Facebook For Business: Getting Started

There is a general misconception that social media management is an easy peasy job of just uploading pictures to Facebook and waiting till people start liking and commenting on your posts. Well, this may be true when you’ve already built up a 30k following, your fans love your content and engage with just about anything you have to post; but getting to that level will demand some time, effort, research and strategy.

If you want to be successful on Facebook, you have to do your homework first, and understand its unique opportunities and the ways it differs from other social media platforms. You wouldn’t try running a podcast on television, right? Similar to that, your Facebook strategy should be a bit different from how and what you post on your blog and in various magazines.

So, we made you a little “pocket guide” on how to get started and what to keep in mind to get the desired results from Facebook for business.

Have a clear Goal, Objectives and Strategy

Deciding what is your goal and expectations before even starting is a must. Some brands use Facebook for strengthening their brand recognition and brand awareness, others want a boost in sales and website traffic. No matter what your end goal is, you have to have one, and build your social media strategy around it.

For example, if your goal is to increase sales by 15% in the next six months, your Facebook strategy should include special discounts for holidays during this period or interesting deals for clients who bring in new customers. On the other hand, if your goal is to raise awareness and get more people acquainted with your brand – you may want to consider a contest or giveaway, which creates engagement, high reach and brings in new followers.

So pause right now for a few minutes, get a piece of paper and a pen, and start verbalizing your goals and strategy for the next 3, 6 or even 12 months. Having it on paper, in front of you at all times is a great way to remind yourself which direction you’re headed and analyze whether your current posts and actions fit that strategy.

Your About section matters more than you think

Your followers, especially the new and potential ones want to know who you are, what’s your business about. So make sure you clearly describe who you are, what you do, and how are you different/better than your competition. This is also the information that will be picked up and displayed by Google, if somebody searches for you, so make sure it’s brief and straightforward. It is also recommended to write this section in the first person, since it gives that human voice to your band, and makes you more approachable.

And of course, don’t forget about your Contact Information. The easier it is for people to get in touch with you, the more likely they are to contact you and book a shoot, order a product or service. Give them an email, a phone number, a mailing address if you have an office/store, and of course your website url. Customers who are redirected to your website from Facebook are more likely to be receptive and engage with your content than the average visitor, since they already know something about you and were motivated to click on the website link.

Call-to-Action buttons, don’t ignore them

Luckily, Facebook pages have this great feature – a call-to-action (CTA) button on the page header. CTAs offer you quite a few different options to choose from, it can be “Contact Us”, “Shop/Book Now”, “Watch Video”, “Call Now”, etc. Depending on your final goal (look above) choose 1-2 and test them, see which brings in more sales/inquiries and steers up your website traffic.

To create a CTA, look at the right bottom corner of your cover page. If you haven’t activated it yet, it will say Create Call to Action. If you’ve used it before, you press on it and select Edit Call to Action. Facebook also shows you how it looks like for desktop or mobile.Show your other Social Media pages

If you have presence on other popular social media platforms, let your followers know about it. Add Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest or any other relevant social tabs to your Facebook page. First of all this saves time for your followers, secondly – some of them may be more active on other social platforms so you’re ensuring they are fully engaged with your brand. Thirdly, as most Instagram accounts share many “behind the scenes” type of photos, you’re offering your fans a more human and comprehensive overview of your brand and personality, which again fosters a stronger connection between you and your followers.

To add a social tab to your Facebook page, you can either access a tab that you want on somebody else’s Facebook page, and look at the bottom for the words “Add XYZ tab to your page” or you can go to woobox.com and choose all tabs you need from their long list.

Promote your Facebook Page

Your Facebook page should work hand-in-hand with your other promotion methods. Make sure you add your Facebook page’s address to your business card, your website, your email signature or magazine publications. And here, it goes without saying that you should customize the url for your Facebook page, so it’s easy to remember and search. Try avoiding the #%^ and 39542, so it looks clean and professional.

To check and change the address of you Facebook page, go to your About tab, choose Page Info and find the section Facebook Web Address. If it’s clean and nice, keep it, if it’s messy – edit it.

Make an Action plan

A social media content plan/calendar will help you visualize what is done, what still needs to be done, and whether your posts go hand in hand with your goal and brand identity. Also, by planning ahead you will never stumble upon the question of what to post today. Organize all your content in a calendar or planner, and you can always go back and analyze what gets more engagement or what your audience does not like.

Here, you have the freedom of choosing which ever tools you like. It can be an online social media management app, with a calendar and ability to schedule your posts beforehand OR it can be an old-fashioned big printed calendar, hanging on a wall in your office, with notes, thoughts and stats pinned to it. As long as it gives you a good overview of what has been done and what are the next steps, you’re doing well.

Targeted Advertising

Though, we will be speaking about this in more details in one of the following posts, it is worth mentioning that Facebook offers you the possibility to advertise your brand to a very specific and narrowed down group of people. It analyses the information that users enter into their personal profiles, the pages and articles that they like, events and locations that they go to – and incorporates all this data into their paid advertising system, which anyone can use. After each campaign, make sure you analyze your ROI and the audience that reacted best to your ads. Make necessary adjustments.

The steps described above should give you a brief but clear picture on how to start using Facebook for Business. If you want more, stay tuned for our next posts. We will analyze what makes a post great, how to get promoted through word of mouth and how to get the most from your Facebook Ads and Insights.

Flothemes
Empowering You.