For many of us, social media for business always meant one thing: LinkedIn. I was in the same boat, until recently – when I discovered the Facebook business page.
As you may know, we recently launched our own SBS Facebook Business Page. Some of you have already visited and liked our page, and we even have a review. Thanks so much for your support! The page will be a platform for us to provide content that we feel is meaningful to you and your businesses. In taking on this endeavor, I’ve learned a lot … and am still learning!
Here are some tips and a-ha moments we discovered when we put our page together; I hope you’ll find the tips meaningful and perhaps it will kick start your own page to grow and reach your untapped potential.
Hire a Professional Social Media Marketing Expert
I’ll be the first to admit that social media is not my forte. But, even if it was, I highly recommend finding and hiring a professional social media marketing expert. The reality is that unless you do it for a living, there is a big gap between what you know and what the experts know.
You may think you’ve mastered your personal page and all the tools at your disposal, but a Facebook business page is another thing entirely. And, when it comes to your business, it’s much more important to cover all your bases and have a smart strategy.
However, we only realized just how important this was when we engaged an expert. He truly took us on a transformational journey, researching the competition, honing in on our messaging, and providing content that can drive growth and showcase what we do. If you want his name for a referral, send me an email and I’ll give it to you.
Build it Twofold
A Facebook business page must be cross-pollination: growing your business while helping your clients. This should be an extension of what you strive for every day.
So, in everything you post, continue to touch on the services and solutions you provide, and how they help your clients or customers. Messaging is so important, and your social media expert should have a grasp on exactly what to say and do.
Your Banner
Your banner is at the top of your Facebook page, and naturally what everyone’s eyes will gravitate to, so it must catch and keep their attention. This is where brand recognition is so vital.
Your banner is essentially a representation of you and your business. As you can see in our banner above, we have our logo and name, our message or slogan at the top, and a picture showcasing how we work and how accessible we strive to be for you. The banner is a simple, yet powerful way to showcase what you do, trying to captivate the audience and keep them on your page. Remember, our attention spans are very low, and our lives are often so busy, so this is always a challenge.
Post Strategy
In our journey, we learned that posts are all about content, and for a Facebook business page, that means accompanying each post with a video or picture. This will attract the most viewers, and it’s your best shot at igniting engagement.
A “like” is good, but a comment or question is great! It shows your audience truly cares. When they do comment, make sure you and your team provides a timely response, but only respond if you have something meaningful to say. A simple “Thanks” or “like” won’t suffice. Provide some in-depth thought. A few sentences are fine – it shows how much you value the time they took to engage with you.
Attain High-Res Images for Your Image Library
When it comes to the images you choose, they need to be high-res at 300 dpi or higher, and you’ll want to start building these in your image library. It’s simple to figure out what “high-res” means; is your image fuzzy? If so, it probably isn’t high-res. The reason you’ll want a better image is for reputation management – every decision you make is a representation of you and your business, and your customers will take notice. So, if you have out of focus, unprofessional-looking photos, it will not only turn them off, but also show that you’re not serious about your page.
So, invest some money into your images and buy them from a reputable image site, or, in many cases, you can find good ones on royalty-free sites such as Pexels. Also, note there are two types of images: “cover” and “status update” images. The ones for the cover are sized differently than the status update images, so watch the finished sizes carefully. What you want to avoid is cutting off someone’s head because the image is more horizontal than square.
Pursue Paid Facebook Ads
As small business owners, we must be very careful with how we spend our money. But, if I told you that you could spend very little to reach a very large crowd, wouldn’t you be on board?
Well, that’s a reality with paid Facebook business ads. We discovered that for as little as $7.50, a Facebook ad reached more than 4,000 inquiries for one business professional. What a return! So, discuss this strategy with your social media expert, and start to see the foot traffic get heavier – and hopefully result in more business. After all, that’s the big goal!
Don’t Hesitate to Reach Out to us!
There’s so much more to creating the page than I could talk about here, so feel free to reach out to us today with any comments or questions.
We welcome any feedback on the page as well, and would love for it to be a platform for our community to get to know each other and develop long-lasting relationships. As always, we are so grateful for the trust you place in us, and we strive to keep delivering you solutions to take your businesses to the next level.