Unless you’ve been living under a rock the past couple of years, you will have noticed that organic Facebook engagement has declined. This results in most people paying for ads to increase their overall engagement. While you should put Facebook ads into your budget, you can still break through the muck with some organic strategies!

Want More Facebook Engagement? Be Ready to Work

Be warned, these methods involve putting in the time and energy to generate results. They don’t happen overnight.

Six Strategies to Boost Facebook Engagement Organically

1. Post More Often

The first thing you must do is increase the frequency of your posts. You want to provide ample opportunities for people to engage with you throughout the day. As for the exact number, it will all depend on your audience. Over time you will determine what the magic formula is for your audience. For some it might be 3 posts, and for others it could be a lot more. The key is to utilize various numbers of posts until you find a number that generates the greatest return for the least output.

2. Spice Things Up

Secondly, add variety to your posts. If all of your posts are basic status updates, you are missing out on a huge opportunity to connect with people on Facebook. People want to connect with individuals on a personal level, whether it’s a business or not. If every post is the same, then people won’t be able to get to know the person behind the brand. This is especially true for small businesses. You will want to utilize a variety of post types each day. Here’s a few examples:

• Video
• Images
• Quotes
• Surveys

You definitely want to test different post types and determine what combination generates the greatest response from your followers.

3. Don’t Post and Run

Social media is about engagement, so if you are posting on your page and not engaging with your following, you’re leaving money on the table. A post is a way for someone to interact with you. If people feel they cannot do this, they will move on to someone else who will.

4. Leverage Live Video

In terms of authenticity, it doesn’t get much better than live streaming. Utilize a variety of themes for your streams. Let them:

• Get to know you
• See you when you’re not working
• Glimpse behind the scenes

Your goal is to create engagement and get them to see you in an unedited fashion. Think of it as a snapshot of your life. Ideally, you will want to stream on a daily basis to maximize your potential returns.

5. Ask People to Get Notified

Show people how to get notified when you post, and ask them to turn on their notifications so they won’t miss anything when you post something new. This will help ensure your audience is aware of new posts, as well as when you go live. The more people that can quickly engage with your content, the quicker the process of pushing it out on the platform will be.

6. Be Authentic

Lastly, let people see the real you. People want to get to know who you are as much as possible. In every industry there are countless people who do exactly what you do. The only thing that separates you from the competition is what you do to build a relationship with a prospect. To attract the greatest number of ideal clients to your business on a daily basis, you must make it your mission to show up in a 100% real fashion.

Start Boosting Facebook Engagement Today

Social media is a powerful platform, and implementing the above strategies will help you improve your organic Facebook reach for a personal Facebook account and a Facebook business page.

Boost Organic #Facebook Engagement Tips by @ByronIngraham #RocksDigital #SocialMedia
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Are you engaging your Facebook followers, or pulling a post-and-run? Starting engaging today with commenting below!

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At some point in our lives, we have all heard the phrase traditionally used in storytelling, “Once upon a time.” From a very young age in life, the way we learn has been through the use of stories. Stories are an embedded part of our lives as a way of communicating ideas and concepts. They can also have a profound impact in people’s lives. Simply look at the number of people today who are engineers because of watching TV shows such as Star Trek.

Storytelling Can Promote Your Brand and Create Sales

In business, one simply has to look at a commercial to see the effective use of stories to sell a product. How many times have you watched a commercial and thought “I absolutely must have that product!” Often this is the result of an emotional connection that was generated. As a society, we tend to make buying decisions based on our emotions. It’s the reason that when you look at commercials aimed at children, they are full of fun and excitement.

When utilized properly, a story can influence a buying decision. On a larger scale, simply look at the various products that are produced to go along with various television shows and movies. The products allow consumers to feel as if they are part of the story. For instance, simply look at the sheer number of products on the market today as part of the Star Wars universe.

Learn to Leverage Stories and Storytelling

For business owners, learning how to leverage stories as part of a marketing campaign can have a significant impact on the bottom line. Traditionally, most ads used by business owners tend to focus on promoting either the features or the benefits of their products or services. While this is a great start, it is missing a key ingredient. By incorporating a story, it allows prospects to become part of your world and feel a connection to it.

How to Incorporate Storytelling into Promoting Your Products and Services

Below are 5 key components that every story must have to compel your audience to want to know more about you, and ultimately buy from you.

1. Social Value: When people think of your product, what value does it add to their life? Because there are a multitude of choices consumers can make in today’s world, it’s vital for it to stand out. The product you are promoting should have enough value that it compels people to want to talk about it. If the product lacks value, or it’s not something people want to share, you have to look at ways to change its packaging so people will. Connection: Does the story connect with your audience? Does it remind them of something they are currently experiencing in their life?

2. Emotional: Because people buy with their emotions, how does your product or service make someone feel after they use it? The stronger the emotional ties people have with it, the more likely a person will be to purchase it, as well as to influence the buying decisions of their friends. It is vital to know what emotion triggers buying for your industry. Because people will move towards pleasure or away from pain, you must carefully consider how to position your product or service to utilize one of these core emotions.

3. Social Proof: Social proof can come in many forms. For example, in commercials promoting toys children are often seen having a great time playing with the advertised products. Because of this, children watching want to have the same type of fun because they see others doing it. Social proof can take on many forms, but often it’s a display of how the product works or reviews from consumers who have utilized the product or service.

4. Practicality: A product must be practical in today’s world. If it is too complicated people will not want to invest in it. People want to utilize the simplest of solutions to achieve a specific result they are looking for. This provides the answers to two questions most consumers have: Does it work? And, can I do it or use it? When these two questions have been answered as part of a story, a consumer is one step closer to making a buying decision.

5. Hero’s Journey: Everybody loves a hero. The most compelling stories people relate to having a hero or heroine as part of it. It can be as simple as someone buying flowers to win the heart of a woman, or a child being able to see clearly for the first time thanks to wearing glasses. Regardless of your product or service, it’s vital to look at ways you can create a hero because it becomes a symbol people can rally behind. When this takes place people can truly feel an emotional connection to your brand.

Storytelling Builds Relationships

Each of the above is a vital component in developing a story that sells. When you start using stories to invite people into your world, they will be more compelled to buy from you versus the competition. The more you leverage stories in your business, the stronger the bond you will build with your existing clients as well as prospective customers.

How #Storytelling Can Sell Your #Brand’s Products and Services by @ByronIngraham #RocksDigital
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Do you use storytelling to promote your products and services? Share with us your experiences.

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Could Facebook Messenger kill Email? This is a topic that is becoming more and more relevant as business owners look for ways to increase communications between themselves and their clients. As email open rates have declined over the years, multi-channel marketing has become an essential part of every business to generate sales. However, with the expansion of capabilities within Facebook Messenger, we might finally be at a point where we can rely less on email.

Facebook Messenger Vs. Email – Is There Room for Both?

With one billion people utilizing Facebook Messenger, it is a strong contender for businesses to utilize the platform as their primary basis for communication. However, there are several things to keep in mind before doing so.

Facebook Messenger is Personal

Presently the vast majority of individuals utilize Facebook Messenger to communicate with their friends on a personal basis or interact with a Facebook Page. The types of interactions taking place are similar to how people treated email in the ’90s. During this time, every email you received was from someone you knew. Thus, you read every email. However, as time progressed and email became a marketing tool, open rates declined as people needed to sift through spam to find messages relevant to them.

Because of this, for any business to utilize Messenger it is vital to maintain a personal approach to communication. You want to use the same tonality that you would with a friend. If you try for the hardcore sales approach, you might quickly find yourself losing touch with your customer base.

Embedded Apps within Facebook Messenger

This is one way that Facebook Messenger is miles ahead of email marketing. Any type of email sent from a business is one-dimensional, meaning that users have to leave their email to perform any type of action.

Within Messenger, there are a multitude of apps available to allow users to perform a wide variety of functions without leaving the app. You can do everything from make purchases, set reminders, book Uber & Lyft rides, and even receive shipping notifications from merchants from inside of the app.

Here’s an example of using Messenger to book an Uber:

Image Credit: Facebook Newsroom

Interactive Communication

On most websites today there is the tried-and-true contact form, which sends an email to a designated account. However, more and more people today are communicating with brands via Social Media. As a way to communicate with users in a direct fashion, a business owner can leverage Messenger from their website to have a real-time conversation with individuals. The advantage of communicating with people in this fashion is that it makes it easier to engage them on Facebook. While chatting with you, they can quickly see the content you are posting on your page, as well as any offers currently running.

Facebook Messenger Funnels

In the marketing world, funnels are a necessity to prompt people to take specific actions after saying yes to an offer. However, funnels for most businesses are one-dimensional, meaning that there is only one option for people to take.

Within Facebook Messenger you have the ability to leverage “Chatbots,” allowing you to automatically respond to people with a pre-populated series of messages. So instead of simply sending people to a landing page and having them go through a single sequence, you can leverage Messenger to create a customized experience for users. It’s easy to setup the basic responses.

Here’s what the setup looks for an away message response:

Here’s the “Instant Replies” setup Rocks Digital sends automatically to anyone that messages the page:

The above are examples of basic responses. Instead of having a single opt-in as you would on a website, you can utilize a series of questions to direct individuals to the product that will best fit them. Gone are the days of “One Size Fits All” marketing!

Facebook Messenger Broadcasts

As the vast majority of messages sent from Facebook are seen within minutes of receipt, it is only logical to leverage this platform to inform your audience of what is going on within your business. Instead of simply sending an email promoting the latest sale – where you might get a 20% open rate – how would you like it to be over 80%? That is the power of leveraging Messenger to broadcast a message to an audience.

When you decide to broadcast a message, it is vital that you segment people into the appropriate categories. Because it is still a personal experience, you will want to make sure that a message is sent to the people who will relate to it the most.

Messenger Ads

A newer feature Facebook rolled out was the ability to utilize Messenger Ads as an option within their advertising platform. Instead of sending people to a website to interact with a business, you now have the ability to have them engage with you via Messenger. This will allow for a business to have a personal touch with new prospects. Imagine for a moment that a dentist office runs an ad reminding their existing patients about scheduling an appointment. This time, instead of sending them an email, they are targeted via Messenger. In this manner, the patient is able to book an appointment with the office, all from the comfort of Facebook Messenger.

Could Messenger kill Email? It is fully possible that the way people utilize email will dramatically change as people incorporate Messenger into more parts of their lives. While this may not happen in the foreseeable future, it is important for businesses to adopt Messenger as part of their marketing process to engage users where they are.

#Facebook Messenger vs. Email – Which Will Win? by @ByronIngraham #RocksDigital
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Which do you use more – Facebook Messenger or Email? Tell us in the comments below.

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Most of the major social media platforms today have a video component with the ability to broadcast live, AKA live streaming. However, now more than ever, with vast amounts of content to compete with, it is vital to create content of value. Otherwise, you can quickly find yourself producing content without generating results.

How to Generate Results from Live Streaming

Before you broadcast, it is imperative to know what you are offering and whom you are serving.

Your goal is to create content that will serve your business for the long term, not just for the moment. To do this effectively you must research what your ideal clients are hungry for right now in the marketplace. A simple way of accomplishing this task is to leverage Facebook Groups and Reddit. Within each of these areas you want to look at what problems people are talking about that relate to your product or service. This ensures that you will produce content that is relevant to your target audience.

Content is King for Live Streaming Video, Too

One of the best ways to stand out in the crowded content market is to create valuable content that’s worth sharing. As you continue to create content, you will find more people tuning into your broadcasts. It’s simply a matter of perseverance. One thing that you can do to increase your viewership is to let people know in advance when you are going to go live. Additionally, do not make every broadcast exclusively about business. People do business with people, so let them know more about you.

Supplement Organic Reach with Ads

Regardless of the size of your audience, a tool that you should consider utilizing on Facebook to expand your reach is ads. As the organic reach will be limited, especially as you are growing your following, ads will help you reach more people consistently. They will also expose your brand to people who might not have heard about you before, increasing the probability that they do business with you in the future.

Repurpose Live Streaming Content for Even More Reach

Lastly, repurpose your video content. If you are providing consistent valuable content in your broadcasts, utilize the video within YouTube and your website. As people leverage the search engines to look for solutions to their problems, the more content for them to find increases the probability that they will choose your business over the competition.

Successful Live Streaming Pays Off for the Audience – and for Business!

Live streaming video is a popular form of marketing and audiences tend to like it. However, it is only worthwhile if you can get results. Following these tips will get your videos noticed and get you results that will end in new followers and business growth.

How to Get Results for Your #Business from #LiveStreaming by @ByronIngraham #RocksDigital
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How are your results from your live streaming efforts? Share any additional tips you have in the comments below.

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Content creation and curation are necessities in today’s online content marketing world. However, one of the greatest challenges that entrepreneurs and business owners have is determining what types of content they should create and what they should share on a daily basis.

Increase Content Marketing Effectiveness with These Tools

#1 BuzzSumo

One of the best ways to create content is to determine what is already popular on various social networks. Buzzsumo.com is essentially the search engine for social content. By typing in a keyword you can quickly see what types of content are popular based on their social activity on networks such as Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, and Pinterest.

The key to leveraging this tool effectively is to look for existing content that is popular and model your content to be similar in nature.

#2 Post Planner

Curating images for use on platforms such as Facebook & Twitter is a great way to create engagement, without spending large amounts of time thinking about what to share. Postplanner.com curates popular content from platforms such as Facebook & Instagram and allows you to share them on Facebook & Twitter. It’s a great way to fill your newsfeed with content your audience will enjoy without spending large amounts of time developing images.

#3 Buffer

One of the best things any business owner can do is switch from marketing reactively to marketing proactively. In terms of content marketing, this means scheduling your posts ahead of time instead of doing it as you go. Think about how many times you meant to create a post, but you were tied up in a meeting. Being effective on social media means showing up consistently.

Buffer.com allows you to schedule content on your favorite platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and even Instagram. When you combine this with the other tools within this article, you can quickly ensure that your followers will have a constant feed of content to consume.

#4 Feedly

Sharing existing content can be quite daunting, especially if it involves visiting dozens of websites regularly. Instead of spending time browsing a vast number of websites you can simply leverage Feedly instead. Feedly.com aggregates the content from sites of your choosing, so you can quickly browse through various sites to see what content you should share on your social networks. This will save you hours each week in looking for content to share.

#5 Snip.ly

While sharing content is crucial to growing your business, you want to ensure that people come back to your website. Snip.ly allows you to share content from other websites and place a call to action on the link you share. This is very powerful, as it ensures that whatever content you share with your audience, they will still see who shared it. It’s great for brand recognition!

Bring Consistent Value to Content Marketing

Regardless of the tools you utilize in your business, it is important that you provide consistent content of value to your audience to increase engagement and build consumer loyalty online. These tools will help you do that in a way that will be less time consuming and more automated.

Take the Work Out of #Content #Marketing with These Tools from @ByronIngraham #RocksDigital
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Have you used any of these tools for your content marketing or have others you want to add to the list? Share with us in the comments below.

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Pondering how to increase your referrals? Scaling your business and building a “Synergy Team” can cultivate more of what you want.

How to Increase Your Referrals with 3 Strategies

Examine Your Referral Strategy

In business, the absolute best type of lead anyone can get is a referral. While the goal should be to increase your referrals, there are many businesses that have just not taken the time to develop a solid referral strategy. This goes beyond simply asking the people you know for business, it is positioning yourself as the person or business of choice for what you do.

Use Scaling To Increase Your Referrals

Scaling is important, as it will provide a steady stream of business regardless of what the economic conditions currently are. As an example, in the last real estate downturn, realtors that only relied on referrals from a few sources quickly found themselves without clients to work with. This is not limited to economic downturns but can happen at any point when referrals begin to dry up.

Scaling helps to prevent this scenario from taking place. To scale your referrals, you have to increase the number of people who know what you do, and they must know that you are the best at it.

Leverage Social Media

To scale your business, an effective way is to leverage social media. This goes beyond simply telling people to do business with you. In fact, you want to take a different approach. You want to educate people by demonstrating your knowledge and expertise in your field. When people know you are the expert, they will be more inclined to refer you to the people they know who are looking for a particular solution.

Harness The Power of A Synergy Team

Another method to increase your referrals is to build a synergy team. A synergy team is a group of businesses that are typically involved in the same transaction. For example, a realtor works hand-in-hand with a mortgage loan officer to help a client buy a home. In essentially every industry, there will be opportunities to create Synergy Teams.

You might be thinking, “Isn’t this the same as a networking group?” No, it’s not. This is a more direct approach because of the level of involvement taking place with a client.

How A Synergy Team Can Increase Your Referrals

To make a synergy teamwork optimally, each member must be advertising their business separately. This is an important step because people are looking for specific solutions. If someone is looking to buy a house, they contact the realtor. However, in some cases that individual might not have a person they are working with to finance the home. Thus, the referral takes place. It can also happen in reverse where someone contacts a loan officer to qualify for a home, even though they are not yet working with a realtor.

The Synergy Team Is Always On

When you have several people as part of your synergy team advertising their businesses and passing referrals consistently to each other, everyone will prosper. This ensures that there will always be referrals being generated for others as new clients are being introduced into the system by the various Synergy Team members.

If you want to increase your referrals, then these 3 methods are the perfect building blocks to a vibrant referral base. The key to each of these is building relationships so it won’t happen overnight, however, once you have these strategies in place they will be the base of a constant stream of referrals for any business.

How to Increase #Business #Referrals with 3 Strategies from @ByronIngraham #RocksDigital
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Do you have a synergy team yet? If so, tell us how it has worked for you!

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