When it comes to your personal Facebook, sharing is second-nature and very simple. But when you’re managing a page on behalf of a brand or company, sharing content on Facebook becomes a science. Believe it or not there is a right and wrong way to share, whether it is your own content or someone else’s you’re sharing, and it all comes down to fostering engagement with your community.

As we head into 2015, share and engage better with these 3 Facebook best practices:

Use Link Previews

Link Previews enable you to share links to content outside of Facebook via custom large images, title text and description text to entice your fans to view that content. Compelling images draw users into reading your captions (not the other way around) and offer a way for you to share interesting external content to your followers on Facebook.

• When you create a post, paste the link in the text window and wait for the Link Preview to load, then delete the URL. The link will remain embedded once the Link Preview loads.
• If you do include the URL in your post caption (not recommended), stray away from using shortened URLs when you can. Unless the URL uses a branded shortened domain like Google, goo,gl; BuzzFeed, bzfd.it; or Facebook, fb.me; these URLs will look like spam in your users’ feeds.

Share Within Facebook

When you want to share new content from an external source, first check to see if that source has posted the information to their own Facebook page. Chances are they have, and you can be even more strategic about your content by sharing it directly from that Page to yours. This not only signals the person, Page or Group that you like his, her or their content, but also gives you an opportunity to expand your presence to audiences who align with your brand but haven’t found your page yet. Be sure to leave a great comment on their page’s post to let them know you like what they’re doing and that you’ve shared on your page. Now all of that page’s followers can see you engaging and may be intrigued to “LIKE” your page too!

Respond to All Page Comments Quickly

Comments are your direct line to your consumers (or potential consumers), and you want to make sure you respond in a timely manner. Turn on or adjust your notification settings to speed up your response time and practice live engagement. Answer every question—questions are great opportunities for you to link back to helpful resources on your website—and always, always, always find a way to say “thank you” when they leave a comment of praise. If you get a bad review, do what you can to apologize for the error or mistake and turn to private message or email to resolve the issue outside Facebook.

Facebook in 2015 requires participation on your part to engage with your online community of peers, experts and consumers who have vast interests and limited time to search for information. Build up your Facebook Page as a hub of content—some your own, some from outside sources—that your followers will find useful. This will build their trust with your brand and keep them coming back for more.

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