presenter: Amy Porterfield – website and Facebook Page
OK – wow. She had a lot of stuff to say, and said it fast. I was typing fast and furious, and definitely missed stuff. Including the actual title of her presentation 🙂 Definitely focused on Facebook marketing though. If you want some tips, tricks, and next steps for your organization’s Facebook Page, read on!
Big picture outcome for Facebook: Why are you on Facebook?ÂÂ
- goal is to choose 2-3 core outcomes that are aligned with your overall business goals
- key is to prioritize your outcomes – and don’t pile on too much at once
- be realistic, yet aggressive
- Your goal might be product promotion, relationship building, build authority, increase revenue, etc.
- Great point – if you have a Facebook Page, and no one’s doing anything there … you are wasting your time. So figure out what you want people to do next, and start planning for that.
Seven Facebook Marketing tips for Facebook Pages
#1: Know your Platforms
- profile vs Page.
- You can have only one profile, and it must be in your name.
- A Page is for your business to engage, promote and sell.
You need both!
- when you have both, you get double the exposure
- your profile will likely get more engagement
- you can only have 5000 friends with a personal profile
- You can’t target your Friends via Facebook Ads
- You can’t create opt-in opportunities on your Profile
#2: Add a Subscribe Button
- The subscribe button allows anyone on Facebook to view your public profile posts
- if someone subscribes to your profile, your public posts will now go directly into their News feed
- It lifts the 5000 Friends barrier
Why add the subscribe button?
- if someone requests to become a friend, they are instantly subscribed to your public posts
- people feel a stronger connection to you through your profile vs your page
#3: Impeccable Branding
- Use the Timeline cover to draw attention to something in your custom apps
- Point to stuff you want people to do
- What’s the next step you want people to do – point to that
#4: Create a Timeline Photo Strategy
- put up different photos
- If you’re advertising something, put that up.
Restrictions for Timeline Cover Photos (Facebook apparently has some restrictions for Timeline photos!):
- no price or purchase info
- no contact info
- no reference to Like or Share or any Facebook site features
- no calls to action
- no promotions, coupons or ads
- no URL
Cover photo should not be primarily text-based
Timeline cover photo strategy
- use text and images together
- Mari Smith ads notes to her audience in her timeline cover image
- change the image regularly – it makes it more interesting
- People are there to look at images, watch videos, have a little fun – so make it fun
#5: Create a Custom App Strategy
- Lujure.com – third party tool for creating a customer Facebook App
- customfanpagedesigns.com – another customer Facebook app company
- next step – what do you want your fans to do? Create opt-in opportunities behind the custom app.
- add stuff to subscribe to, sign up for, etc
- use action words for your apps – Sign up, watch, enroll now, etc
- keep people inside Facebook, and that helps build people’s trust.
Custom App How-to:
- showing how to swap positions, change names, etc. There’s an Edit Settings area. Use a Call to Action for the name of the app.
- Make sure to use a thumbnail!
Side tip: Grow your fan base first, then start using Facebook Ads
#6: Take advantage of the new Engagement features:
pinning
- this appears at the very top of your Facebook Page, and stays there for 7 days.
- Include a picture or a video, and a call to action.
Highlighted Posts
- it stretches across the whole timeline.
- Do both on a weekly basis
scheduled posts
- you can do this through Facebook now – you don’t have to use Hootsuite. Cool.
Promoted Posts
- at any one time, only 16% of your fans see your posts. Promote it, and Friends of fans will see it too.
- This costs money.
-  You can only target with language and location.
Engagement is still the key to marketing smart on Facebook
- example – one guy does something, say creates something. Then tells people, and asks them to say yes (in a comment) and click Like if they want it. Comments count more than likes – so his engagement goes up.
- Don’t post unless you have a call to action. Ask people to do stuff! Ask for likes, comments, etc.
Facebook Insights:
- Look at the current posts view weekly, and find the stuff that’s working well – then do more of that.
- Her most popular posts were because she ran Page Post ads – it helped her get more engagement. They are simply ads that let you click Like or leave a comment.
#7: Create an Image Campaign
- Images on Facebook are popular – most popular stuff on Facebook
- build a campaign around the images
- think about your content, and get that content in an image.
- gave an example of this – she created an image with a quote, and added the photo of the person who said the quote (i.e.., Seth Godin). People loved these!
- posted them one a day before a launch for a campaign
Create a lead generating visual campaign
- text based image…
- add the link to the thing in the status update
- Use an image as a call to action – click Like if you agree.
Q & A: Facebook Groups. She uses them for niche or stuff with a narrower focus.
Q & A: Scheduling posts? You have to figure out the best time for your fans. So experiment to find the best time to post.
Q & A: Engagement ads – click Like if … type of an ad. When they click Like, they become a Fan of your Facebook Page.
Q & A: why send people to a custom app instead of your website? Current behavior – people want to stay inside Facebook. Build a strategy around the behavior people are already doing.
Q & A: how do you get likes? Add a like box on your website. They become an instant fan. Get active outside of Facebook.
Kathy says
How do I do scheduled posts through FB?
Go says
Google “schedule facebook posts”
davidleeking says
Kathy – it’s pretty simple. If you are a Facebook Page admin, just click in the status update box, and then click the new clock icon in the lower left hand corner of the status update box.
First, it asks you to give the starting date of your Facebook Page (you can get that in the Timeline bar on the right-hand side of the page). Once you do that, just pick the year, month, and date of your post, and voila! It’s scheduled.
Pretty cool!
Louis says
Thanks for this detailed post! For businesses that try to branch out Facebook is the New Big thing and you just made evreything seem that much easier!
Keep up the good work!!
Liz Gotauco says
 This is very inspiring, though I’m also a tad overwhelmed! I am a new YA librarian, at a library that has a great Teenspace. We have a Facebook page for the Teenspace, but it is, right now, sort of noneffective. I’d love to have a more interactive experience with my teens – but one of the problems seems to be getting them! So that’s my first goal, for sure.
Mica Meerbach says
I am confused about the advice that an organisation needs both a profile and a page. I thought a profile was only for a person?
davidleeking says
There’s a couple of different reasons:
– you have to have a profile to set up and administer a Page
– she was talking about an individual pushing their business on their profile page too. Single small business owners could easily do that (ie., the Chris Brogan’s of the world, for example). I sometimes push stuff my library does on my personal profile – Topekans are interested, and other librarians are too (for different reasons).
Hope that helps!
Mica Meerbach says
It does, in just the way I had hoped, thankyou 🙂
I had been afraid that I’d missed something.