Facebook for Business: 7 Tips to Success
On average, Facebook has over 1.44 billion monthly active users. Whoa. So, it’s safe to say that if you're a business owner and not using Facebook for Business, you’re missing out on reaching a whole bunch of people on a network they are actively using on a daily basis. If you are the one tasked with running a Facebook business page, here are some crucial tips to consider.
Facebook for Business Tip 1: Set Goals
Whether you are running your own page for your small business or you’re tasked with running the Facebook page for the business at which you work, make sure that goals are set upfront, before ensuing in the craze of social media. Is it engagement that you’re after? Brand awareness? Is your boss looking for nothing other than those page likes to go up up up? It’s important for all those contributing, as well as those monitoring, to have the same goal in mind when working to achieve social media marketing greatness.Nice Note: Be cautious to not get caught up in the ‘likes.’ Make sure the ‘likes’ you are getting are legit and that those people who are liking actually may need your product or service today or sometime in the near future.
Facebook for Business Tip 2: Establish Networks
Although this post mainly relates to best practices for Facebook for business, let’s back up a step or two and just make sure that you have considered that Facebook is indeed one of the best social platforms for your social marketing efforts. If you have done so, we will allow you to continue reading our blog post. If not, take a few minutes and determine where your target market plays. Is it Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, YouTube, or Snapchat? Where should you focus your efforts?Facebook for Business Tip 3: Schedule, Schedule, Schedule
Unless you are one of those who have the luxury to focus on your company’s social media as your only responsibility, you’re probably going to need to implement a social scheduling tool. There are a bunch of options out there, like Hootsuite, Buffer, Sprout Social, and Onlypult. Take a few minutes to compare and contrast and see which one is going to work best for your needs.Nice Note: At the time of publishing this blog, Onlypult is the only tool that truly schedules Instagram posts. You’re welcome.
Facebook for Business Tip 4: Check Your Profile
Please please please don’t go posting without having basic business information, such as your website, address, and phone number, listed correctly on your profile. Take some time to write a short description of your business and fill in as many details on your profile as possible. Additionally, make sure your profile picture and cover image portray your brand, and provide an image that aligns with your brand guidelines. Your profile picture is small — and even smaller on mobile devices, so don’t go and try to put your entire logo in there if it’s not going to be readable. Consider how profile pictures appear in the Facebook feed, and spend some time creating something that will stand out from the other 1.44 billion users. GOOD LUCK! Your cover image doesn’t appear the same way it does on desktop as it does on mobile. Make sure you have optimized your cover image for mobile, since 56.5% of Facebook users ONLY use Facebook on their mobile device.Facebook for Business Tip 5: Have a Plan, or Plan to Fail
Don’t think for one single second that you will be able to post on the fly every single day, or even bother thinking that you’ll be able to get your weekly post quota in without a plan. Congrats on dreaming so big, but really, those are pipe dreams, and real life and other responsibilities always seem to get in the way. You’ve got to make a plan. A lot of people refer to their social media plan as a content calendar. We suggest first creating some themes or buckets of subjects which your audience will find interesting. Once you have these larger themes or buckets, begin to write multiple posts for each theme. Then space those out evenly across your time period. Even if you need to do some on-the-fly posting, be sure you have an arsenal of backup posts that you can fire off in the event that you can’t get around to your social responsibility on certain days.Nice Note: You don’t have to post 20 times a day. It actually has been proven that it’s better for a brand or business to post only once or twice a day, rather than three or more times.
Facebook for Business Tip 6: Hire a Graphic Designer
Yes, a graphic designer is totally worth the cost and can help make your page appear professional, cohesive, and creative. Social graphics should be bold and simple while aligning with your brand image and supporting the post text.Nice Note: Potential clients may be visiting your Facebook business page before heading to your website. Not giving your Facebook business page the same attention you give your website is a miss.
Facebook for Business Tip 7: Monitoring Strategy
If you’re active on Facebook, it’s very important to establish a monitoring strategy from the start. Whether you use a service such as Klear or Mention, or you plan to monitor the page yourself, make sure you have a plan of attack before executing your social media marketing. Comments need to be addressed. Reviews need to be applauded. Messages need to be answered. Everything noted here needs to be done in a timely manner.Nice Note: Facebook is giving higher rankings to pages that have a faster response rate. Response rate is the percentage of new messages to your Page that are sent an initial response on the same day. According to Facebook, “Response time is the average time it takes your Page to send initial responses to new messages in one day.”Keep in mind that response rate and response time are based only on your Page's first reply in a conversation, not follow-up messages in the same conversation that day. If you receive messages when your Page's messaging status is set to away, the responsiveness metrics for those messages will be calculated based on the time at which your Page becomes available again. The Very Responsive to Messages badge shows people which Pages respond quickly and consistently to private messages. To get the badge, “your Page must have achieved both of the following over the last 7 days: a response rate of 90% and a response time of 15 minutes.” Don’t delete comments or reviews unless they vulgar, offensive, or profane (in which case you should also report it to the social police). Also, don’t delete negative comments or reviews. It’s best to respond once publicly with a more generic response; then, move out of the public eye to something like email to resolve the matter. If you can turn it around, do your best to encourage the revived user to give you a positive post or comment regarding the initial negative statement.
