Begrudgingly. I love that word.
It brings to mind grumpy old Muppet men, frowning down from the balcony. It makes me think of annoyed, frowny people digging their heels in and being dragged towards something that’s good for them.
It also makes me think of old-school marketers rolling their eyes at Facebook. They do everything they can to avoid taking Facebook even the least bit seriously.
They dismiss it as something their daughters play with. They call it frivolous, irrelevant to their business, a waste of time.
Well, they’re wrong. According to this study, Facebook is where people go to connect with and support their favorite brand, especially millennials.
More compelling still is the stat that says there’s 35% increase in likelihood that a Facebook fan will buy from you than a non-Facebook fan.
So those marketers who say that having a presence on Facebook is a trivial thing…don’t really know what they’re talking about.
But just being on Facebook isn’t enough. You have to do it properly. Otherwise throwing up an unfinished, dead page is almost as bad as not having one at all.
Here are just five of the most common mistakes those “begrudging” types make when they create a Facebook page:
#1 Boring Cover Photo
You’ve got 851 pixels by 315 pixels to make a great impression on your Facebook visitors, so take full advantage of it! Far too often, we treat our Facebook business page like we would our personal page. What a waste!
Don’t use this invaluable digital real estate to show a pretty panorama of your favorite beach. Use it to your best advantage! Here’s a great example of how HubSpot keeps its cover photos fresh and relevant and promotion-focused:
There are a million ways to capitalize on your cover photo, like:
- Promoting a hashtag for your brand
- Encouraging visitors to like your page with an arrow to the like button
- Celebrating a holiday or new season
- Promoting discount code or sweepstakes
- Posting a celebrity photo relevant to your brand (if you have permission, of course)
- Creating a sense of urgency with a countdown
Whatever you do, don’t waste this fantastic space! (Note: Always be mindful of Facebook’s cover photo rules.)
#2 Incomplete About Us
Same goes for your About Us. Many business owners slap a website link up there and call it a day. No, no, no!
There’s so much more you can do with this space!
For instance, you never know what your customer’s preferred form of contact is, so list more than one way to get in touch with you. Phone number, Twitter handle, email, all of it!
Also, you have a great opportunity to write more than a short title or tagline in the About area. You can write a whole paragraph if you want. Make it count!
If you have won any awards or garnered any interesting PR (TV appearances, etc.) you should crow about it front and center, right in the About section!
Make sure you add a few keywords in there so when someone’s searching for your industry or specialty on Facebook, you show up in the results!
#3 No Call To Action
This tip’s similar to a website best practices. Facebook is a great place to brand and communicate with your audience. But it can be much more than that.
Although I don’t recommend constantly selling over and over in your posts, there’s nothing wrong with adding a clear selling CTA on your page itself.
Facebook even encourages this and makes it simple to do, by allowing you install a CTA button right in your cover, next to the Like button. There are many different options you can link to from that button.
For instance, if you click on the Sign Up button on the Marketing for Owners Facebook page, you’ll be taken to the download/email grab link for the “Free Copy Of The 71 Ultimate Marketing Tools Handbook.”
If you sell physical goods online, you can be even more direct and make it easy for them to simply Shop Now. Here’s how my friend who owns the dog supply store “Oh My Dog Supplies” does it.
#4 Blah or Irregular Content
This is the mistake that’s the most common. Mainly because it’s the easiest to make and the hardest to correct!
If you post the same content over and over again, you will lose the interest of your Facebook audience. Your likes will decrease, your shares will be nonexistent and you might even get un-liked.
The name of the game in Facebook is to engage your fan base and grow it. Think of it as a fun cocktail party where you want to network with people and make new friends.
If all you did at that party was talk about the same thing over and over (especially if that ‘thing’ is yourself and your sales) – how many people will you turn off?
Look, there’s nothing wrong with promoting a sale more than once. Just mix it up! Make sure you use different (ideally interesting?) language and make sure you intermingle it with engaging, non-salesy posts as well.
Stuck for ideas on what to post about? Here are just a few ideas:
- Quizzes
- “Fill in the blank” posts
- Questions where you ask for answers in the comments
- Links to your blog posts
- Links to friends/colleague blog posts
- Links to popular blog posts about content related to your industry
- Photos
- Celebrity news related to your industry
- Behind the scenes peeks at your company
The list goes on! There’s no excuse to post the same content more than once.
And you have to post more than once a month! Once a week is even too low. To get a rhythm going and to truly connect with your audience you have to keep the conversation going.
Although you should always be experimenting and testing, a good rule of thumb is to post at least once every weekday. Twice if you can! Here’s a great article on posting frequencies.
#5 Not Checking the Stats
This one really makes me scratch my head. Your Facebook page is free. Your Facebook Insights analytics are free. Why on earth would you not look at your insights?! Alas, many small business owners don’t!
Why not? Your insights can tell you all kinds of fantastic things about your Facebook page. What’s working and resonating with your audience…and what isn’t.
It will even show you data like what your Facebook audience demographics are! Where they live and what they hid or reported as spam.
Your insights tab is chock full of incredibly interesting, useful, potentially-profitable information. Take advantage of it!
Bonus Tip!
Finally, this mistake a bit more understandable — ignoring Facebook advice for business owners. Because many business owners might not even know this exists. It’s the Facebook for Business page and it’s simply awesome.
It’s a treasure trove of Facebook news, updates, tips and tricks. They have inspiring success stories of businesses who got it right on Facebook and reaped the rewards.
Those can add just the injection of energy you need during those days where you wonder if you should bother Facebooking at all!
Best of all, like most things Facebook…it’s 100% free!
So tell me, are you Facebooking correctly or are you guilty of any of these mistakes? How often do you post to Facebook? What to you post about? Tell me in the comments below!
[hide_from accesslevel=‘free’]
Are You Ready To Start Doubling Your Business With Half The Effort?
If you have a business, whether it’s established or brand new, wouldn’t it be great to know how to use free and low priced modern marketing methods to boost the number of customers banging on your door and dramatically increase your profits? And with no technical degree, no sales staff and just a few minutes a day.
As a member of The Owners Club, you’ll get free access to the methods I used to bootstrap my company from zero to a million dollars in its first 12 months with no sales staff (it was actually $1,002,000). And the methods I’m using today to keep growing it beyond 97,000 customers with very little effort. Best of all, it’s absolutely free.
Go here to get started
[/hide_from]