2. Marketing Small Businesses with Facebook
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3. Marketing Small Businesses with Facebook
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4. Marketing Small Businesses with Facebook
Intr oduction
Do you have a Facebook page for your business?
Is it regularly updated and maintained with interesting and useful
information for your customers? Do you know how to take advantage of all the
new features that Facebook pages for businesses hold â and are you?
If not, youâre missing out on a huge marketing opportunity, and
giving your competitors an easy â and huge- advantage.
But how do you even make a Facebook page, if you havenât already? And
how do you keep it maintained and updated? Not just with posts, but so that you
really get noticed?
It may seem easy at first but truthfully, creating a Facebook page for your
business that truly stands out among the millions that are out there can be a timeconsuming and tedious process. And it can all become a little confusing after a
little while, too.
This report is here to guide you through not just creating a Facebook
page, but highlighting each feature and showing you how to make the
most out of each and every one.
Inside youâll find not just a link to creating a page, but the actual process of
doing it â step by step.
Once your page is all set up, weâll make sure you have the tools to keep it
going, too.
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5. Marketing Small Businesses with Facebook
With the âBest Business Practicesâ that youâll find at the end of this
report, youâll have enough to get your page going, keep it going, and soon make it
so that yours is one of the top most-visited pages on the entire social network.
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6. Marketing Small Businesses with Facebook
Cr eating a Business Facebook Pa ge
Two of the biggest problems business owners face when they consider
creating a Facebook page for their business:
a) They donât think it will make a huge difference in their bottom line, and
b) Facebook is always changing, and they donât think they have time to
continually make changes to go with the updates.
While the second problem one is a legitimate one (and one weâll deal with
momentarily,) overcoming the problem of simply not knowing is an easy one.
Facebook is changing the way people do business â itâs as simple as
that.
Even business owners that have no interest in being on Facebook or having
a page, do so because they know thatâs where their customers are, and thatâs
whatâs going to give them an edge over their competitors â which could be you!
In order to get over the hurdle in your mind that Facebook simply doesnât
bear any importance on your business, consider these facts:
â˘
Facebook has more than 800 million users as of 2013.
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7. Marketing Small Businesses with Facebook
â˘
One out of every 13 people on the planet is on Facebook.
â˘
More than 71% of Americans use Facebook.
â˘
About 50% of Facebook users logon to the website at least
once a day.
â˘
Facebook has become the number one choice of social
networks.
â˘
The average Facebook user spends more than 13.5 minutes
each day on the website.
â˘
About 48% of Facebook users aged 18-34 check their Facebook
page as soon as they wake up.
â˘
Over 1/3 of professional marketers call Facebook âcriticalâ
or âimportantâ to their business.
Get the idea that Facebook is important, and that itâs one of the best ways to
reach a huge audience in a very short amount of time? That still doesnât do you
much good if you think that you donât have the time or the capabilities to do it.
The process of actually creating a Facebook page for your business is
very easy and in total takes about five minutes (ten if you really hem and haw
about it.)
But actually maintaining it, and keeping up with the different changes
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8. Marketing Small Businesses with Facebook
Facebook is always making? That can be a little tougher.
And while most business owners have the ability to research each change,
and find out how to best use it to their advantage, still many more find it much
more beneficial to hire a marketing consultant to do it for them.
This in itself is a very easy process, and youâll find questions at the end of
the report that will make it even easier.
For now, letâs look at what you need before you even log on to Facebook, or
even start creating your page.
Befor e You Be gin
One of the biggest benefits that comes from creating and owning a
Facebook page is that you donât really need that much to get started.
Facebook pages are free to businesses so unless you want to do additional
advertising on Facebook, you wonât even need your credit card!
Still, itâs always good to be prepared and you may want to arm yourself with
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9. Marketing Small Businesses with Facebook
a few things before you set about building your page.
A personal profile page
Your personal profile page has nothing to do with your businessâ Facebook
page. You can place a link to the company page on your own personal page if
youâd like, but that is it.
This is not the place to promote, sell, or market your business; and
Facebook may even ban you from the site if you do.
So why have a personal profile page at all? Itâs important to have this before
you create your businessâ page, especially if youâre not familiar with Facebook, so
you can get used to all the different features and know whatâs available. Plus, once
your businessâ page is up and running, visitors might want to check out your own
profile page â and that kind of interaction between the two pages is definitely
okay!
Two photos or images
With the new Facebook pages that include the Timeline, instead of
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10. Marketing Small Businesses with Facebook
having just one picture displayed, you get two!
Along with the standard profile picture that Facebook has had since Day
One, you now also get a cover photo. This photo is much larger than your profile
picture and looks very similar to a banner ad displayed across the top of your
page.
But to be very clear â this is not to be used as ad space!
Facebook is very clear about that and placing any kind of advertising
or promotion here is sure to get you booted from Facebook.
Weâll get into the specifics later on when discussing the step-by-step process
of setting up your page, but do make sure that you have two general photos
in mind. It can be discouraging to be extremely motivated to create your page,
only to find out that you canât find two photos that you want to use.
A vision, theme, or idea for your page
Just as it can be frustrating to be ready to create your page and be left with
no photos, it can be equally frustrating to be left staring at a white screen because
you donât know what you want to say.
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11. Marketing Small Businesses with Facebook
Go into your Facebook page creation process with a clear vision or
idea in mind of what you want it to look like, what you want it to say,
what links you want to display, what videos and pictures you want to
share, and what the main theme or topics of your posts will be.
Not knowing this ahead of time can make for a very confusing page or
worse, one thatâs boring with little on it â and one that doesnât get many visitors.
Whether itâs based around the products you sell, giving helpful
information to customers, or helping people in their daily lives, know what
you want to do with your page and it will be much easier to create.
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12. Marketing Small Businesses with Facebook
Cor e Fr amewor k
Once youâre armed with the few things youâll need beforehand, itâs
time to get started and create your Facebook page.
Hereâs the step-by-step plan that will not only have your Facebook going live
in just a few minutes, but that will also help you take the fullest advantage of all
the benefits the new Facebook page with Timeline has to offer.
First Steps
Visit www.facebook.com/pages and click on the button that says âCreate
Page.â
You can find this in the upper right hand corner. This will take you to the
next page where youâll need to choose a category for your page.
Currently the six categories you can choose from are:
â˘
Local business or place
â˘
Company, organization, or institution
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13. Marketing Small Businesses with Facebook
â˘
Brand or product
â˘
Artist, brand, or public figure
â˘
Entertainment
â˘
Cause or community.
After making your selection youâll then be taken to another page that will
ask you for some very basic contact information about your page.
Once youâve filled in your name, address, and phone number; as well as
agreed to Facebookâs terms of service, itâs time to really begin.
Select your cover photo
Cover photos are one of the biggest benefits that the new format for
Facebook pages brings.
Instead of having the photo strip (in the old format,) which constantly
changed pictures every time you uploaded new ones or your fans did, the cover
photo remains static and does not change unless you intentionally change it.
Luckily, you already have your perfect cover photo in hand; but there are
still a few tips youâll want to follow to make sure youâre realizing its fullest
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14. Marketing Small Businesses with Facebook
potential and that you donât get banned from Facebook.
â˘
Again, make very sure that your cover photo does not contain
any promotional material. This means no arrows pointing to the
âLikeâ button; no â40% off!!â banners, and nothing that
encourages visitors to use you or your business. Contact
information, URLs, phone numbers and addresses are also out,
so tread carefully. To make sure that youâre following all of
the guidelines, check out all of Facebookâs rules for cover
photos here: https://www.facebook.com/help?faq=
%20276329115767498.
â˘
Try to use an image size of 851 pixels x 315 pixels. Your
photo doesnât have to be this exact size, as Facebook will
crop it anyway; but the closer you get to that image size, the
less your image will be stretched â something that may make it
look very different than you intended.
â˘
Use a very high-quality photo. Remember, this image is very
large and if you choose a photo thatâs of poor quality, the
whole picture will look grainy and out of focus.
â˘
Donât include any important information or images in the
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15. Marketing Small Businesses with Facebook
bottom left-hand corner of the photo. This area is going to be
covered by your profile picture.
â˘
Once youâve positioned your cover photo where you like it,
simply click on the space and it will automatically fit into
that space for you. You can then reposition it, pulling one
side out of the picture altogether if you choose, by simply
dragging the picture to the desired spot.
â˘
Editing your cover photo is easy. Simply hover over it with
your mouse until âEdit cover photoâ appears. There youâll be
able to choose from past photos youâve placed on Facebook,
taking a new photo, or uploading one from your computer. Your
cover photo should be changed regularly, and you should try to
be creative when using it!
Profile Picture
Typically you want your profile picture to remain fairly static.
A business logo or picture of the sign outside of the office is often a good
choice. When you first create your page, after youâve chosen the categories and
filled in the basic information, your profile page will be displayed as a blank
square.
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16. Marketing Small Businesses with Facebook
Hover over it and âEdit profile pictureâ will appear.
Click on that and youâll have the same choices as you did with the cover
photo: to choose from past photos, take a photo, upload a photo, remove
the photo, or edit the thumbnail.
This process should only take a few seconds but again, there are some tips
you want to keep in mind when doing so:
â˘
The profile picture will be 180 pixels x 180 pixels when it is
displayed on the site.
â˘
Choose wisely â this wonât only appear on your page, but also
any posts you comment on or any other activity you participate
in while on Facebook and logged in under your pageâs name.
Fill in the About section
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17. Marketing Small Businesses with Facebook
The About section is not a new section in Facebook, but one that has
changed and that you might want to update.
When you look at the About section on a Facebook page, it can no longer be
viewed in paragraph form, going on for as long as the owner of the page would
like. Instead, itâs now limited to just a few lines so explain fully what your
business and page does and definitely include a link to your website â but
thatâs it.
Organize apps
With the new layout for Facebook pages youâll find different apps for your
photos, videos and the like located at the top of the page, instead of along the
left-hand side as they used to be.
As an admin youâll be able to choose which apps are found first, in the
priority of how important they are to you and your customers. You can have a
total of 12 apps but they likely wonât all be displayed up top. Instead, visitors to
your page can choose from a drop-down menu to see all of your apps.
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18. Marketing Small Businesses with Facebook
Instead of just listing out different apps though and prioritizing them, you
can use this area to benefit the entire page.
Livestrongâs Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/livestrong) is one of
the best examples of how to use the apps that are displayed in the pageâs overall
theme and look of the site. To have your apps appear this way, you can change
the images shown for each app by going to the Admin Panel and clicking on
âManage;â from there go to âEdit Pageâ to make the changes.
Set some Milestones
With the new layout you can set âMilestonesâ on your Timeline.
These Milestones will be flagged on your Timeline and will appear just as
the highlighted items do.
To create a Milestone you must first establish the day your business,
company, or organization was started, established, or launched. Then you
can simply click on âEvent Milestoneâ at the top of the page (where you would
typically post a status) and choose âMilestoneâ from the options given.
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19. Marketing Small Businesses with Facebook
Itâs also in this area that you can choose to post a question or an event.
Once youâve selected milestone you can then upload a photo or a video to go
along with the event and once you hit âSaveâ it will appear on your Timeline.
Images for milestones are set at 843 pixels x 403 pixels.
Use milestones to show major events for your company, and to highlight
major Facebook events for your company â such as when you reach 100,000
Likes!
Star, Hide and Pin
One of the best features in the new Facebook layout for pages is that
the owner of the page has much more control over whatâs shown, and
how long itâs shown for, in the Timeline.
It used to be that all you could do was post to your page. If you didnât post
for a long time, that post would still be the last one up. If you posted about a huge
sale you wanted customers to know about, and then kept posting regularly after
that, the sale post would soon get lost and go off the page entirely. You would
have to keep manually reposting the same post if you really wanted to reach a
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20. Marketing Small Businesses with Facebook
large audience.
Now though, with the Timeline, you have full control over how long a post
stays up, or if it stays up at all.
Hover over any post along the Timeline youâll see two icons appear â a star
and a pencil. Click on the star icon and that post will be highlighted. When that
happens, the post will widen itself across the top of the screen, and on top of the
other posts, while those posts under it remain their regular size. This âhighlightsâ
the post by making it one of the main features on the page. This can help you
really draw attention to something you think is of particular importance. If you
click on the pencil icon, youâll have a few more options.
The pencil icon is the tool you use if you want to: pin it, change the date,
hide from the page, delete it, or report the post as spam.
Pinning the post allows you to place any post you want at the top of the
page, where it will remain for seven days, if you choose. This allows you to write a
post about that sale and keep it up all week long â so that anyone who visits your
page any time within that seven days will see it. This is one of the biggest and
best new features of the new Facebook Timeline!
Clicking on the star icon will also give you the option to delete the post or
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21. Marketing Small Businesses with Facebook
report the post as spam as well. This latter option youâll of course only use on a
post written by someone other than yourself or any other admin; but you might
want to delete your own post if itâs no longer relevant, or if you made a mistake
and didnât correct it before publishing it.
Tour around the Admin Panel
The admin panel isnât necessarily a new feature to Facebook pages, but it
does have some new features that Facebook page owners are bound to be
interested in. From the Admin Panel you can reply to comments, make
changes to the layout of your page, create ads, and access Page Insights.
When you click on âEdit Pageâ at the top of your page, youâll be able to
update the information on the site; manage permissions such as who can see
the page, your blocklist, your profanity blocklist, or you can delete the page
entirely.
Also in âEdit Pageâ youâll be able to change and add admin roles,
manage notifications, see a list of banned users, or use Facebook as your
page, which will show your page on all of your comments, posts, and other
activity â even when itâs done through your personal profile page.
Itâs also in your Admin Panel that you can create ads and promote your
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22. Marketing Small Businesses with Facebook
page; and you can do this by clicking on âBuild Audienceâ, located beside âEdit
Pageâ at the top of the page. From there youâll be able to choose from a dropdown menu whether you want to invite contacts from your email list, invite
friends, share the page, or create an ad.
Page Insights will give you a full breakdown of the Facebook analytics for
your page, such as how many visitors you had in the past week, how many
people are talking about you, and how much overall interaction there is
with your page on Facebook. Through the Admin Panel, you can even change
the name of your page if youâd like.
Enable messages
Another one of the biggest changes to Facebook pages is the ability
to enable private messages. It used to be that if someone wanted to contact
you through your page, they had to post it on the wall and it was fair game for all
to see. Now with the new layout though, people can send administrators
private messages, viewable by the admin only.
This is a huge benefit to businesses as customers can now contact
companies about issues and concerns, without airing it out for everyone to hear.
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You should never disable these messages, as itâs essentially cutting off
another form of communication between you and your visitors. If you mistakenly
do though, you can turn enable them again by going to the Admin Panel,
clicking on âManageâ then âEdit Pageâ, and the âManage Permissionsâ. Itâs under
this menu that youâll find the âMessagesâ box, which you can uncheck.
Managing the Activity Log
View, manage, and organize all of your hidden and public posts
within the Activity Log.
Here you can look at all the stories posted on your page â by yourself and
others - and you can even filter them depending on what you want to look at. Sort
them by comments, posts from other users, posts from other admins,
pictures, and more. If there was activity on your page and you want to manage
it, the Activity Log is where you do it. Get to it by going to the Admin Panel,
clicking on âManageâ and then clicking on âUse Activity Logâ.
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Best Business Pr actices
So youâre all set up and youâve even gotten your Facebook page for your
business looking and feeling exactly how you want. But how do you use it most
effectively?
Recent research collected by Buddy Media investigated some of the biggest
questions business owners had about their Facebook business page: When should
they post? How often should they post? And other questions just like these.
Their findings can be applied to your own page, and can help you determine
when and how the best ways are to post onto your Facebook page.
â˘
The research showed that the best times to post were when people
were not typically at work. For example- first thing in the morning,
between the hours of 8pm-7am, on weekends, and on holidays. This is when
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25. Marketing Small Businesses with Facebook
your fans will be most likely to comment and âlikeâ your posts.
â˘
The research focused on pages that were updated regularly
throughout the week, including weekdays and weekends. Wednesday was
the very best day to post, with 8 per cent higher engagement than any other
day. Sunday was second to that, but by a long shot at 4%.
â˘
As long as the posts are useful information, posting one two times a day
showed a rating of 40 per cent higher user engagement.
â˘
So one or two times a day, but how often per week should you post?
According to Buddy Media, cluttering up your fansâ News Feed with a ton of
posts throughout the week is not the way to go. The study showed that
publishing to your page yields a 71% higher user engagement than
pages that had five or more posts within any one retail brand.
â˘
Now you know how often, but how long should your posts be? The research
showed that the shorter the post, the sweeter it truly is. Posts that
had fewer than 80 characters (not words) received a 66% higher user
engagement than those that used more than that. Posts that contain only 1
to 40 characters have the highest user engagement of all at 86%; but only
5% of businesses make their posts this short.
â˘
Ask questions! The study also showed that question posts receive twice as
many comments as non-question posts.
â˘
Make them fill in the blank! The research also showed that when you ask
your visitors to fill in the blank (i.e. âMy favorite thing about summer is
_____)â people are nine times more likely to comment on the post and to
âlikeâ it.
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26. Marketing Small Businesses with Facebook
â˘
Know your keywords and how to use them. Facebook is very SEO and
keyword-oriented so you might need to research which keywords best fit
your page and industry and focus on those. The research from Buddy Media
showed that for the retail industry the best keywords to use are â$ offâ and
âcouponâ.
â˘
Keep it simple. Buddy Media says that posts that contain only text have a
94 per cent higher user engagement than those that include links, photos, or
videos. If using some type of media, be sure to only use one per post.
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27. Marketing Small Businesses with Facebook
Using a Mar keting Consultant
You know how to create your very own Facebook page for your business,
and you even know how to effectively use it once itâs up and running. The only
problem is, you donât have the time or the energy to want to spend time actually
doing it. And you definitely donât have the time to keep with Facebookâs everchanging policies and formats.
For this problem thereâs also a solution, and thatâs to hire a marketing
consultant.
While there are several things youâll want to ask any firm or consultant you
hire, these are the most important when itâs time to focus on your Facebook page.
â˘
How long have you been using Facebook? Why did you start?
Here youâre looking for one of the first people to jump onto the Facebook
bandwagon. You want to know that they understand where Facebook has
been, where itâs going and most importantly, that they can adapt to all the
changes always being made.
You also want to know that they didnât create their first profile yesterday in
an effort to boost their own business.
â˘
What do you use your personal Facebook page for?
Itâs okay if the consultant uses it to upload pictures of family events, or even
pictures of the party they attended last weekend. But you also want to know
that they are marketing-minded all the way, and they also use their
personal profile page to advertise their own business.
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28. Marketing Small Businesses with Facebook
â˘
What background do you have in social media, other than Facebook?
Any good consultant will tell you thereâs an entire world out there beyond
Facebook when it comes to social media. By understanding all the sites and
all the networks, your consultant will be able to tell you how to effectively
incorporate all of the ones youâll be using.
â˘
Do I need to be on Facebook and every other site?
You are definitely not looking for a resounding âYes!â here â that would take
an entire team of consultants alone. Instead, the consultant should explain
which ones are best for you considering your industry, your business, and
what youâre trying to achieve from your page.
â˘
How do you measure your own results for your own page?
You want specifics such as âMy business has improved by X amount of
dollarsâŚIâve gained X amount of new PR opportunitiesâŚ.Iâve met X amount
of new people.â Any consultant worth their salt in social media will be fairly
obsessed with it and will know the detail down to the exact number. They
also wonât be afraid to share it with you; it is after all, a huge achievement!
â˘
What exact results can you promise me?
Youâre not looking for specific. No one can guarantee that 1,000 more
people are going to âlikeâ your page, or that youâre going to get 500 more
comments per week. Instead your consultant should talk to you about
different strategies, the ones that will work best for your business, and the
results you can expect to have â not that youâre guaranteed to have.
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â˘
Can I cut out my offline marketing now that Iâm on Facebook?
Of course, here youâre looking for a resounding âNo!â You canât stop all
other forms of advertising. Facebook is good, but itâs not that good. Still ask
the question so that you can get an idea if the consultant is trying to help
your business, or help themselves.
â˘
How much will it cost to set up my Facebook page?
Truthfully, setting up a Facebook page â and only setting up a Facebook
page â isnât very difficult, and doesnât take that much time. Because of this,
no consultant should be charging you a fortune to do just that. Now, running
and updating your page on a daily or weekly basis? Thatâs different and it
will cost a little more, but it still shouldnât eat away at your profit margin too
greatly.
â˘
Have you written online content before?
This question only needs to be asked if you plan on having the consultant
post to your page for you. And of course, if you want them to do that, you
want to know that they have a bit of experience in doing it.
â˘
Will this fix the problems my business is having?
Do not make the mistake of marketing on Facebook in order to solve your
businessâ problems â it will only emphasize them rather than solve them.
Any consultant that tells you otherwise isnât interested in genuinely
helping you.
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Conclusion
There you have it!
There are all the reasons itâs so important to have a Facebook page, all the
ways it will improve your business, and all the things you need to do in order to
create and maintain one â whether you want to do it all on your own, or hand off
the task to someone else.
The only thing left to do is for you to log on to Facebook (or create
an account, if you havenât already, and get started!
Create a page easily and start playing around with all the different options,
or start calling around to different marketing consultants to ask questions and find
the one thatâs right for you.
Now that youâre armed with the proper tools, thereâs nothing to stop you
from tapping into the huge marketing potential that lies right within Facebook!
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