Lollipop Local

Welcome to Facebook. Here’s your Starter Guide to Using Facebook For Business in the UK - updated to include some new Timeline strategies.

Rules to Remember
1. Never sell
2. Follow the rules of the platform
3. Say who you are
4. Be consistent in timing and content – when you post and what

Check you’re in the right account – as one of your business pages or your personal profile. Over on the right hand side at the top in the Facebook toolbar there is a downwards pointing arrow which allows you to select which account you are posting as.

1. Update your Facebook status

Be sure to make it relevant to your target audience. Facebook’s UK users really seem to struggle with this. There are two types of Social Media – one that makes you money and which doesn’t.

This is a Business Page, so don’t talk about what you had for lunch unless you run a restaurant. Comment on news events or make a motivational quote or industry specific tip – they all need to relate to your business niche or things that are happening at your business. Tell a story in instalments – but it has to be relevant. You can also Ask Facebook Questions.

If you’ve got a list of keywords, then try to incorporate them naturally – especially if you have your Facebook page linked to your Twitter account.

Having said that, you don’t want to come across as a business automaton, so try to make it fun and always remember not to sell. You’re building a relationship with your updates – engage and be interesting.

The new timeline layout allows you to tell the story of your business. You can highlight important events and include pictures and links to big dates in your history and these can then spread across the whole page. Just hover your mouse over the top right of the status update and then select the star.

From the founding of your company, the opening of new stores, the launch of new products, the success of some of your clients, achieving landmark numbers of fans. All will help you to build a relationship with your reader.

New products and events can be promoted by pinning them to the top of the wall for seven days. Again, hover your mouse over the top right of the post and then select the pencil to get the pin it option.

Status updates should include a link to your website or a blogpost wherever possible/relevant – the idea is to get the traffic to go back to your website to see the great content there without them feeling as if you’re selling something. Include a call to action in status updates and blog posts – remind people to like or share.

You should also start making use of the tab app pictures underneath the cover image. These can be linked to landing pages that sell specific products and services and you can also link to these in your status updates.

If you’re doing a product launch or event and pinning it to the top of the page, link to a landing page under one of your tabs where people can get more info and have the opportunity to opt in to get more information.  There are four featured apps – photos is compulsory but the remaining three can be interchanged with another 16 which are hidden behind the drop down menu.

This should take 3-4 minutes.

2. Add Content

New blog posts, videos, photos, etc. should be uploaded to your wall every day and some studies say that 3-5 times a day can be a good amount for a Facebook Business Page. Remember the consistency rule – try to do the same thing every day at the same time.

You can link WordPress blogs to automatically post using Networked blogs. You can also link your YouTube acccount to your Facebook wall using an Involver function.

Recent statistics show that more engagement and interaction can be generated by using striking images – these show up far better and are more likely to catch the eye in the feed. They are also easy to share!

Again, try to use keywords in your descriptions and titles for links, pictures and videos – but don’t stuff.

Hootsuite or Tweetdeck are worth downloading. These allow you to schedule status updates as well as showing all the relevant information about your different platforms in columns on one screen. Having said that, some studies have suggested that third party apps could result in less prominence in your fans’ feeds and, therefore, less engagement. So make sure you also post manually and give your updates intriguing titles that make people want to find out more when they scroll through their news feeds.

You can create a content calendar so that you are posting the same type of content at the same time each day of the week as this ensures that you’re not repeating yourself or just posting anything rather than nothing at all.

This should take about 2 minutes.

3. Work Your Wall

Review comments on your wall and respond to them. Reply to answers to your Questions. Like responses – you don’t always need to comment. Remember to add your name to the end of those replies if you are speaking in the name of your Business Page as it helps to humanise the engagement. Give first time users a warm welcome to your Facebook page. And don’t forget to check for hidden posts that Facebook has filtered out for you.

It’s the interaction that’s important so spend about 5 minutes here getting to know people who have taken the time to react to your original posts.

4. Review your Newsfeed

Click the Home page for whichever Business Page you are acting for and spend a few minutes commenting on posts and updates from your contacts’ Pages. Remember who you are – if you have more than one Facebook Business Page, it can be very easy to forget the persona that you are trying to project and speak with the wrong public voice. Just as with responses on your own wall, if you’re posting as your page somewhere else, it always helps to make things more personal if you sign each entry with your name so people know who they’re talking to.

Hang around for 4-5 minutes here. You’re building trust that you know what you’re talking about and have something interesting to add to the conversation.

5. Don’t forget your Message Inbox

Respond to invitations and messages in your inbox. Don’t forget that the new timeline allows your fans to contact you direct privately. Whilst you cannot initiate conversations with them, these can be a great opportunity to build a relationship with those who do want to contact you away from the wall, whether it be for customer service or to find out more about a product.

Depending how many messages – 2 minutes or so here.

6. Growing your fan base

As a Page you cannot like Facebook Personal Profiles or even comment on their walls any more, so you need to focus on businesses that have liked you. Look at the businesses that are interacting on their walls and who they have liked – this shows in the left hand sidebar. You can learn a lot about what does and doesn’t work – how often are they posting, at what times, what are they posting and what gets the most interaction – pictures, links, videos, questions?

Learn what works and try it out on your Page – the People are talking about this number tracks who is liking your page and posting on the wall, answering questions, tagging and checking in over a 7 day period – this is also on your Page.

Instead of being in full view on your page, this is now hidden behind the tab app which shows the number of likes your page has.  Some pages have this showing in the four featured apps but others hide it away behind the dropdown menu.  The interesting thing about this is that the amount of information that is available to the public has been increased, so you can really check out the success of your competitors’ pages.

You should also check out Facebook Groups that are relevant to your niche/interest and make join the conversation there. Never try to sell. Just answer any questions honestly and grow trust with people. When they are ready to buy, they will come to you as someone who has proved their value on the subject within the group.

Devote 4-5 minutes to this.

You could spend all day on Facebook, so it’s important to have your content calendar, your list of what you need to do and stick to it. Then leave.

If you have more time later, you can return to check what’s happening but be careful because it can become a bit like the Hotel California.

To get help on creating your new Facebook cover images and tab apps, including landing pages, give us a call on 01702 476517.

Welcome to Facebook for Business.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 10th, 2012 at 6:34 am and is filed under Facebook, Social Media For Business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.