Within the past five days, two different people in two totally different industries have approached me with the same inquiry: “I know people see my Facebook posts, but how can I encourage them to comment, ‘like,’ etc.?” This is a question pertinent to pretty much everyone on Facebook, and it seems to be something many people struggle with.

While I don’t think there’s any sure-fire way to “guarantee” fans commenting on everything they said, there’s certainly small moves that can be made to get the ball rolling.

5 Ways to Increase Fan Interaction on Facebook:

1. Ask your fans questions about THEM; their interests. Find out what they want from you. If you’re a hotel, find out what the most important aspect is for someone in choosing where to stay. This helps you virtually “ask” for comments, and it also clues you in to what could put you ahead of your competition.
2. Poll people: get their opinions on YOU. If you’re a restaurant, ask people what their favorite dish is, favorite beverage, favorite kind of holiday dining activity. People LOVE to offer their opinions, and, similarly to asking questions about themselves, you again gain incite to what your potential future business is looking for.
3. Follow similar and/or relevant pages, and tag them in your posts. Say you’re a coffee shop, and you just started serving sandwiches from XYZ Sandwich Shop in your cafe. Fan XYZ Sandwich Shop, and tag them in a Facebook post. Not only does this help promote them (which you want to do, since you’re now collaborators), it also causes your post to show up on THEIR wall, thereby exposing you and your alliance to their audience. The hope, then, is that their fans will see you, become a fan of your page as well, and the more people you have liking your page, the greater the potential for interaction.
4. Trivia. Make people guess things about your brand, but make sure it’s fascinating. I tend to “like” a lot of things if they catch my attention, even if I’m not particularly knowledgeable of specifics. So, if city on Facebook, for example, posted some really awesome fact about the city, while I may not proffer a guess since I have no idea the answer, I’ll still usually “like” the post. I’ll like that they caught my attention, and that I learned something fun and new.
5. Be fun. Everyone loves to be entertained, and, more than that, a good laugh. Create some sort of unique, silly video, photo, joke, commentary, etc. If you post something witty, people will generally want to add to the laughs for other people. And stuff like that is usually sharable, too. If I come across something hilarious, I’m going to tell my friends to check it out, even if they may not necessarily be acquainted with the brand.

What are some other ways you’ve seen brands engage with their Facebook fans?