1: Analyzing and Planning
A: Know your customer
B: Know your Product
C: Understanding Facebook Best Practices
- Post every day.That may seem excessive, but as people make more friends and Like more pages, your posts may be missed. There are even studies that show posting between 3-5 times a day can be a good amount for pages.
- Focus on engagement.You’re trying to connect with and get responses from your community. Ask questions, post helpful tips, and link to articles that your audience will Like and share. When you make the posts about your audience and what they need, rather than selling, you’ll develop a deeper relationship with your community.
- Have a call-to-action.Tell people exactly what to do, like click Like, comment on a post, or watch a video.
- Don’t oversell, or undersell.No one likes a never-ending sales pitch, but do highlight your wares from time-to-time! Use the 80-20 rule for content/connection posts vs. sales messages.
- Make it fun.Facebook is a social community. People are there to have fun. Stay true to your brand, but think of ways to entertain your audience and let your corporate hair down.
- Other- Connect the profile picture to the cover photo, Highlight a product, Highlight a fan of the week, Give a creative use of the product, Show fans using the product or service
D: Watch and Learn- Take note of these key points:
- How often, and at what times is the page posting?
- What are they posting? What’s getting the most interaction – pictures, links, videos, questions? What copy resonates?
- How many people post directly on the page? How many respond to a post? Take note of the “talking about this” number that tracks these metrics over a 7-day period:
- Liking your page
- Posting on your Timeline
- Liking, commenting, or sharing your posts
- Answering a question
- RSVP-ing to an event
- Tagging your page
- Checking in
- Liking or sharing a check-in deal
- What isn’t working?
2: Create a Page
The world’s largest social network is willing to give you a free home page on their site, on which you can build audience and get your content in front of new eyeballs. They’ll even provide you with free counts and demographics of your new audience. Your page should be a warm, inviting place for people to come and should give potential fans a clear picture on what your business is about (See notes of page creation). Along with it join relevant groups from your Profile.
3: Build Audience First
First of all, build audience for your page: Invite friends to like, promote page, continue general posting and join groups to get more and more visitors.
Post Regularly: To get audience you need to keep posting regularly
Share the posting: Share the posting to friends’ timeline and share it in groups
Run page like ads
4: Regular Posting
A: Create a Content Calendar
You can have two types of content calendars. One is a larger roadmap of promotions and special events throughout the year to highlight, the other is a weekly calendar that can give structure to your exact daily content such as 3rd party links, photos, a Fan of the Week, etc. This is what your weekly content calendar could look like:
- Monday morning: 3rd party link to an interesting relevant article, Monday afternoon: Photo (could be a product or behind the scenes event)
- Tuesday morning: Your own blog post, Tuesday afternoon: Question of the day and so on
1. Upload behind-the-scenes photos.
2. Upload videos and create playlists.
3. Test the call-to-action button on the page header.
4. Share exclusive offers.
5. Run a contest.
6. Interact with other Facebook pages.
7. Celebrate milestones.
8. Create a custom tab.
9. Split test engagement strategies.
10. Show other social media pages.
Facebook thrives on giving its audience content that is three things: popular, relevant, and timely. These three things are the “edges” that Facebook’s algorithm “ranks” to determine what content is likely to be most interesting to the audience.(Called Edgerank)
B: Understanding Art of Engagement
Affinity is the score between the viewer and the ‘edge’ creator. How closely you are tied to the person creating the content determines this score.
Weight is the value given to the actions any given post receives. As they like it, comment on it, tag it, it gains relevance and post continues.
Time Decay is just that, the decaying value of the content as time passes. Today’s news is news. Yesterday’s news is history.
The more often you (or your customers) comment, click, like, and tag content, the sharper your “edges” and the more likely your content will display in their news feeds. Gaining a high EdgeRank is contingent on creating the type of content that gets people to click on it in one way or another, and to do so consistently. Give people content they find interesting, and they will inevitably take some kind of Facebook action that raises your EdgeRank scores. It’s still best to just come out and ask for a response. If you look at the posts from successful Facebook sites, you’ll notice that they almost always ask for some type of input at the end.
It can be fun, at the same time stimulating to take action as liking, commenting, clicking, or sharing. Try to make it relevant to your business or industry.
Benefits: Keep the average up, keep running the post, get leads (Probability concept)
C: Put on a Show
Facebook is all about community, right? So, leverage Facebook to bring the community together in real time (albeit virtually) and foster that sense of togetherness. Spend some time today brainstorming and planning the types of events you can host on Facebook. Some ideas include:
- Launching a product, or streaming a live press conference
- Hosting a panel webinar
- Throwing a Facebook online party
- Hosting a live chat on your Wall with an expert in your niche
You’ll need an app or plugin for video, like Ustreamor Linqto, but live events on Facebook let you speak directly to your customers and vice versa. Using video ads a slight layer of complexity in that you’ll need an App or plugin, but hosting a live chat on your Wall can be the easiest way to do something special for your audience. You can act as moderator and post questions directly to the Wall and have the expert answer, or have your community post questions directly on your Wall themselves and get a direct answer. As an added bonus, this activity helps your Edgerank!
D: And the Winner Is …
A contest requires entrants to get creative. It requires they get engaged, and that engagement drives relevance, something Facebook thrive on. Example: Logo making contest (Digital marketing), Cute baby contest (J & J), Give it a punch line (Advertising) etc
Don’t forget to:
- Integrate and cross-promote your contest across other channels.
- Give away prizes that are relevant to your brand and your products.
- Read Facebook’s contest rules carefully! They are sticklers and will shut you down if they find you breaking any rules. Spend some time studying themhere