Facebook has 2 billion monthly active users which means that the majority of your customers and target audience will be using it. Facebook marketing has come a long way in recent years and the results it brings businesses are outstanding. From paid promotions to organically growing an audience if you aren’t doing it then you’re miles behind your competitors.
Before we get started, there is one thing that I often see and is the single biggest mistake you can make. Please, if you’re setting your Page up, remember to create a Facebook page, not a personal account. You won’t have access to Facebook’s business tools, people will need to send you a request to view your content and your audience wont be able to find you as easily.
Here are the biggest things to consider when setting up or optimising your Facebook Page.
Account Images
All of the images that you use on your Page should be the correct dimensions for optimised viewing. These change every now and then so keep your eye out for any updates. They need to be eye-catching and reflect your brand properly. Think about how you’ll use your brand colours, fonts and logos to ensure users recognise your content as yours.
Your profile picture should be recognisable, something that your audience associates with you. Whether it’s a logo for a business or a headshot if you’re a freelancer. Your profile picture is what shows when people search for you, as your thumbnail in newsfeed and what people see when you post and leave comments.
Here you can see how Apple have used their signature logo to ensure their Page is recognisable to their audience.
When you look at your Facebook page, your cover photo is what takes up the most space. It needs to be attractive and engaging for your audience.
Here you can see Nike’s Facebook cover photo. An image with their well-known slogan which encompasses the whole ethos of the brand.
Another strong example of cover photo’s done right is from The British Heart Foundation, theirs is animated and gets across a strong message. https://www.facebook.com/bhf/videos/613302595792110/
You can find up to date dimensions here.
Call To Action
Make sure your call to action button is set to the action you wish your audience to take. You can set them to ‘sign up’, ‘book now’, and ‘shop now’. You can add any destination URL or pieces of content that you choose – a great way to send traffic to your site. Facebook allows you to see the amount of people using your button by clicking on the drop-down arrow on the button and heading to ‘View Insights’
Optimise Your ‘About’ Section
The ‘About’ section is one of the most important things on your page. Facebook’s recent updates mean that users no longer see a preview of your ‘About’ section when they click on your page. They now must click on the tab on the left-hand side. However, if they’re looking for information about your business, this is where they’ll head to. When you’re writing this section, make sure you include everything that you would want customers to know about you. A rough guide would be:
- A general description of what you do
- Your company mission (if you don’t have one now is probably a good time to write one)
- A little bit about where you started and how you got to where you are now
Make sure your writing is brief yet tells a story. This gives your audience a chance to get to know your brand and see if your values mirror theirs.
Facebook allows you to include milestones that you’ve reached. Whether it be opening a new branch, launching your best products or winning awards. By recording these you’re helping to tell your story. When customers know these details, it helps them to buy into your brand. Boots have done this, and it helps customers to gain insight into the business as a whole.
Remember To Keep It Visual
As you scroll through Facebook what do you see? When brands do it properly, you see videos and images that make you want to engage with them. Visual content is almost twice as likely to be shared than other content.
However, video is the future. It’s easy to watch, you don’t have to read anything, and it often tells us the answers to our questions. We’ll be putting together our top tips for videos soon. Before we do that, here’s one huge tip… Optimise video for sound off. Lots of your visitors will be scrolling through their feed in busy environments. The office, public transport (we all forget our headphones occasionally) or waiting for little ones at clubs. If your video is accessible to both those who can switch the sound on and those who can’t you’re one step ahead of those who don’t spend time optimising for sound off.
I mentioned ‘Call To Actions’ earlier, Facebook has included ‘Watch Video’ on the Call To Action button options for a reason. Your consumers love it. It’s fast becoming the most popular way to access content. Pre-recorded videos are great, especially if it’s content that you want your audience to be able to revisit. If you’re feeling confident enough, I would really suggest thinking about taking time to do some Facebook Live videos. There’s something about the raw nature of them that users love and respond well to.
Work Out When & How Often You Should Be Posting
This is something that a lot of people overlook but the timing and frequency of your posts can make a huge difference. Not posting frequently enough can make you appear unreliable, unauthentic and will mean you struggle to build trust in your brand. Too many posts can mean people get bored of seeing your posts and can result in them removing their Like from your page.
A method that I use for clients is to create a social media calendar. You can do this monthly so that you’ve got a good idea of where your posts are going. Include any seasonal dates first and build around those. For example, October would include Halloween. This is always a working document and should be adjusted as and when it’s needed. I would always suggest keeping track of post-performance in your Facebook Insights which you can find at the top of your page. This means if certain posts aren’t working you’ve got chance to adjust. Work out the times that people are engaging with your content the most and plan future posts for these times.
To schedule posts, you can use something such as Hootsuite which allows you to schedule on other social networks too. Facebook does have its own publishing tool. All you need to do is create your post, click the dropdown button next to ‘Publish’ and select ‘Schedule Post’.
Pin Your Most Important Posts
Your Facebook posts appear on your page in chronological order which means that as you post new content old posts get pushed down. If you’ve got an important post that you want every visitor to see you can Pin it to the top of your page so it appears before your most recent post.
To pin your post simply click the drop-down menu arrow on your post and click ‘Pin to Top of Page’. Remember that you can only have one pinned post. See how Tesco use their video explaining about going bagless as their pinned post.
Enable The Messages Feature
Allowing your Facebook fans to message you privately is a great way to boost your customer service. It also means that once a conversation is started, you’re able to work towards gaining a new customer or encouraging an existing one to recommend you to others.
To enable you messages you need to head to your settings, go to ‘General’ and scroll down to Messages.
Remember that Facebook now displays how responsive you are to messages so ensure that you’re keeping up to date with them and responding in good time.
Keep Your Eye On Comments
As well as monitoring messages you need to make sure you’re on top of comments left on your posts. I always recommend responding to comments, it’s a great way to interact with your audience and show your personality and customer service. Looking at monitoring comments from another angle you need to ensure that there are no conversations happening that could cause a potential media crisis.
List Your Services With The ‘Services’ Tab
The ‘Services’ tab on your Facebook page is a great tool to showcase your products and services to your customers. There are options to add duration times and prices as well as an image to show results/products. New customers are likely to head here if they’re looking at what you offer so make sure that your description tells them everything they need to know, and the image is engaging. You can see how we’ve done ours here
Reviews
The more positive reviews that are left on your Facebook page then the higher your overall ratings will be. They’re available for everybody to see and are a good indicator to your audience about the type of business you are. You can’t delete negative reviews, so this is a good motivator to ensure you’re giving the best service possible at all times.
If a negative review is left the best way to deal with it is to leave a comment on the post apologising for the problem and inviting the user to contact, you in whichever way is convenient for them. This shows other users that you’re on the ball with dealing with issues and gives you the chance to discuss it with the unhappy customers.
Little Details
There are other details that can help your Facebook page. If you have a street address then make sure that it’s listed exactly the same as it is on your website and on Google. This will help Google recognise your business as being authentic. Ensure your opening hours are up-to-date and if there’s any change to them let your customers know with a Facebook post.
Hopefully this has helped you and given you a few ideas for optimising your Facebook page. Don’t hesitate to get in touch with the team if you have more questions!