As a fellow small business owner, I know first-hand how vital Facebook is for reaching customers. But with all the noise on social media, making your content stand out is crucial. By making your Facebook posts easy to share, you can expand your reach exponentially.
In this comprehensive guide, I‘ll break down exactly how to make any post on your Facebook Business Page shareable, step-by-step. I‘ll also share insider tips on writing viral content straight from my decade of experience growing a successful small business through social media.
Before we dive in, let‘s look at why you should care about shareable posts in the first place:
- Increased reach: A single share can show your content to a new audience of hundreds or thousands.
- Improved engagement: Posts with higher shares also tend to get more overall engagement through comments, reactions and clicks.
- Higher organic reach: Posts that get shares and engagement are more likely to show up in the News Feeds of your non-fans as well, since they meet Facebook‘s "relevancy" criteria.
For small business owners relying on organic, non-paid reach, making content that people want to actively share should be a top priority.
Simply put? Shareable content equals a wider reach, higher engagement rates, and more exposure for your brand without spending money on ads.
Now let‘s get into exactly how to create those viral, share-hungry posts consistently.
Step 1: Adjust Your Default Post Privacy
The first step toward optimizing future posts for sharing is adjusting your default post privacy settings:
- Click on the "Settings" tab in the left menu of your Facebook Business Page.
- Select "Default Post Audience" from the menu.
- Under "Post Audience," choose "Public" so anyone on Facebook can access your posts.
By default, Facebook limits page posts visibility to your current followers and their friends. Setting posts to public ensures maximum possible visibility for each piece of content you publish.
Pro Tip: You can always adjust post privacy on a per-post basis later on, which we‘ll cover more below.
Step 2: Locate Your Post Privacy Settings
Now let‘s get into the process of making an existing post shareable.
To adjust post privacy:
- Navigate to the post you want to make shareable on your page and click on the three dots in the upper right corner.
- Select "Edit Post" from the dropdown menu.
- Click on "Share Audience" or "Share With" from the edit menu.
Here is an example post edit menu with the "Share Audience" option circled:
[Insert image of Facebook post edit menu]Step 3: Choose Your Sharing Audience
Once you navigate share settings, you can select exactly who you want to make the post shareable to:
- Public: For maximum possible reach and shares.
- Friends: Only shareable by your friends/followers and their friends.
- Custom: Manually customize sharing audience (groups, follower lists, etc).
Choosing public is best for reach, but you can tailor based on your goals. Just remember – a post must be public to go viral widely across Facebook.
Pro tip: You can also make your page or profile permanently public to save time adjusting each post. Simply visit your general account settings.
Crafting Viral Content
Enabling public sharing is only the first step. To inspire your audience to actually hit "share," your content needs to grab attention and spark engagement.
After nearly 10 years of posting social media content in my small retail business, I‘ve noticed posts with certain qualities generate substantially higher shares week after week.
Here are my top tips for crafting viral Facebook posts:
1. Leverage Lists and Numbers
Posts that feature lists or interesting statistics tend to be widely shared. For example:
"5 Time Management Tips for Busy Entrepreneurs"
"Small Businesses Employ 60% of US Workers – But Face Big Challenges"
These formatted, information-dense posts both teach readers something new and provide built-in value worthy of sharing.
2. Pose Thought-Provoking Questions
Asking questions, whether in the post title or opening line, boosts comments and provokes discussion:
"What‘s Your Top Business Productivity Struggle Right Now?"
Poses like this invite your audience to chime in with their experiences around a theme aligned with your brand.
Facebook posts with images receive up to 2X the engagement as plain text updates, while video posts see 4X higher shares.
Invest time creating visual assets, share customer photos, or repurpose your best Instagram content.
4. Feature User-Generated Content
Speaking of Instagram, sharing compelling photos, videos and reviews from customers is an easy way to create engaging, shareable stories.
Collect user photos or neat ways fans are interacting with your product, then showcase them with permission.
5. Localize Your Content
Hyper-targeted updates resonate in specific locations. Share local events, deals or partnerships for high local interest.
For example, I drive major shares announcing our donations to hometown charities versus generic national organizations.
Test these strategies over time and analyze your Facebook Insights data to pinpoint what share-worthy formulas do best for your brand. Keep refining your viral posting mix as you expand your entrepreneurial reach!
I hope this guide gave you an in-depth look at how to optimize Facebook posts for maximum possible visibility through shares. Don‘t keep your content confined to current fans – take advantage of native features like post sharing to expand your audience.
Let me know if you have any other questions on best practices for small business marketing on Facebook or social media!
