As Facebook’s user count continues to diminish amid hacks and breaches, it’s more important than ever to maintain your audience. Our digital marketing strategizing services can take you a good deal of the way there. However, there are some basics that you can keep in mind, regardless of what you end up doing.

The simplest solution to retention is to tailor your posts to maximize engagement from the audience on that platform. This article seeks to highlight several ways to bolster your prevalence on Facebook.

Keep Your Posts Short

While a portion of your diehard audience may follow every post, the majority of Facebook users are following so many other people and advertisements that they have little time to look at lengthy posts. This advice goes double for posts containing so much text that they open a new tab or redirect users to your specific Facebook page.

The statistics behind Facebook engagement are pretty telling. As explained by WordCounter, “Facebook posts with 40 characters or less generated the highest engagement at 86 percent. However, they only accounted for 5 percent of all retail brand wall posts.”

Another reason to avoid lengthy posting is to attract the users who use their phones or tablets to peruse the site. Mobile web design places a premium on space, and lengthy messages unpleasantly bog down the view.

Take Audience Polls

Nothing involves your audience more than directly indicating your interest in them. While you could poll your audience with small talk, such as discussing which is the cutest among dogs, cats, and birds, your polls should relate to what your Facebook page is about while also being tempered so as not to come off as over-promotional.

The biggest upside of using audience polling is that it makes it easier for your audience to engage with your content. ContentStandard argues that “what’s interesting about polls on social media is how they make capturing data and engaging users so intimate and immediate.” With that data, you can optimize your business strategies more efficiently.

For example, a Mexican restaurant could ask its followers which of its signature dishes is their favorite. Poll results also help you discern where best to focus your products.

Use Your Platform for Product Announcements

This advice ties in wonderfully with the previous tip. Give the impression that your followers are insiders by mentioning when new products are coming, when old ones are being updated, and even if individual services or products are being phased out and what will be replacing them.

Do Some Giveaways

Let your audience know you care by offering promotions. Do things like offering a discount or even a giveaway with a cash prize to the first X number of users to like, comment, and share a post.

Generally, rewarding likes should equal about 1 to 2 percent of your total audience as opposed to just a few people. This not only keeps your current audience around but can drum up some numbers as their friends hear about how they won something from you.

There are several ways to engage your audience on Facebook. By keeping your posts short, polling your audience, announcing products and services, and even offering a shot at free stuff, you are bound to not only keep your audience but also to grow it.