news feed.

Facebook status updates (also called “wall posts”) can consist of text, a photo or a video. To maximize your Facebook exposure, you’ll need to create valuable content and post it as one of the following types of status updates:

• Text: Post a text update (250 characters maximum) with a hyperlink that displays a thumbnail image.

• Photo: Post your update as a photo, then add a brief comment and a shortened URL.

• Video: Post your update as a video with a brief description or comment (according to HubSpot’s report, The Science of Facebook 2011, status updates that include the word “video” are shared 30% more on Facebook than posts that do not).

To post a status update, click in the Status box near the top left corner of your Facebook wall and type the text you want to share. If you want to post the status update as a photo or video, click the Photo/Video link above the Status box.

Once you begin posting status updates, you’ll also want to opt-in to receive Email Notifications when people post to, comment on or message your business page (this option is on the Your Settings tab of the Admin Panel). In addition, be sure to post several interesting status updates to your page before you begin inviting others to “like” it – and to continue posting on a regular basis to engage your new followers.

Now that you’ve populated your company’s business page, you’ll need to find people who are interested in the information that your company is posting on Facebook. We will talk more about this in our next post on building an audience.