Animal Welfare Professionals

Hi 

I was wondering how do you get your Facebook followers to engage on your Facebook posts. We have over 21,000 followers, but we have less than 1% of people engaging in our posts. Obviously, we're doing something wrong. I know another shelter rescue that had about the same amount of followers and usually has thousands of people engaging in their posts.  If you have a good following and good engaging, can you give me some tips as to what gets people to engage and what doesn't? Thank you, I appreciate all responses.

I would like to have tips and techniques also.  I volunteer for a senior dog sanctuary.

My rescue is fairly small (just under 3,000 followers) but we get a lot of engagement on our Facebook page (that being said, we'd love tips for Instagram or Twitter!). Our social media volunteer does regular posts asking people to share photos/stories about their pets and people seem to love it!!

For example, she recently did a Saturday post with a photo of a napping adoptable cat and asked what our followers' kitties were up to on that 'Lazy Caturday." Off the top of my head, she's also asked for Halloween photos, Christmas photos, 'naughty pet' photos,  "caption this photo" for a funny photo (ideally of an adoptable animal)...

We'll also share an update on an adopted kitty ("Where are they Meow?") and remind people they can share their updates in the comments and we'll post them... People love to talk about their furbabies! 

We also have a volunteer who helps write funny profiles for our animals, and people really seem to love them - and love sharing them (even when they're pretty ridiculous and maybe not as informative as they could be! haha).

Thank you UCC_Erin, I had someone do a post for Christmas of a few animals in their Christmas attire and asked people to share their Christmas pet pictures and that got some engagement. You've given me some good ideas, I love the "Caption this Photo" would it be ok if we used that? And the naughty pet photos? 

For twitter, if you don't have it linked to your FB, since you're engaging fb followers, you should link your twitter account to your fb so all your fb post go on twitter as well. I think that would increase your twitter. We have it linked.

For instagram I don't have too many suggestions what I do know which I was told that the best times to post on instagram is 8-9am 12-1pm and 4-5pm. I was told that this are times when most people go to their instagram pages, going to work/school, lunch, and getting out of work/school.

But if I learn anything I will get back to you.

Again, thank you for your response.

Please take any ideas that you want! We're here to share :) 

That is interesting with the Instagram times, but makes a lot of sense! We recently got a new social media manager who is a little more tech-savvy and that seems to be helping. Our previous one did not know what hashtags were (which I can sympathize with) but they're really popular on Instagram, so I think that was hindering us a bit.

Note: People can actually follow/like specific hashtags, so even if they don't know you, they might see you in their feed if you use a hashtag they like.

Thank you, We started doing some post your pet posts, and there was more of a response. I also know that  FB is making it harder for posts to be seen with all their new changes. I have someone who is willing to pay for a social media consultant to come in and work with our social media people. Now, where do I find someone that is reputable and good? When we do, I will post about it so that you can have the info.

Hi Iris! Would you be willing to share your Facebook page so we can provide some direct feedback? 

I've managed social media for consumer electronics brands (much less exciting than a rescue/shelter page) in the past but I learned quite a few tricks along the way! Facebook tends to put a higher weight on video posts because it increases their time on site (because watching videos is more involved than a picture) so try to include videos into the mix whenever you can. 

You also want to engage with your followers as much you can! If they comment on a post, like it and reply to them! Plus short question prompts like @UCC_Erin mentioned are a great way to get your followers involved. You can also do things like "tag a friend in the comments" related to the image or video to get more eyeballs. The more you get initial activity on your posts, the more that post will surface on the feeds of your followers. 

For Instagram, I'd suggest using the Instagram Story feature. Because of the way stories are promoted in Instagram, they autoplay so it's another way to get views. And since the content will disappear in 24 hours, it allows you more flexibility to create quick videos or pictures that don't have to be as perfect as you'd like them to be in your regular posts. 

Hope these initial ideas help!

Sure https://www.facebook.com/BobbiandtheStrays/

Our followers tend to respond well to sharing adoptable animals daily, adoption reports (with images) and success stories!