Facebook has become such a prominent marketing and promotional tool for local businesses. Some even use their business’ Facebook page in place of a website. By now, we have all become adjusted to Timeline and it’s time to take advantage of posts that boost likes and comments.

Like if. This kind of post works best if your main goal is to acquire as many likes as you can on a single post. We use it to announce the beginning of a contest or to increase excitement for winner’s announcements. It is a great way to get a quick response from your fans.

Indy A-List Facebook Post

Questions. Instead of just posting a general status update, ask a question. This encourages fans to respond instead of just reading the status and moving on. It is also a good tool when posting an article or a photo as a fan is more likely to share their opinion.

KCRA A-List Facebook Post

Fill in the Blank. We typically ask questions on our Facebook pages to try and get engagement, but recently we created several fill in the blank posts and had a great response. Instead of asking, “Which category is your favorite to vote in?”, we created the post below. They essentially say the same thing, but the fill in the blank style is more eye catching and isn’t something that shows up on a fan’s news feed often. It is also a great way to get users engaged by giving them a chance to express their opinion in a quick response format, and it certainly does encourage more comments than likes.

Fill In the Blank Facebook

Images. Calling all restaurants and stores! Nothing works better than posting a photo with a status update for businesses with visually appealing products. Instead of just posting about today’s special at the restaurant, take a picture of it. New merchandise came in that you are excited about? Get your customers to become equally as excited by sharing pictures of the merchandise with them. If you want to switch up the images you are sharing and help forge a deeper connection with your customers, take a behind the scenes picture to give an inside look at your business. Even though Pinterest and Instagram are known as image-centric marketing tools, Facebook can be a great resource as well. Check out this image post from WGBH about the Boston A-List.

WGBH Facebook Picture Post

Different types of posts work for some businesses while others don’t. Even across our Facebook pages, each city is different in regards to what type of posts elicit more of a response. In order to know posts work best for your business, you will need to do some trial and error to get a feel for your fans and what types of Facebook promotion they respond best to.

What type of posts work best for your business’ Facebook page? Let us know in the comments!