Donnalyn Bartolome is one of the Philippines’ top content creators today, boasting over 15 million followers on Facebook. In 2021 alone, she grew her page by more than 7 million followers, proving that the right content strategy and audience understanding effectively fuels page engagement growth.
But this was not always the case. While Donnalyn first started doing vlogs, she gained social media fame with her viral song “Kakaibabe” in 2013, and her song and dance covers, beauty vlogs, and story content made her followers soar to 4 million on Facebook in 2017. However, this number remained stagnant for the past three years, with no significant growth rate.
“Nung na-notice ko na may drop-off na yung growth rate ng followers on Facebook, it felt like I hit a wall. Parang baka hindi na swak yung content ko,” shares Donnalyn.
Curious to see if she needed to change her strategy, Donnalyn partnered with Facebook in 2020 to learn how she could engage more users, break through the noise in people’s feeds, and gain new fans.
After learning best practices on the platform and how to apply insights garnered by Facebook’s Creator Studio tool, things started to pick-up – and so did her following. From July 2020 to July 2021, Donnalyn increased her following by over 7.7 million.
“I started from the bottom and did not get to where I am now instantly. I’ve always felt like an amateur, which made me strive, at mag try ng mag try based sa insights na nakukuha ko from Facebook. Yung effort when you combine it with page insights, you’ll surely start to see results,” added Donnalyn.
So how exactly did Donnalyn do it? She gives four tips on what you can do to improve both engagement and following on your Facebook page.
Tip # 1: Understand Your Main Audience
After gaining a deeper understanding of her audience demographics and her video performance through the Facebook Creator Studio, Donnalyn changed her content strategy to engage with her current followers in more authentic ways.
Upon discovering that most of her followers were young women, Donnalyn started sharing more about herself through her content. From removing her braces to interacting with her siblings, to her ever popular anecdotes about romantic relationships–she created content that is relatable to the daily lives of her audience.
“At first I wondered kung okay ba yun, since it was really doing daily things or talking about silly stuff, but the audience engaged with it, the more naka-relate sila, the more they engaged with my videos and posts,” Donnalyn says.
In addition, Donnalyn reviewed the viewer retention metrics on her videos and realized that the videos people watched longest were those with better video quality. Using this insight, she upgraded her recording equipment to improve the audio-visual experience and adjusted her editing style to keep viewers watching until the end.
Tip #2: Be Authentic
To deepen the connection with her followers, Donnalyn also introduced less, edited content to showcase her authentic self. She shared videos that gave fans a glimpse into her daily life, Facebook Live events several times per month, and posts to Facebook Stories and Instagram Stories to share quick updates.
Taking it up a notch, Donnalyn also took the time to respond personally to comments fans left on her content.
Tip #3: Develop a Consistent Content Schedule
Prior to her partnership with Facebook, Donnalyn posted videos erratically, which meant her audience did not know when to expect new content from her. Using insights from Creator Studio and following Facebook best practices, Donnalyn began posting videos more consistently–up to four times per week.
“Kapag may steady following ka na, kailangan meron silang aabangan. You give them content at a consistent time and the viewership will follow,” Donnalyn says.
Tip #4: Branch Out
For your content, don’t be afraid to cover different topics or try new things. For Donnalyn, this included hosting giveaways and covering topics like games and pranks – like the time she called a friend and said she shaved her eyebrows off.
This helped her reach new audiences and convert them to followers. Engaging with other creators helps as well. Donnalyn also follows and interacts with many other public figures and well-known Facebook creators on their pages. This also helps drive traffic to her page.
For more tips on how to create effective content for Facebook, please visit https://www.facebook.com/creators.
For more information on Donnalyn’s strategy, please visit https://www.facebook.com/creators/donnalyn-bartolome-content-strategy.
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*Based on public data from CrowdTangle, July 2020 to July 2021
**Creator Studio data. Based on activity occurring from Q3 2020 and Q3 2021
