There is no escaping the fact that Facebook is a giant – if not the giant – among social media platforms. With almost 2 billion daily users (as of March, 2017), Facebook presents a huge marketing opportunity. Yet, many marketers fail to utilize the platform in a manner that brings about a positive ROI.
If you are not seeing the results you’d like from your Facebook efforts, here are some tips for optimizing your organization’s Facebook page for better results.
- Page details
- Profile and cover photos. Your profile photo accompanies every page update, even those that are shared to other timelines. Many organizations use their logo for the profile photo for brand recognition. Your profile photo should be a square image that’s 180 x 180 pixels. There are many options for your cover photo, including video. For more impact, change out your cover photo periodically, using seasonal images or various promotional images.
- Custom URL or username. A username will appear in a customized web address for your page. The username should match your organization’s name as closely as possible, so that your page can rank higher and make it easier for people to type in the URL.
- Description. Don’t fail to complete this field, which allows for 250 characters of original content. Using original content improves page rank.
- Include your website. Make it easy for Facebook users to get to your website. And don’t forget to link to your Facebook page from your website!
- Additional page details. Be sure to list contact information, other social media accounts, a list of services and locations, awards and honors and the story of your organization.
- Page template. There are various page templates available, depending on the type of organization. Once you choose a template that most closely matches your organization, you can customize the layout of the buttons and tabs.
- Call to action (CTA). Select a CTA for your page – the button for this will be located beneath your cover photo. CTA examples include booking an appointment, contacting you, learning more about your organization and many more.
- Page tabs. Tabs, which are located on the left side of your page under your organization’s name, are a means to navigate through your page’s content. While there are standard tabs (Home, Posts, Video, Groups and more), you can add tabs. Link to your events calendar, your blog, your newsletter and more.
- Customer reviews. Don’t forget to enable reviews! Consumers rely more on customer/patient reviews than other information.
- Don’t just “fix it and forget it.” Facebook, like all social media, requires frequent updates and audience engagement to be effective. Some methods to engage and build an audience include:
- Post questions to get a conversation started.
- Post repurposed content from your website, your blog or other content sources.
- Post short videos.
- Stream live events.
- Post images.
- Probably most important of all: be sure you reply quickly to comments or inquiries!
- Know the competition. What are your competitors doing on Facebook? Tools such as Serpstat and BuzzSumo can help you analyze their presence.