I have tried many different angles to get comments and likes on Ottawa’s Facebook page.  Sometimes I get so frustrated when I don’t get interaction back that I have to go take a walk around campus and pump myself back up. One of my efforts to increase engagement was the Question of the Week. I did this for two reasons 1. We were in the first few months of our page and needed people to start interacting. 2. I believe that a university has a unique advantage when it comes to posting interesting content. Ottawa is so multifaceted with sports, clubs, classes that we can engage our fans using many different topics and still be relevant. 3. I realize this depends on the brand, but I definitely feel that you don’t have to make every update on your FB page about your company.   Here is how the Question of the Week went: I would ask an intriguing question on video, which we taped in the OU bookstore. Before I asked the question, I would make announcements about events on campus coming up that week and promote the latest deal happening in the bookstore. After posting, we would put the names of those who answered the question into a drawing to receive an OU t-shirt.    The first few weeks went great! We were getting 10-15 responses per video. It did exactly what is was supposed to do. It was going so well, that I even branched off and created Memory of the Week for the alumni FB page that I also update. Then about five weeks in it started dying off. I don’t have an exact reason for why. But, I have a few clues. 1. They were tired of the announcements in the beginning. This was evident by one lady making the comment that she always fast forwards through commercials and the announcements were no different to her. 2. I think they just got bored with it. Soon all the people answering where those I already gave t-shirts to. That was a clue to me that it had probably run its course. 3. They didn’t like me. No, just kidding. (At least I hope I am…)   One fan even made the comment that, “the Question of the Week wasn’t relevant to anything going on in the real world.” That one floored me because I always got question ideas from the news that week…. Throughout the weeks that I did the Question of the Week, I started making adjustments of course- I stopped filming in the bookstore and simply filmed at my desk, I stopped doing the announcements and instead just tried to be fun. (I even danced in one of the videos) But, alas, I stopped doing them. It just become too much effort to keep going when the engagement started dying down.  Lesson learned: The Question of the Week worked. It increased engagement which has continued since we stopped it. I learned that I need to be constantly thinking of creative ways to engage our fans. They get bored. If we’re not engaging them, then they don’t see the important updates we make.    Here are a couple of the videos:  (This is the one where I danced. I’m VERY proud.)