How to Go Viral on Facebook

If you’re posting things on Facebook and wanting to get business from it, make sure your posts are shareable.

Hi, this is Steve Johnsen and I wanted to share a quick tip with you on how to make sure your Facebook posts are shareable. Sometimes I post to Facebook and it’s something that I just want to share with my friends, so I can use the default “share with friends” option when I’m posting.

Sometimes–actually, a lot of times–when I post things on Facebook, it’s information that I think might be useful to anybody, and I’d like it to be accessible to the public. A lot of times when I’m posting something related to business on Facebook it would be great if when people read it and like it, they would share it with their friends, and then their friends would share it with their friends?That’s the very definition of something going viral on Facebook. When I share with my friends, and then my friends share with their friends, and then the friends of friends share with their friends, it can reach a large audience very quickly.

A good friend of mine posted part of a book she was writing on Facebook yesterday. It was really well written, and I knew it would help her get clients. So, I wanted to share it with my followers on Facebook, but it wasn’t shareable.

If you’re posting stuff on Facebook that you’d like to get seen by the world, here’s a quick tip for you. When you go to make a post on Facebook, in the box where you’re writing your post, at the bottom there’s a little box that says who you’re sharing with: either “Public” or “Friends” or “Friends of Friends” or “Friends Except?” or “Only me” (private setting). What you want to do if you’ve got something you want to share with the world is make sure that you select the Public option. That way, the friends who want to will be able to share it with others.

Here are a few other tips that will also help make your content more “shareable”:

• Facebook is reluctant to promote content that links to outside websites. Rather than linking to an external site, have the entire content contained in your Facebook post.
• You will be competing with videos, Facebook live, and all kinds of pictures. The more engaging your content is the better! Be sure to at least include an attractive, relevant photo with your post.
• (Super hint: Facebook likes to prolong the time that users stay on Facebook. Videos keep people looking much longer than other types of content, so Facebook is much more likely to promote your video than your text post.)
• Facebook and Instagram are selective about what they will display in people’s news feeds. If you have some loyal fans that like and share your post, Facebook is more likely to consider your post to be relevant and engaging and share it with others. Otherwise, it’s possible that what you share will not be seen. If you have some fans you know will share, you can tag them in the post.
• If you use both Instagram and Facebook, your Facebook followers can see that you have an Instagram post. But they will not be able to access it without being on Instagram themselves. So post the complete content on both Facebook and Instagram separately.