13 Simple Facebook Best Practices To Build Your Business Facebook Page 1. Be Engaging When crafting updates for your page, you need to aim for fan engagement as your main goal. Posting blanket statements & opinions usually won t get a great response but posting in a way that catches people s attention & motivates them to take action pays huge dividends. 2. Leverage Facebook Ads People like to complain about Facebook Ads including marketers. But ads are a vital part of Facebook & they should be a vital part of your Facebook marketing strategy. You cannot and I repeat CANNOT successfully grow a targeted & active page without spending money on Facebook ads. It s just not possible these days. Sure a page goes viral every now & then but smart page owners invest money in ads in order to find qualified & potential customers. 3. Have a Posting Strategy You started your business with goals, right? The same goes for your Facebook posting strategy. You MUST have a clear & simple plan of attack or you re doomed for failure. Strategy: What should that plan look like & consist of? I have no clue. Every page is different & has a unique fanbase. So you ll need to determine: What kind of identity & tone you d like your page to have What content gets the best reaction from potential customers & fans What I do know is that you should take the time to plan out your posts in advance. Map out when your next sale or promotion will be & how your posts will communicate it. Don t just post about it the day of the sale & expect a massive amount of engagement & sales! Tip: We do Facebook every Monday & schedule out all of the posts for the next 7 days ensuring that we put in a mix of questions, fill-in-the-blanks and photos. Then we craft some posts that drive people to interesting content on our website. This helps to boost website referrals from Facebook and help with your SEO. October 07, 2014 Page: 1
By doing this, we free up a ton of time sitting on Facebook waiting to post at the optimal time. And we know ahead of time what s going to show up on our page so we can be ready to respond to any comments. Have a plan! 4. Be Human Something so many page owners fail to do is be social ie. human on their page. Your page doesn t have to be a boring, sterile, business-only experience. It s ok to talk about current issues. And it s ok no, recommended to post in 1st person! Making it Personal: Which post by XYZ Burgers page looks better and makes you want to engage?: Today s special is the bacon double cheeseburger for $5. or Hey today for lunch I m stuffing my face with this massive bacon double cheeseburger! And it s only $5 bucks! ~Scott If I were to see these posts in my news feed, I d be more apt to reply to the 2nd one the more personal post. It gives the brand an identity & personality. It also gives fans someone to connect to on the page which is extremely important. How to do this: Reply to comments using the person s first name Show Empathy Treat people with Respect Kill people with Kindness Just use good customer service common sense it s the same principles. 5. Use Hashtags Intelligently Hashtags are fairly new on Facebook (today at least and a lot of people are still trying to figure out how to use them. October 07, 2014 Page: 2
Are they important? Noted expert Andrea Vahl says yes! In Social Media Examiner she wrote: As hashtags gain momentum on Facebook they ll help you expand your reach to people who are looking at posts in your topic. We agree. But you need to use them correctly. Here are some things to NOT do when using hashtags: Don t use hashtags in every post Don t hijack a common hashtag just to try and show up in results Don t hashtag senseless words like #huzzah or #awesome Don t stuff your post with hashtags 1 is enough! 6. Monitor Page Insights Facebook insights & analytics are part of the puzzle. But in looking at them, it s important to step back & see what they re really showing. One of the most important takeaways I leverage from them is what they tell me about the content we re putting out. As a business owner you need to measure the performance of your marketing efforts and this where Insights help. Luckily, Facebook has made recent improvements that make it even easier to figure out what the different numbers & graphs mean. Since the update, Insights are much easier to understand & gain valuable knowledge from. 7. Post Photos We live in an image driven world & Facebook s no different especially as things move toward mobile. Images catch our attention & are easy to consume. Sure you can convey something deep & meaningful via a text update but then you post a silly meme & your page blows up! Photos should be an integral part of your posting strategy. Studies show that the engagement rate on photos is highest among post types. Photos crush it according to other reports as well: 53% more Likes 104% more comments 84% more click-throughs *According to Kissmetrics October 07, 2014 Page: 3
8. Run Contests People like to win stuff end of story. Some of the most successful marketing campaigns done by Facebook pages are via contests. Facebook contests can drive huge fan growth over a short period of time and can make a massive impact to your Facebook page. The key here is to remember that Facebook mandates that you must use a 3 rd Party app to conduct a contest. Apokrisis can help you with that! J 9. Upload a Great Profile Pic Your page s profile pic is easily its most important image on Facebook. It s the first thing fans (and other users) see in the news feed when you communicate with them. Best advice? Don t clutter this image up with phone numbers, slogans, etc. Remember it shows up so small in the news feed (and even smaller in comments) that no one will be able to read any text in it nor will they be interested in trying. 10. Leverage your Cover Photo The cover photo is your first & best chance to make a good impression on would-be fans & prospective customers. So make sure you use an image that speaks about your brand but doesn t overdo it. Avoid low-quality images & stock photos and don t use too much text. We recommend changing your cover photo every month or so as new promotions come & go and as holidays arrive. 11. Minimize the Number of Page Apps Apps used to be a HUGE deal on Facebook pages. Mainly because you could set one as a default Landing Page. New visitors would come to your page, hit your custom tab, and then you could force them to Like your page before seeing more content. This was both good & bad. Good because it helped pages to get more Likes and harvest tons of emails. Bad because it sucked as a user. Facebook removed the default landing tab/app feature when they introduced Timeline and it crushed a ton of businesses based around Facebook tabs/apps. But now that the dust has settled, I d say it was a good change. Pages have to work harder now to build true relationships and spamming seems to be down. October 07, 2014 Page: 4
In any case, you still need solid apps on your page if you plan to: Show off your site Sell products within Facebook Run Contests Collect Emails Do a Giveaway A few things to note: You can t move the Photos app (it must stay in slot 1), but you can re-order your other apps Add a custom thumbnail image to each app super important! Add a custom name for each app Facebook lets you name apps whatever you want Put the Likes app box below the fold (because it s useless!) 12. Complete your About Section Your About section speaks volumes about your business and it s the first thing most visitors will read. List your website s URL as the 1st item in your About section and without the typical http:// (you don t need it). From there, put in something descriptive about your brand that conveys what you do. 13. Have Fun! Think back to when you first signed up for Facebook. My bet is you did so to connect with your family, current friends & old friends & connections. Are-You-Having-Fun-Yet Your intentions were pure to have fun & enjoy yourself. We ve lost some of that the past 2-3 years as Facebook has grown up and become more & more about business. But that doesn t mean we have to be boring & not have any fun including having fun on our pages. So chill out a little, be light-hearted & have fun with your fans. Don t always be so serious in business mode. Your fans will remember that your page made them laugh more than any info about your latest gadget or product. And that s it! We hope you find these useful and informative. If you have any questions or think you need some help with social media, give Apokrisis a call! October 07, 2014 Page: 5