Every Facebook business page has a profile picture, cover photo/video, about section, call to action button, contact details, pinned post and services/products overview. It’s your duty to ensure that your business utilises these opportunities creatively so that form strong first impression with viewers. No more blank contact details or awkwardly cropped profile pictures! Take GoPro, for example; they make sure they go above an beyond with all of the available space they've got on offer on their Facebook page:
Similar to Instagram, Facebook’s algorithm favours pages who consistently post the right number of posts at the right times throughout the day/night. Ideally, a business should post up to three times a day, during high engagement time frames (early morning, early afternoon and mid-evening)
Once again, content is king… And fortunately for businesses, Facebook’s range of post options offers an abundance of opportunity. You have the ability to post photos, carousels, videos, external links, gifs, events, Facebook products, events, GPS locations, notes, live videos and of course text; notice all of the creative options other than text? It’s there for a reason: use it to its full potential to stay ahead of your competitors!
As a general rule of thumb, aim to have less than 20% text in any images posted to Facebook(Facebook recognises text-heavy images as ‘spammy’).
Posts on Facebook that contain outbound links will not perform as well as well organically, as posts that don’t contain an outbound link. But how do I get people to my website? If you have to post a link, there are ways to maximise the organic reach. If it’s a blog post, ensure you’re using Facebook Instant Articles, if it’s not a blog, allow Facebook to generate a preview, then delete the original text link.
The same thing applies to videos! By pasting a Youtube or Vimeo link on Facebook, you’re linking to an outbound source. Facebook will actually penalise you for this action. Instead, download the content from the source and upload it directly to Facebook. Facebook will love you for it.
Encourage users to interact with your post. The more interaction your posts gets, the more ‘air-time’ it will get in the news feeds of users. You can do this by asking questions, posting something comment-evoking, asking users to tag their friends in the comments, or by sharing your business’s opinion then adding something like, ‘let us know what you think in the comments below’.
Facebook’s page insights offer business owners a dreamy amount of data, and as any thriving business knows, good decisions are strengthened by real data. Via business manager, you can access data on your followers, likes, reach, page statistics, events, messages and CTA.
In 2017, customers demand rapid responses from businesses on Facebook. This spans across page posts, comments, and direct messages. To add to the requirement to be responsive, recent Facebook business updates have resulted in your response rate (e.g. “"very responsive to messages”) being put on display to all visitors; use this as an opportunity, and not a threat.
Similarly to Instagram, Facebook is also a social media platform that allows your ‘brand voice’ to resonate throughout your page content and communication with followers. Ensure when you communicate with users on Facebook, you communicate as though you’re talking to them in real life, in a highly personable manner. A Facebook comment shouldn’t read like a professional email. Similarly to our 'Devote Tips: Instagram' blog, you can see that Uppercut Deluxe and Frank Body's brand voices are completely separate, despite being in a similar industry (beauty and grooming):
Recent Facebook updates allow businesses to tailor organic posts (i.e. posts that are not paid/boosted ads), where business owners can choose which follower segments based on demographic information see what posts. While this tip is high level and not necessary for all businesses, it offers strong potential for businesses with multiple target audiences.
For example, if you’re a business that has a number of distinctly different product ranges and/or target audiences (for example, females & males), why not consider creating separate streams of content (females & males) and tailoring it to the separate audiences? This practice boosts post engagement due to being of higher relevance to the individual target audience, and as a result can drive external objectives (for example, visiting and shopping on your eCommerce website after seeing a blog featuring a particular product).
Businesses have the potential to leverage their engagers and communicate to audiences that have never before been this accessible with targeting so highly accurate. Facebook provides the ability to target segments such as people who have visited you website, people who have engaged with you on Facebook and Instagram, those who are in a particular geographic location, people who have particular interests, people who are in the market to purchase certain products, people who have certain income levels… and the list goes on.
With the increased business competition on Facebook, many businesses are resorting to combining organic (unpaid) and paid strategies to promote brand awareness, achieve promotional objectives and ultimately remain ahead of competitors.