Regardless of whether you’re marketing a babysitting service, a casino for Vegas slots, an appliance store or any other type of business, you should consider setting up a Facebook Business Page. Facebook has nearly 2 billion active users. That means that it offers an amazing opportunity for reaching new customers and staying in touch with your existing clients.
Creating a good Facebook Business page should be easy, right? It’s free so all you need to do is to post the information about your business, add a few photos and videos and you’ll be ready to go.
You can definitely create your FB Business page like that but if you rely on such a half-baked effort you’ll be wasting your time. You need to develop a comprehensive strategy when you create a Page so you’ll get noticed. You should choose the right pictures, the right text, the right design and other elements that will enhance your brand and drive potential customers to your site.
Some tried-and-true hints for your Facebook Business Page include:
Correct Platform
Don’t create a personal profile for your business. You should build a Facebook Business Page which differs from a profile page in a number if different ways. The business page gives you a wide range of content creation tools, analytics/insights and paid promotional opportunities that allow you to maximize your posts, your photos and your content.
You won’t have to send and receive “friend requests” in order to stay in contact with people who want to see your content. Your facebook business page will attract an audience through likes and shares of your posts which you can share to your personal profile to start building an audience.
Photos
Profile Picture
The Page’s profile picture is the first thing that your audience will see. You should pick an image that’s easy for your audience to recognize — a headshot of yourself, your logo or a scene that helps viewers conjure up an image that will allow them to visualize the product or service that you’re trying to promote. Promoting a massage business? Show a photo of a client in the midst of a relaxing, mind-numbing massage.
Cover Photo
It’s important to have an attractive cover photo IN ADDITION to the profile photo. The cover photo is the banner that sits across the top of the Business Page. It takes up the most real estate above the fold of the Facebook Page and it’s the first thing that people see when they open your page. Choose a high-quality photo and make sure that the dimensions are correct for the cover photo’s size and shape.
Call to Action
Getting your viewers to “do” something when they see your page is important. You can ask them to “Watch Video,” “Book Now,” “Sign Up” or complete some other activity. Each item will have a customized destination URL or piece of content that allows you to send it to of their choosing so you can drive traffic from a Facebook Business Page back to your website.
The “View Insights” too allows you to check out the number of people who clicked on your Call to Action.
Targeting
You can target specific audiences with specific updates. You can do these targeted updates by gender, age, relationship, educational status, language, location or interests. You can segment individual posts on your Page by these criteria.
To set your targets, click the small bullseye symbol on the bottom of the post before you publish it. You can set metrics for a preferred audience or for those you think might not want to see your content.
Comments
Facebook is SOCIAL MEDIA. That means that the more social the content, the more it will get noticed. Toward that end, you need to decide whether you want to enable comments on your business page. Some businesses decide to nix that option because, either they don’t want to engage commenters or they don’t want to take the chance that someone will post a negative comment.
The companies that enable comments – and actively respond to both positive and negative comments – know how to optimize the power of social media. They Pages do the best, get the most notice and attract the most loyal followers.
You might even want to assign a staff member to monitor the page so that you can be proactive in your interactions with your audience.
Now you can start promoting your page through posts, likes, shares and ads.
About
Next to the photos the “About” section is one of the most important sections of your FB Business Page. This is the place that you add your basic information, company milestones, awards, contact information, etc.
Visitors click on the “About” option which is located on the left-hand column next to your content. It’s one of the first places that a visitor checks when s/he’s trying to get more information about your business and trying to decide whether s/he wants to look further.
You can insert a general description of your business, the business’s mission, general information about the company or your “story” that gives your business a more personal feel with behind-the-scenes information about the business.
Viewers get a sense of what your Page represents and they can then “Like” it so they see the Page’s posts, events, offers and other promotional materials.
Posts
Marketing experts suggest that you post something on your business page at least once a day to keep people engaged and involved in what you’re doing.
You should post videos and images as well as textual content. Think about ways to post Live Feed videos since they tend to drive more viewers to the Page. Video content of any type is a great way to engage your audience. Facebook gives priority to Facebook videos (over, for instance, YouTube videos) so consider uploading your files directly to your Facebook Page.
Timing
Quite a bit of research has gone into determining when the best time is for a post to go live on Facebook. Your posts should be frequent – again, once a day is the suggested minimum – and well-timed.
Research suggests that on average, posts that go up between 1:00p.m and 4:00 p.m. get the highest clickthroughs. The most disadvantageous times for posting are weekends before 8:00 a.m. and on Saturdays and Sundays after 8 p.m. Best times are Wednesdays at 3:00 p.m. and overall, the worst time to post is after 8 p.m. on weekends