Your Business Needs To Use Facebook Better: Here’s How

Every business that’s operating today should have a strong presence on Facebook. It remains the most important of all the social media platforms for most businesses. It’s where they can engage the most people and advertise to them directly. But that’s not all it’s about. It’s also about creating an informal and open side of the business where conversations and interaction can take place. If all this is done, Facebook can become a real asset.

Using Facebook to its fullest is not always easy though, especially when you don’t know where to start. There are lots of steps that you can take to make your Facebook page as accessible as it possibly can be. It’s something that you should work hard on improving over time. To get you started, here are the key things you should start to do as soon as possible.

Don’t Ignore The About Section

To start with, you should focus on the about section of your Facebook page. This is where people often head when they arrive at your page without knowing much about the business. It needs to outline what the business is, what it does and what it can offer them. It can be written in a formal or informal way depending on what kind of business you run and who you want to appeal to. What you should never do it leave it blank. This is just a sign that your business is amateur and isn’t interested in helping out the potential customers visiting your profile. It doesn’t take long to write it, so get to work.

Use Link Posts If You Want More Traffic

If you mainly use Facebook as a way of driving more traffic towards your main website, then you need to think about using link posts. These are posts that contain clickable buttons that link to a page on your website. If you can use these properly, then many people will follow those links and see what’s to offer on your website. Without these kinds of links, social media will be useless as a tool for driving traffic towards your website. It’s a very basic rule, but it’s one that you need to keep in mind. It’s so quick and easy to add a relevant link to a post, so make sure you do it. When you do, your traffic will start to rise. And this could also lead to an increase in online sales as well.

Images Are Important For Making People Stop And Look

Images offer your page a great way to get noticed. When you post something that is 100% words, it’s not always going to grab people’s attention. Whereas, if you use a good image that catches their eye, they will be likely to stop and read the text that accompanies this. All studies of how people use social media find that posts with images and videos are more commonly engaged with than text alone. It’s not something that you can afford to ignore if you want your Facebook posts to be seen and interacted with in a meaningful way. So, whenever possible, take the time to find an image that you think complements the post that you send out.

Write Sharp, Engaging Posts

The way in which you write your posts will have a large impact on how people engage with them. If there are mistakes, or they’re written in a confusing way, people will just ignore them. People are not going to stop in order to try to understand what you’re getting across. That’s why it’s so important to offer posts that are kept very clear and concise. They should be written in a manner that’s short and sharp. If you can get it across in 20 words, then do that. People don’t want to read large paragraphs of text when they’re scrolling through their feed. Make them engaging, snappy and easy to digest for anyone who might have liked your page.

Give People A Reason To Like Your Page

You need to give people a reason to like your page. This is something that many people forget when they are looking to attract more people to their Facebook page. What are people actually getting out of it? You can improve things by giving people a new reason to like it. This can be done by giving people new information or new deals. You could post discounts for your company’s website for people who like the Facebook page. Things like this give people a genuine reason to want to like your page and keeping checking your posts for any useful information or discounts. It’s a very simple technique, but it’s one that really does work well.

Understand EdgeRank

EdgeRank Facebook is the ranking algorithm that Facebook uses to manage the flow of posts and news stories people see. So, what appears in someone’s timeline depends on what the algorithm does. This might all sound pretty complicated. And, to be honest, it is. But the fact remains that you need to make sure that your posts reach as many people as possible. And this is only possible if you understand EdgeRank and what it means for your posts. There are some steps you can take to make sure that you posts are not negatively affected by this ranking system.

Use A Consistent And Recognizable Profile Image

Choosing the profile image for your business’s Facebook page is very important. If you get the choice wrong, it will do a big disservice to the page. People need to be able to see very clearly what the business is and what it has to offer. If this isn’t the case, then you have a problem. So, choose an image that is simple and to the point. For the vast majority of businesses, this means choosing an image of the company’s logo. This is straightforward and recognizable. Or it could be the logo with the brand name displayed too. But the brand name isn’t totally necessary because this will be displayed above the profile image anyway.

Target

Targeting people is very important when you use Facebook. You can change the setting of a post that it will target people in certain locations. This can be very effective. And you should definitely think about targeting if you use Facebook to advertise on and find new customers. Every business has a certain demographic that they want to aim. And for small businesses that only operate in one particular location, this is even more important, so give it a try. It makes sure that your advertising money is spent in a way that is wide and effective. It’s much better to do this that to rely broader and less targeted methods of online advertising which don’t get results.

Add A Call To Action Button On Your Cover Photo

The cover photo that you use on your page is also as important as the profile image you have. It’s one of the first things that people will see when they arrive at your business’s Facebook page. Therefore, it should be engaging and eye-catching. It should draw people’s attention and make them scroll down to find out more about the business. But if the space where the cover image should be is blank or dull, people will just turn away. This makes the page, and the company, look amateur and unprofessional, which is exactly what you don’t want. So, choose a bright, appealing and interesting image that says something about the business and what it does.

Start A Conversation

The great thing about Facebook is that it’s so easy to spark a conversation. If you have a relatively large number of likes, there will be plenty of people to respond when you throw out a post. This means you can start a conversation and get people talking. It’s a good way of making people engage with your brand and your Facebook page, so it should definitely be tried out. You can start a conversation that you know will polarise opinion and split people. That way, you will have a range of opinions and you can turn it into something that is fun and interesting for everyone. Of course, these conversations can sometimes get nasty, so you’ll have to be prepared for that too.

Post At The Right Time

When you post on Facebook is very important. If you post something at 2 pm, then the chances are it won’t be seen by many people. That doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t post at that kind of time. It just means that the posts that are most important should be at other times. The best times to post in terms of getting views is in the morning, after 5 pm or at lunch time. These are the times when most people are available and not working. You can schedule your posts for particular times to make sure that you always get them out at a consistent time that reaches your audience. Platforms like HootSuite allow you to do this, so give it a try.