Tips to Bring Your Facebook Page to Life 1. Look at Your Facebook Page as a Marketing Channel While this may seem a bit obvious, many businesses don’t think this way. The thought of Facebook for marketing is a relatively new concept in the world of marketing when you compare it to advertising, public relations and even email blasts. So incorporate it into your brand marketing. When you roll out your marketing plan and decide where your promotional hubs are – make sure your Facebook Page is in that list. Just think, when you made your last major announcement, or spoke at a conference, or held a charity event…did you post any of the coverage on your Facebook Page? This is the sort of opportunity that many of us miss and can promote engagement with your target audience. 2. There is a Second Promotional Life Outside of Facebook You don’t just market your Facebook page to the active community who are on Facebook, you need to promote it offsite as well. Facebook “Likes” can be a bit tough to come by, but imagine if your ‘face to face’ clients knew about your page? Have you ever mentioned to these clients that you had a Page on Facebook? This can be a huge missed opportunity. How visible is your Facebook Page in your marketing materials: business cards, website, email signature, commercials, brochures, print ads, direct mail…I can go on. Successful Facebook Pages are not built 100% on Facebook. 3. Have You Asked Your Supporters for a Like? Every business already has a built-in fan base: your supporters, your clients, your friends, your family, your employees and their network…well you get the idea. The number one reason many of us don’t ask is that we don’t think we should “sell” to our friends and clients. That’s a big misconception – you won’t be selling to them all the time, which brings us to… 4. What is Your Message Strategy? Why do people continue to interact with your Facebook Page? Well, you need to enchant them to get them to stay. I always tell my clients that in order to get traction on their Facebook Page they need to make sure their message strategy will educate, entertain and/or engage their Facebook Fans. You need to think about what you post. If you are a recruitment firm, don’t just post your latest positions – post articles about how to master the job interview. If you are a nonprofit, don’t just ask for donations – post or write articles educating your audience about your cause overall. If you are a social media guy (ahem) don’t just talk about your services – share useful content. 5. Pictures and Video – Where Are They? One of the biggest problems with Facebook Pages is that sometimes there isn’t a lot of variety with the postings. Mix it up by using pictures and video. See an interesting video on YouTube? Copy the link and share it on your page. See an interesting infographic that your target market would enjoy and benefit from? Post it! Of course pictures of your events, meetings, conferences and the like are wonderful – if you can’t create it yourself, support someone else and share. It is “social” media anyways, isn’t it? 6. Tune Out the Chatter One the toughest parts of Facebook marketing is that there is so much material out there touting “the best” ways of promoting your Facebook Page. But these mountains of “quick fixes” are not what makes you a success. I’m writing this to show you how to integrate and strategize rather than logging in and snapping your fingers. A successful Facebook strategy is not born from tactics, it is born from a solid strategy that is incorporated into the overall marketing activity of your company. 7. Take Advantage of Applications On Facebook, every Page comes preloaded with some applications such as pictures, discussions, events, etc. But there are many more that are at your disposal, that are free of charge and allow you to engage with your audience in a new way. You know what your clients like or will be interested in, so go and find applications that they will enjoy using. This will really bring your page to life! 8. Don’t Forget to Send Updates! By having a Facebook Page you have the ability of reaching your audience with information at any point in the way of a “Status Update”. So you want to send out a minimum of 1 of these per day in order to keep in front of your audience. Don’t have time? You can even schedule your posts in advance as well as promote them through advertising. 9. Custom Facebook Images I’m sure you have been visiting Facebook Pages that have slick graphics, opt-in boxes, video and more. These are custom designed and can really make a splash. It is handy to have a graphic designer on-hand to help you deliver the goods, but with a general knowledge of a graphics program such as InDesign or Adobe you can create gorgeous custom headers, logos and tab images for your page. Push the boat out and even create custom images for your status updates! 10. Talk Talk Talk, But No Listen This is one of the biggest pitfalls. You post and people comment or like. Someone comes onto your page and posts to your wall. What do you do? If you said nothing, then you are missing the trick. Two way communication is something from the gods when you are doing Facebook Page marketing, so make sure you write back to everyone who has posted, commented or liked. Answer their questions, thank them for their comments. You want the conversation to continue, not end before it started. And while you’re at it, why don’t you go to other pages and comment, like and share? 1. Where Is Your Target Market? On Facebook, many of your target consumers have their own pages. So it is a good idea for you to “Like” their page. This brings you onto their radar, but also them into yours (see #12). Search keywords in the Facebook search bar and then filter the results by Pages. Take a look and “Like” suitable candidates. This helps you branch out, grow your base and hit new markets. 12. Don’t Forget Your Newsfeed! What I mean by this is, when you are logged in as your Facebook Page, click on the Facebook logo at the top left side of the page. This page shows you all of the pages that you have “Liked” (from #11). This looks very similar to your Personal Newsfeed on Facebook and works the same way. Scroll through the postings and see what posts you want to “Like”, comment or share with your own page. Don’t just scroll and click “Like” – browse and make decisions that are on brand and message. Remember, it’s going to be associated with your brand….not your personal account! 13. Trade and Cross Promote. If you have good relationships with certain organizations or business partners, approach them with an exchange: you will send an update about their page and create a post, and they will do the same thing. This is classic self promotion and works extremely well on enhancing your Facebook Page. 14. Are You Ignoring Your Insights? Facebook Insights can be accessed from your Home page and are similar in a way to Google Analytics. This is a great way to continually check your progress and make sure that what you are doing is creating success rather than hurting you. It takes time to learn the ins and outs, but is worth the time. 15. Ask Questions! When you are marketing throughout Facebook, make sure to be inquisitive! Ask questions in your status updates, on other company pages or even start a poll. This is a great way to engage with your audience. This is also a great way of getting some feedback. Think of it as Facebook’s answer to the survey. The best question I have ever seen? What sort of posts would you like to see more of/less of? These types of inquiries will help you actually find out from your own network what’s working and what’s tanking.
Posted on: Wed, 06 Nov 2013 07:21:11 +0000