As many of you know, we recently launched our very own Facebook Business Page, and feel so grateful and humbled by your outpouring of support.
I’ll be the first to admit that social media is not my forte, but seeing the difference it made for others, we decided to dive in and are pleased so far with the results. As we continue developing our Facebook business page – and hopefully you will look into doing your own as well – it’s important to tap into the tools at your disposal, measure your performance and make sure you are going about it the right way. Thanks to Facebook Insights, you can do just that!
Like anything else when it comes to social media for business, content is king, so strategizing what you post is very important. You might think that involves just posting regularly and trying to build a following, but the reality with Facebook insights is that you can see data that gives you insights into what posts connect the most, at what time and why.
So, let’s dig a bit deeper into what Facebook Insights are all about.
Likes
You may have seen our Facebook blog last month, breaking down Facebook business page strategies and goals.
One of those strategies was to build a following by first getting likes, and then going a step further by building engagement (more on that later). Facebook Insights will show your likes per day over a 28-day period, while also displaying where and when they came from. The latter is important because it gives you a glimpse into when your clients are online.
This is a nice start, but what you really want to do is build your brand awareness and reach those people that matter the most to you. Facebook Insights help accomplish this by helping you target your posts. Follow the steps in the link and you’ll be on your way to controlling and optimizing your target audience.
Engagement
“Likes” are a start, but the real kickstarter to a successful Facebook business page is quality engagement. In other words, it means creating posts that ignite conversation and awareness, ultimately driving traffic in your community, building a rapport and hopefully increasing business.
One great way to do this is to make sure each post is accompanied by a picture or video. Take a look at the image above. We were able to reach 89 people and get 5 of them to engage in a post we did last month. Of course, we hope to get a far bigger audience as we develop our page, but this still showed us a couple of things. First, it was by far our biggest reach, and second, it was the result of a quality, high-res image and a call to action, asking our community to vote for Jonathan Bill for the Top 100 ProAdvisors’ competition. A call to action is a great way to yield engagement, and we appreciate all your support!
This simple strategy has proven to be the best for capturing people’s attention and drawing them in. Perhaps, a video would’ve ignited an even bigger following. And, Facebook Insights will actually break down the number of video views, how long your audience watched them and which videos were most successful.
As your audience begins to engage through comments and questions, make sure that you respond thoughtfully. A couple of sentences is fine, but make sure they know how much you value their forwardness to engage on your page and the time they took to do so. This goes a long way to building trust and brand awareness.
People
One of the most dynamic elements of Facebook Insights is its ability to break down demographics. Through the “People” tab, you can actually see which fans engaged the most for each post, by gender, age, location and language.
This will help you see which members of your audience engage the most, allowing you to target them through boosted posts (see image above for the “Boost Post” button).
These boosted posts are the real hidden gem of Facebook Business Pages. Through boosted posts, you can actually reach a far greater audience, and specifically target certain niches. Sure, it may be an investment in time and money, but if I told you that for $7.50, a colleague reached 4,000 people, wouldn’t you be on board? That actually happened!
Reach Out to Learn More
I hope this information helps give you the boost to explore social media for your business. Of course, this by no means covers all the bases, but I think it’s a good start.
I know firsthand that this can be overwhelming, but don’t worry because we are here to help! Don’t hesitate to reach out to us any time with any questions, or to discuss starting your own Facebook business page, and you’ll be on your way to growth and prosperity!