If your business uses a Facebook Page for promotion, there’s a lot more to maintaining your presence on the site than just posting updates.
Maintaining a good Facebook Page includes engaging with the public, responding to comments from your followers, and keeping the site updated with current information. There are caveats to these rules, too, of course.
How can you maximize Facebook for your business? Here are some articles that Small Business Trends has created on the topic. Hopefully, these will be resources for your small business while maximizing Facebook as a marketing and communications tool.
How to Market Your Business on Facebook
12 Tips and Tools for Better Facebook Management
This entry helps you manage negative comments on your Facebook Page. There are also helpful apps that allow you to better monitor any Facebook marketing campaign you’re running for your business. Check out these tips and tools for Facebook management for better engagement with your Facebook following.
10 Things You Should Stop Doing On Facebook
For all the things you should be doing on Facebook to better market your business, there are just as many practices to avoid. For instance, don’t ignore comments from your followers. Also, it’s best to use your Facebook page as a place to interact with your customers, not to simply broadcast your latest news. There are other things you should stop doing on Facebook. Read on for details.
4 Reasons to Rethink Facebook Engagement
The public’s use of Facebook varies based on age and other demographics. Some users are more engaged than others. Before investing too much time and effort in updating your Facebook page, read these reminders on the latest research about Facebook engagement and learn the reasons your message may be getting lost. Then rethink your Facebook engagement accordingly.
5 Quick Ways To Improve Your Facebook SEO
This article discusses tips for increasing the chances people searching for your business on Facebook will find it. Some tips include creating links that direct back to your Page, completing your entire profile, and using your real business name on your Page. If you need to improve your Facebook SEO look no further for suggestions.
The 5 Biggest Brands on Facebook And How They Do It
Probably the simplest way to build engagement and traffic to your Facebook Page for your business is to find out what the most popular companies are doing on the site and do the same for yourself. This article on Small Business Trends examines five of the biggest brands on Facebook and looks at how they do it. These are companies whose “Likes” are in the millions and whose posts garner thousands of responses. Learn their secrets.
46 Small Business Facebook Pages to Follow
Facebook is a great resource for small business owners. It’s a place to learn about the latest trends and to get insightful business advice. And this article suggests 46 small business Facebook pages to follow in order to get the very best of those resources. Following these Pages geared toward small businesses is also a great way to join the small business community on Facebook making new connections and gaining more exposure for your business in the process.
4 Reasons Your Brand Should Avoid Facebook
Everyone’s on Facebook, right? Not true. In fact, the social media site may not be the right fit for your business for a number of reasons. Here are four reasons your brand should avoid Facebook. Is your business among those that would be better off without their own Facebook page?
20 Ideas for Facebook Cover Images
A great way to attract followers to your Facebook business page is to make it as visually appealing as possible. One way to do that is with a lively and appropriate cover photo. This list gives you 20 ideas for a great Facebook cover photo (Twitter, Google+, and LinkedIn cover photos, too) on your business Page.
5 Ways to Run Effective Facebook Ads at Different Stages
Facebook ads can accomplish different goals for your business. Some ads are designed simply to get more “Likes” on your Page. Other ads can promote your products and others will promote specific posts on your wall. This article helps you navigate through the different ad campaigns you can run for your business on Facebook and identifies the 5 ways to run effective Facebook ads for your brand.
6 Actually-Useful Facebook Apps For SMBs
Facebook apps aren’t all fun and games. There are actually some great apps for your business’ Facebook Page. There’s an app that allows you to post YouTube videos on a tab stuck to your Page and also one to help you aggregate your blog content on Facebook, among others. Here are 6 Facebook apps that small businesses may find useful for their ongoing social media efforts.
Use this social media calendar template to create a social media publishing schedule!
Facebook Photo via Shutterstock
Honestly, perhaps the only thing you can do that with the effective marketing is paid to have your posts promoted to your followers and then hope that a small percentage engage you.
That or avoid marketing on Facebook altogether.
Aira Bongco
Yes. That’s the easiest way to get likes to your page. But to actually market a product to them, you have to exercise the right marketing methods or at least get them to like you enough that they’ll buy from you.
I have an FB page I run that I’m pretty active on, but I notice only a handful of people engage, and it’s more or less always the same people.
I know FB has curtailed the amount of posts someone can see, but there are a couple of articles you’ve listed that I’d like to read to see if there’s anything I can do on my end.
Great tips, Shawn.
I’m still hesitant to spend money on facebook. They change things around so much.
I’m just not all the way there yet.
The Franchise King®
Facebook is truly evolving. And with the use of gadgets, people are skipping Google and just searching on Facebook. It is a behavior that business owners should look out for.
Hi Shawn,
Thank you for this list of resources. I especially liked in your “10 things” article about not leaving spam on the wall. I think that leaving up spam makes businesses look unprofessional and like they don’t care about their presence. In my experience, facebook advertising does work – you just need to use it as your users like to use social networks. It is unlikely that you will get a sale right off the bat so I would advise not to even try. The goal of the ad should be to drive engagement and build a relationship. Often this is done via a white paper download, a free trial or something along those lines where your company can get their information and begin to interact with the potential customer. Has anyone else tried a lead gen./engagement campaign with facebook ads? If so, how did it go?
Thanks,
Adam
Delbert
It’s a sliding scale so those who make less, will pay less due to cost
assistance offered through the exchange in the form of
premium tax credits.
Aira Bongco
Really useful tips. It is really important to advertise on Facebook for the people are already there. It is all a matter of getting them into your funnel.
Keeping up with it is a must. I was doing work for a small business, and when they were a couple days late for payment, I searched and found their facebook page. I nearly freaked out when i saw they had few friends and that it hadn’t been updated in a year, thinking they weren’t a legitimate company. So, in other words, it can work against you if your FB page is clearly unloved.