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Beginner’s Business Facebook Fails
The Sprocket Report
Even among the growing crowd of social media platforms, Facebook continues to be recommended for driving traffic to your website. If you still don’t have a business Facebook page or if you slapped one together in a hurry, check our list of common mistakes to avoid.
Setting Up Your Page
- You have several choices in the kind of Facebook page to build, with pros and cons for each. For instance, business Pages can only Like other business Pages, not personal Profiles. But personal Profiles don’t have Insights or post scheduling. If you think you chose wrong the first time, you can convert a personal Profile, but not a Group page.
- The cover photo for your page is hugely important so make sure it’s in focus and has enough pixels to look good. Remember sections will be covered by the profile picture as well as some text and that you can only adjust the photo up and down, not sideways.
- Since the profile picture you use will show up next to all of your posts, make sure it makes a big impact in the small space. Too-busy images and bad cropping undermine your professionalism.
- Fill out everything you can on your Page Info, particularly the URL of your website. Give folks every opportunity to connect with your business.
Being Social
- “Like” the right businesses and encourage them to “Like” you back. Make it a mix of those who you admire, those who are complementary and those who could use your services. Those you admire will provide good content for reposting. Complementary businesses provide you a new audience. And it’s always good to introduce yourself to potential customers.
- If you’re seeing too many irrelevant posts from one of your new friends, you can Unfollow them while still Liking them. You stay connected, but will no longer see their posts in your feed.
- Don’t forget to Like and Comment on other people’s posts. It encourages them to reciprocate and puts you in front of their audience. Particularly important is to reply to people who have commented on your page. It’s astonishing how many businesses invest in social media and then ignore folks who are trying to socialize!
- Best practice is crafting different posts for Facebook and Twitter, but if that’s unrealistic for you, consider linking the two so your Facebook messages post to Twitter at the same time. One warning: Scheduled messages don’t Tweet.
- Don’t fret over possible bad comments. Not allowing any comments means you’ll never hear anything good and it also looks like you have something to hide. No one’s perfect, so address any bad comments immediately and professionally to minimize damage.
Building a Routine
- Sharing the workload means more posts as well as a richer experience for your followers. If you’re the Admin, you can Manage Users to give your teammates Editor roles. They can post, too, but can’t kick you out of your own Page.
- Use the Recent view of your Feed to be the first to share or comment on the latest posts. Use the Popular view to add your comment to a post that’s already getting good traction.
- Wondering when and how often to post? Look at your Insights to see when you get the most interaction from your Followers. Try to post every day, but keep in mind that you can post too much.
- Take advantage of tools that schedule posts, either on Facebook itself or on a third party platform like Hootsuite. Schedule “Happy Birthday!” posts for employees or a weekly #ThrowBackThursday. Spend an hour scheduling once a week to ensure consistent daily contact.
Getting Creative
- While Facebook doesn’t limit the number of characters like Twitter, folks just don’t read posts that are too long. Keep your content short and sweet.
- If you’re linking to someone else’s webpage, Facebook usually generates a graphic automatically, although sometimes there’s none and sometimes there are a bunch. You can delete unwanted photos or add your own at the bottom of your draft post. Posts with pictures get more interaction, but bad photos get less, so take the time to ensure an eye-catching graphic.
- Sharing other people’s posts is easy, but don’t rely on that trick. After all, you want to send people to YOUR website, not theirs. Instead, write a short blog article about that other post and share the link to YOUR article on Facebook.
- Also, too many of the same kind of posts gets boring. Mix it up with a shared post, a meme, a linked article and an occasional actual marketing message, although those should appear least frequently.
Getting overwhelmed is that main reason people give up on their Facebook business pages and there are two solutions: Learn and implement a new technique on a regular basis or have someone do it for you. Do just one tip from this article and feel free to come back later to pick another one. Or contact us today and let us do it for you. We’re more than happy to help!
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Kate Gingold
I have been writing a blog with web marketing tips and techniques every other week since 2003. In addition to blogging and client content writing, I write books and a blog on local history.
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I have been writing a blog with web marketing tips and techniques every other week since 2003. In addition to blogging and client content writing, I write books and a blog on local history.
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