I’d like to share a few personable vitamins you can do to drastically improve your social media presence. Through this post I hope you’re able to start making viral Facebook posts of your own.

After you have inspired thought for a caption or status, by using the tips in this post you can give your Facebook posts the greatest pre-post opportunity to become viral.  

The principles in this post apply to any size of business. I will not focus on writing captions that easily capture likes and comments.  Instead, my focus today is how to set yourself for success.

This is done by making sure all your bases are covered.  We want to allow our media to showcase to our audience the way we very intentionally envisioned it.

Tip #1: Use Squares (Or As Close To Squares As Possible)

If you’re posting a photo, try as hard as you can to make it a square photo.  If your intention is to get everything in the picture  in the Facebook Newsfeed you need to succumb to Facebook.  The only way to ensure your audience will have the opportunity to capture everything you intend for them to capture from your photos is to crop them in box-like or near box-like fashion.

Here is a great resource to go off of, courtesy of Jon Loomer: For Advanced Facebook Marketers.

Tip #2: Target A Personable Emotional Response

People. People is the most important thing we are looking to gain an emotional response from if we’re able and have people in our photo.  If there is extra milage in our photo that may be distracting–such as a coat on an office chair, or an unorganized parts bench. Its near vital you crop that out of the photo.

A great question to ask yourself as you look at your photo is “What would someone viewing this photo for the first time look at first, then second?”  Then ask yourself, “What would their emotional response from the photo be sourced from? The first of the second thing they looked at?  Was their emotional response the one I want?”

Often times if there is too much going on in your photos your Facebook audience will be drawn away, eventually leading to a decrease in likes, comments and shares on your post.

I realize this is being a little meticulous about your social media, and a lot of what I’ve said so far may be considered common knowledge.  Being meticulous about the message your media sends people is important.  The deeper your message, often times the stronger the response.  Being meticulous helps us create Facebook posts that go viral–especially for small businesses.

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So when we’re posting photos with people in them, the most important concept we’re going for is to capture the emotional feeling actual people in the photo are having.  As marketers & photographers we’re attempting to capture the emotion displayed from people.  That is how we grab the hearts of our Facebook audience. We connect with them through emotion.

We should work to capture the expressions on faces as best we can.  

(Eyes are the window to the soul.)

In the example below you can see how this car dealership was able to improve their potential Facebook response on this post by cropping out extra milage on both the right and left side of the photo.  The emphasis is now on the person’s expression or feeling.  This is important to us and we want this because its what our audience is going to draw a deeper connection from.

Tip #3: Use Bitly To Track How Your Content Is Shared

You gain a lot of information simply by attaching a Bitly link to your posts.

Bitly trackers attached to your URL are also extremely useful because they allow you to see how many people are really clicking on and interacting with your shared content–and what social networks they’re finding you from.

This helps you create more viral posts because you are now open to recognizing trends from your posts using data provided from Bitly.

Tip #4: Wait To Post… First Think, Rinse, Then Repeat

Too often I get caught up in just wanting to get something out on my Facebook page.  I think “Oh crap, I haven’t been talking with my customers lately I need to get something out there.”  Stop.  This is actually a poor mindset to have when talking to your audience via social media.  This mindset is actually what leads to people unfollowing you and it actually disrupts the overall image of your company.

A stronger mindset to have is how can I interact with my customers so I can better serve them, and know who they are?

Now when you’re about to post something on Facebook its important to first think about the photo and caption.  Let it linger and rinse a little bit. Ask yourself what you believe the emotional response will be. Lastly before you publish stop and think about that same question again.  Repeat this step just to make sure.

I’ll wrap this post by posing this question… How else can you draw a deeper connection with your audience through your Facebook page?