Facebook Marketing Tips

Just about every business in Plymouth needs to get their Facebook activity right. Nobody has time to waste getting it wrong. Here are six unmissable tips for making the most of your Facebook marketing.

Optimise Your Cover Photo

Facebook allows you to include a large, wide cover photo at the top of your business Page. This is a great opportunity to grab the attention of new visitors to your Page. Use it to encourage them to dig deeper and find more of your content and, of course, to find out more about you. Better still, create a set of cover images which you can switch between to (a) keep things fresh, (b) cover the breadth of all the things you do, and (c) appeal to different segments of your audience. Make sure you follow Facebook’s rules though. Because they keep on changing them, here’s a link to Facebook’s Page Guidelines.

Improve Your “About” Section

One of the first sections visitors will look at is your “About” information. A preview of the About section can be found on the left-hand side of your Page beneath your profile picture. Visitors can also navigate to the full section by clicking on the “About” tab which is at the top of your Page. Make sure the text you use here is brief but compelling. Give readers a good sense of what you do and what your business is about. This is not the place to ramble. Cover your main points quickly but keep their interests in mind throughout. Although it’s called About, this is really about how you help your clients, rather than about you. The words they read here will help them decide whether or not to Like your Page. Copy from this will be pulled into the “Short Description” section.

Claim Your Page’s Vanity URL

When you create your business Page it’s URL will be a randomly assigned number like facebook.com/pages/yourbusiness/123456789. Who needs that? Nobody. Who can remember that? Nobody. You can get a much more memorable URL (such as http://www.facebook.com/inplymouth). Each of these “vanity URLs” is unique, so if your business name is already taken, tough luck. You’ll have to find a variation that is available. To create a vanity URL, visit the Facebook Username page, and follow the instructions.

Choose a Call To Action Button

At the end of 2014 Facebook added a great feature: the option to place a call to action button at the top of your Facebook Page. You get to choose between seven pre-built types:

• Sign Up
• Shop Now
• Contact Us
• Book Now
• Use App
• Watch Video
• Play Game

You can choose to link to your home page, a landing page, a PDF, a video, or almost anywhere else.

Quality vs Quantity?

When I’m training businesses to use social media there always comes a point when I’m asked the question. “How often should I post on Facebook?” People want to know if it’s better or worse to post frequently. Sometimes they want to know the minimum number of times they can get away with.

The simple answer is posting more frequently won’t guarantee engagement. Nor is there a magic minimum number either. Quantity does not make your posts more visible. Because of Facebook’s algorithms, the visibilty of your content in their News Feeds is more likely to be affected by the quality of your posts rather than their frequency. Make your posts and status updates as relevant as possible to what your audience wants to hear about. If that’s business tips, or advice for making wedding dresses, or beautiful photographs of your artisanal shakes, give them what they want.

When is the Best Time to Post?

There is no perfect answer to this. I’ve found that the peak times for social media are before people get into work (roughly 7am-8.30am), around lunchtime and also in the run-up to leaving work (4pm-5pm). After work people’s usage changes so you need to post different things after 6pm. Of course, this may vary between industries and in different parts of the world. The purpose of your posts may have an effect too: are you looking for engagement, shares, Likes, or simply to amuse or inform?

There is some research data available to us too on the best times to post on Facebook:

in general, the best time to post on Facebook is 3pm on Wednesday. Also 12pm–1pm on Saturdays and Sundays, and 1pm–4pm on Thursdays and Fridays.
Engagement rates are 18% higher on Thursdays and Fridays. During the week, posting between 1pm–4pm tends to produce the highest clickthrough rates. There is a jump in Facebook use of 10% on Fridays. This may be because people are looking forward to the weekend and this TGIF factor suggests that you may get better results if you post amusing or positive content. [source]

Avoid posting on weekends before 8am and after 8pm according to research by research from SurePayroll. These are just general guidelines however, there are always exceptions to the rule.

The Next Step

Our six Facebook marketing tips will get you on track quickly. Which one will you start with today? Whether you are new to Facebook or you’ve been using the platform for years, it’s always worth keeping up with the best ways to reach your audience on Facebook. Particularly when Facebook keeps changing how it chooses what to share with whom. These are just a few tips though, keep your eyes peeled for more posts with even more ways to improve your marketing with Facebook.

Need help with your social media?

If you need help developing an effective social media strategy, contact Ash for a no-strings chat. Or you could continue without a plan or results.