If you have a company Facebook page with information about your business, congratulations! You’re well on your way to becoming a Facebook aficionado. However, while having an online page with your information is important, it’s only half the benefit of starting a page. The other half is utilizing your online profile to gain a following and to engage with current and prospective clients.
Developing the right content
The first thing you’ll want to do before inviting people to your page is posting some original content or at least content from credible sources. Whatever it is, what you put on your page should be interesting enough to convince the viewer to stick around. It’s important that every post has a visual element not only to draw eyes to your content but also to complement its message. Stock photos can be useful, but nothing adds to a post more than a photo or graphics specifically tailored for it.
Cultivate your network
After you have your page built and stocked with some content, you’ll want to start building your network. Begin by inviting your friends and family to like the page. If you have other social media accounts, use those to promote your new Facebook page. Also, tagging every communication you send out with “follow us on Facebook” should help draw an audience as well.
Start engaging
Now that you have eyes on your page, there are a variety of ways you can go about engaging your audience. Facebook gives you several posting options to choose from, including events, offers, polls, milestones and more. If you’re holding a seminar or a meet-and-greet, creating a Facebook event can allow you to easily send out invitations and get a head count of attendees.
The timing of your Facebook posts is extremely important. According to Hootsuite.com, a social media management platform, the best times to post on Facebook are between 12 p.m. and 3 p.m. during the work week and from 12 p.m. to 1 p.m. on the weekends. However, the ideal time to post your content is up to you. Figure out what works best and schedule your posts accordingly. Facebook gives you pre-scheduling capabilities so that you can time your posts for when they would be most likely to garner engagement from your target audience.
Utilizing Facebook features
Another feature of having a company page on Facebook is the ability to promote your page. Facebook provides you the option to promote your page through simple advertisements and the “Boost Post” option. For a fee, you can target certain audiences with your posts or advertisements and then analyze how successful they were.
Facebook also lets you add a “Call-to-Action Button” to your page. You can easily tailor this feature to fit the objectives of your business. Whether it’s for scheduling appointments, communication, directing people to your website, or what have you, the call-to-action button is a useful way to directly seek the engagement you’re looking for.
Take advantage of your network
One of the affordances of Facebook is the ability to socialize and interact with an online community. By liking other pages, you can build your network and expand your reach. While you probably shouldn’t like your competitor’s pages, it’s a good idea to like company pages of partners or complementary businesses.
Use Facebook Insights
Perhaps the most useful tool Facebook provides your company page are insights. Facebook Page Insights lets you know how your page is doing regarding audience engagement and specific types of posts. This can help you identify what works and what doesn’t so you can make changes or capitalize on certain types of posts.
Finally, you’re going to want to get verified so users know your page is legitimate.
Now that you have successfully started your Facebook company page and you’ve started engaging with users, you can use Facebook insights to find out what works best for your business. Next time we’ll talk about another social media platform that can help your business: LinkedIn.
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https://blog.hootsuite.com/steps-to-create-a-facebook-business-page/
https://blog.hootsuite.com/best-time-to-post-on-facebook-twitter-instagram/#facebook
