Facebook notifying you of your friends’ birthdays is nothing new…
And neither is the ability to write a happy birthday message on their profiles or sending them a message in Messenger wishing them a happy and prosperous year ahead.
While it feels great to receive personal happy birthday messages from your friends, did you know that it has an even more important role to play…especially if you use Facebook to market your business and services?
The truth is this: engagement on Facebook is the key to being seen by those you wish to influence and do business with.
What does engagement on Facebook mean?
I have written before that Facebook’s algorithm favours posts that generate engagement (comments, likes, shares), but did you know that engagement in Messenger has a massive role to play in helping your posts to be seen in your friends’ newsfeeds?
If you use your personal Facebook page as tool to influence your personal connections, then you’re going to want to pay attention to what I write next.
Have you ever noticed how when you’ve engaged in a back and forth conversation on Messenger that you suddenly start seeing that person’s posts?
Whether it’s their holiday snaps, latest restaurant find, or short opinion…you’ll suddenly start to see more of them.
The reason for this is because due to your personal conversation on Messenger, Facebook’s algorithm believes you like each other and want to keep in contact. And what better way to stay in touch on social media than being exposed to each other’s posts?
Likewise, the other person will also start to see more of your content.
But here’s the kicker: if you stop engaging on their posts (or if they stop engaging with yours), you’ll eventually stop being exposed to each others’ content.
What does this have to do with sending happy birthday messages?
Whether we have a close personal connection with someone, or if they are merely a “friend” on Facebook, it can be difficult to come up with relevant and meaningful things to say to each other.
But on a friend’s birthday, initiating a conversation through a quick message is as easy as pie. Depending on how well you write, simply saying happy birthday is generally enough to get a grateful response.
But the key here is to take the conversation a step further by asking more questions about their business, career, or personal journey.
If you can get them to start talking with you, you will have successfully fed the algorithm and start seeing more of them on your timeline (provided they are active) – and they will start to see more of your posts.
But simply sending happy birthday messages is not enough. You will still need to be active on Facebook, posting about your business, your personal life (if you are comfortable doing this), as well as your opinions.
It should also be obvious that if you intend to leverage your personal Facebook profile to generate more business, that you should actively seek out and friend request people who fit the profile of your perfect customer too.
The world has changed in the past decade where we can now find and speak to so many more people than we ever could in the past; and we have the opportunity to grow our professional networks like no other time in history.
Facebook allows you to keep 5000 personal connections on your personal profile at any one time, so why not start sending more of your perfect customers friend requests so that you can continue to stay in touch, increase your chances of generating repeat business and referrals, as well as growing your sphere of influence in your market?
And then follow this up by regularly posting interesting, useful and engaging content?
Give it a try starting today and you’ll see how quickly your engagement on Facebook increases – with the result being a greater number of leads for your business!
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