No one can deny the incredible power of adding user generated social reviews to your marketing!

Adding a Fan Review style tab to Facebook can let you leverage the power of your existing loyal community to more quickly build additional community!

Some apps can even cause the review to be shared on the wall of the reviewer and thus contribute to viral growth!

How cool is that?!

“Word of mouth is the currency of how people spend their money”
Gary Vaynerchuk – Author of CRUSH IT!

Fan Review Apps For Facebook

Before we dive in, I should note that this is one of several Facebook app segments that lack any quality apps in the free department. There are a couple of very very rough free apps but they are honestly not worth mentioning at this time. Hopefully this is an area that will improve next year.

So, I present you with three different premium apps of different types and pricing to help you find a Facebook review app that meets your needs.

Social Reviews Plus

Social Reviews Plus was one of the first to the enter the market with a useful fan reviews app. They are priced very competitively, with no monthly fee. However, it’s worth nothing that the app has no deep FB integration. This is a “win” in that reviewers need not approve the app before posting but also a “loss” because the reviews are not posted to the wall of the reviewer and viral traction is not possible. This app is in “finished” development and I think it is unlikely it will be improved in the future.

Check out my Social Reviews Plus Review.

Fan Reviews Engine

The super-awesome and best-in-class fan review app, without a doubt, is Fan Reviews Engine, by the SmashIt Social team! This app does everything you’d expect and MORE! Not only does it strongly generate viral activity but it even goes so far as to have a “widget” that you can display on your blog! Best in class however comes with a hefty price tag.

Check out my Review of Facebook Fan Reviews Engine.

WP Social Reviews

If you already have a site set up to handle SSL based iframes for custom FB apps, then you might have a look at “WP Social Reviews”. I have not tested this app as I only recently discovered it. However, due to it’s competitive pricing and ability to be have different scores for your different products, it may be the perfect solution for some businesses. I wouldn’t do this without SSL however.

Click here to check out WP Social Reviews (it’s at the bottom of the page).

There ya have it! Three cool ways to add fan reviews to your Facebook Fan (Business) Page!

Would you be so kind as to stop by my Fan Page (click here) and leave me a review or testimonial?

Are you taking advantage of fan reviews and testimonials in your business?

I can’t begin to count the number of studies I’ve read that claim they know the best time or day to post on Facebook.

While most of these studies conflict with one another, they also consistently conflict with my own analysis. This may not be what you want to hear, but the best time to post depends on your business and your audience. With a little extra effort and a little creative thinking, you can determine the best time for you.

How can you determine the best time for your business?

Focus on understanding your audience

Research shows that a Facebook post receives half of its reach within 30 minutes. Consequently, you should try to determine when your fans are on Facebook and aim to schedule your posts around that time.

Step 1: Determine who your audience is

Look at your Facebook demographics. They may be different than you think. You can review the age range and gender break down by opening your Facebook Insights and visiting the “Likes” tab. If you have multiple locations or a large customer base, you will want to review the location of your audience as they may be spread across various time zones.

Step: 2: Think about what their day looks like

Now that you know the demographic of your audience, think about their day — is your typical fan a mom? A student? Likely to work at 9-5 job? All of these factors can help determine the best time to post on your page.

Step 3: Apply what you know

Use the information you now have about your audience to post effectively. These Facebook statistics might also help provide more insight about posting best practices.

Facebook statistics about usage

Today, more people access Facebook from a mobile device than a desktop — 751 million monthly active users to be exact. Smartphone owners even spend more time checking Facebook on their mobile device than they do using Google. (For those who are skeptical about their fans viewing their Facebook content via mobile, don’t worry. You can check it all out in Facebook Insights.)

Think about this…80 percent of 18-44 year olds check their smartphone as soon as they wake up. It’s likely that your fans are reaching for their phones and scanning their newsfeed as they start their day. This creates an optimal time to post. In the last month or so, I’ve tested posting between the hours of 6:30-8:30am on the Constant Contact Facebook Page and have seen great results.

Smartphone owners tend to reach for their phones around meal times and 86 percent of mobile internet users report using their device while watching TV. These individuals also spend almost double their time accessing social media via a mobile device on the weekends compared to weekdays. Don’t jump to any conclusions just yet though. Weekends and weekdays, between 5:00-8:00pm, aren’t necessarily the optimal time to post because of newsfeed competition. During these hours, you’re likely to compete with your fans’ hundreds of friends and the other brands they follow.

On the Constant Contact Facebook Page, I’ve noticed that our posts receive the most engagement during off-peak hours when less overall posting is going on. Try to find your engagement sweet spot by determining the intersection of time when the majority of your audience is on Facebook and the time when the least overall posting is occurring.

Studies have also shown that more than half of users only access Facebook when they’re not at work or school. Also, the hours that people are commuting to and from work shows mobile usage peaks. Although it’s not safe if they’re driving, many mobile social media users are checking their phones on the way to work, which creates a great time to post about your business.

Let’s review. When is a good time to post on Facebook?

√ Early morning

χ During work (9am – 5pm)

√ Between work and dinner

χ After dinner (TV time)

√ Bedtime

χ Weekends

The bottom line?

The best time to post on Facebook is when your audience will see it. And this is going to be unique to you and your business.

Using Facebook Insights

If you want to analyze actual numbers to determine if past posting times (or if trying new posting times) are working effectively, simply follow these steps for using Facebook Insights.

1. Export the “Post level data” from Facebook Insights for your preferred time period.

2. Open the Post level data in Excel within the “Lifetime Post Stories by action” tab (the third tab) and delete all columns except D, H, I, J, and K. Don’t delete E if you’re interested in seeing what types of posts work well for your audience.

Note: This does not include clicks on links. It includes only “Likes,” comments, and shares. To review link clicks, simply review the same columns in the fourth tab in “Lifetime Post consumers by type.”

Don’t forget, timing isn’t everything! Determining the ultimate time to post on Facebook won’t increase your engagement if your content isn’t engaging.

Do you believe in a universal best time to post on Facebook? What time do you think is the best time to post? Tell us in the comments below.

Your #1 Goal on Social Media (whether on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest, or Instagram) is to Get People to Take Action. ~Scott Ayres

If you’re not getting people to take action on social media, then you’re just killing time.

And don’t get me wrong — killing time ain’t always a bad thing.

But for those of you reading this blog because you’re running a business & want to use social media to grow it — well, let’s just say you’re not in social media for the cat memes.

So How do you Get People to Take Action?

Easy. Ask them.

Sure you can come up with awesome, engaging posts to get your fans to do things — but sometimes “engaging” just means including a call-to-action or CTA.

Yep, by far the easiest way to get your fans & followers to take action is by adding a clear CTA to your posts.

Why?

Because people need direction. As Zig Ziglar said:

Lack of direction, not lack of time, is the problem. We all have twenty-four hour days.

This is true in so many contexts — how you get work done, how you raise your kids, and yes, how you post on Facebook or Twitter.

And now we have some data to back the claim up.

Dan Zarella from Hubspot recently published his findings from a study of over 2.7 million tweets. In it, he analyzed the use of CTA’s & their relationship to a tweet getting “retweeted”.

He found 7 words & phrases that made people retweet posts at higher rates:

How Does This Apply to Facebook Pages?

Obviously you’re not going to use “Retweet” or “RT” in your Facebook posts — but you can still apply the lessons learned here.

Just use “Share” or “Like” instead of “Retweet” or “RT”.

Actually, Dan published another study on Hubspot in November of 2012 discussing this very topic:

So there you go!

Further proof that having a clear call-to-action in your posts tends to increase engagement — which in turn increases Edgerank.

Luckily for you, Post Planner has a whole category devoted to CTA’s in our Status Ideas Engine.

The category is called “Ask for Likes/Comments”.  Check it out HERE.

And don’t forget to do your part to help others find my blog post by:

• Tweeting this
• clicking “Like”
• “Sharing” this post with your fans & followers

See what I just did there?

Man, I loved that show.

I loved watching Wile E. Coyote come up with his “fail-proof” plans for catching the Road Runner.

Here’s one of my favorites.

Did the Coyote’s plans ever work?

Not really.

Did the Coyote get frustrated?

Totally.

And I bet a lot of you feel a similar frustration when trying to “catch” engagement on your Facebook posts.

Coyote-like, you devise the perfect plan — deploying a super-enticing Facebook post, published at just the right time.

But then you post it — and nothing.

Facebook crickets.

And yeah, it kinda hurts.

And like the Coyote, you head back to the drawing board — to try to figure out a new failsafe way to get your fans engaging.

Well… figure no further, my friends. Help has arrived.

3 Essential Ingredients of an Enticing Facebook Post

Yes, there is a recipe for creating enticing Facebook posts.

As an example, let’s look at one of the most success posts of all time — cooked up by the Oreo Fan Page.

I think when we examine this post, we’ll figure out what makes a Facebook post enticing.

1. Be Relevant

Do you remember when the power went out during the Super Bowl — and the whole stadium went dark?

It was at the SuperDome in New Orleans — right in the middle of the game. The outage lasted a whopping 34 minutes & created quite an interesting situation for the NFL, the teams & the players.

The first brand on Facebook to take advantage of the situation — only to be copied by everyone else — was Oreo.

Within a matter of minutes they posted this image to their Facebook page & Twitter account:

Pure Genius!!

Why?

Because they made their post relevant to the current situation — and that’s the takeaway here.

Sure, you & I aren’t a big brand like Oreo — and yeah, the power’s probably not going to go out at the SuperBowl again for a long time.

At least for another year.

But you should always try to be relevant to what’s current & hot — both in the news feed on Facebook and in the world at large.

Doing so will surely increase your posts’ engagement.

2. Keep It Simple

Oreo could have really “coyote’d” this post up — for example, by posting something long, complicated & overflowing with text.

Instead they went with a simple image of a spot-lighted Oreo cookie & the words “YOU CAN STILL DUNK IN THE DARK”.

The pic was simple — and together with the text update “Power out? No problem”, the post nailed it.

There was no need for a call-to-action, a link, or for Oreo to beg for clicks.

Just pure simplicity.

I’ve said before & I’ll say it again — “Less is almost always More on Facebook” — and on social media in general.

During the power outage, I saw tons of other brand posts trying to leverage the situation — with longer & more contrived posts.

But Oreo was the only one that stood out.

Why? Because their image was simple. Simple & powerful.

As a small business you may not have Photoshop — or any expert image-editing skills. That’s fine — I don’t either!

Just use something like PicMonkey or Pixlr or even PowerPoint — yes PowerPoint is a great way to add text to images — and most of you have it on your computer already.

Or don’t use an image at all. Text-only status updates can do just as well.

Just remember to keep it simple!

*** Bonus Tip — Notice how Oreo didn’t include the word “SuperBowl” in their text update. This was intentional so their post wouldn’t get lumped in with the “200 other conversations about SuperBowl”. 

3. Timing Is Everything

The power at the SuperBowl went out at 7:37pm. Oreo had this image posted by 7:47pm.

And yes, the timing was absolutely crucial for the success of the post.

Had Oreo waited too long, they would not have seemed as witty & quick-on-their-feet.  And the post wouldn’t have been such a hit.

But because they got the image created & pushed out within 10 minutes of the power going out, the post went viral.

Notice the number of Likes, Shares & Comments:

Lisa Mann, who led the Oreo’s social media efforts during the SuperBowl, had this to say about the timing:

Because we picked such a big stage, we decided to have a social media command center, so we could respond real time to buzz. Of course we couldn’t have anticipated the blackout, but in that command center we had brand people, agency people.

Because everyone was together, they had everyone in place to jump on a real-time marketing opportunity, which was, how would Oreo see the blackout? And Oreo saw the blackout as an opportunity to dunk in the dark.

You may not have the need for a “social media command center” like Oreo — but you can still be smart & intentional with the timing of your posts.

A Facebook page should NEVER post “just because”.  Instead, you should be very aware of the times of day that get the most engagement — and post during those times.

Once you know these times, you can easily plan your posts at the correct times —regardless of timezones — to increase your chances of getting the most engagement.

The Road Runner CAN Be Caught

Let’s face it… not all of your Facebook posts are going to go viral

And not all of them are going to entice your fans to Like, Comment on or Share them.

But that’s ok. Just keep trying!

As long as you keep your posts (1) RELEVANT, (2) SIMPLE and (3) WELL-TIMED, you will eventually catch the Road Runner.

Like many page owners, I thought Edgerank — the algorithm that decides what you see in your news feed — was garbage & was ruining my Facebook experience.

Today, however, I’d like to make a statement:

“Hi… my name is Scott Ayres & I now LOVE Edgerank!”

Glad I got that off my chest.

Why Do I Now Love Edgerank?

This shift in my thinking didn’t happen overnight — and honestly it was a surprise to me.

I guess it’s easier to be a hater.

But now that we’re officially reconciled, let me tell you why I changed my mind.

4 Reasons I Now LOVE Edgerank as Page Owner

1. Edgerank Rewards Pages w/Good Content — Punishes Bad

The main goal of a Facebook page is to get engagement — and to turn engaged fans into customers.

The best way to get engagement is by posting good content – ie. content that’s relevant, appealing & has a call to action.

It’s simple:

• if you post good content, you get rewarded with better Edgerank & your posts get seen more in the news feed
• if you post crap content, you get punished with worse Edgerank & your posts don’t get seen

As a page owner, this is fantastic news!

To master Edgerank, all you have to do is post good content.  :)

2. Without Edgerank, You’re Drinking from a Fire Hydrant

Twitter & Google+ don’t use an algorithm to limit or optimize the posts you see in their news feeds.

This makes it nearly impossible to keep up with anything there.

For example, I follow about 700 Twitter accounts from my personal account.  Even with that low number, I still can’t keep up with every post that comes through.

The stream is constantly moving & I probably catch about 1% of it on any given day — even though I keep TweetDeck open all day.

On Facebook I’ve:

• liked around 3000 pages
• friended about 650 friends
• followed about 300 people
• followed dozens of groups & lists

If every post from every connection came through in my news feed, I’d probably lose my mind — and probably hate Facebook.

Instead, Edgerank makes sure I see a filtered view of posts from the people, pages, & groups I engage most.

Again, as a page owner this is fantastic news!

Why?

Because as long as you’re posting good content, your page’s posts will get seen by the fans most interested in your product/service.

Sure, there are reports — even from Facebook — that only about 16% of fans see any given post. And yes, when this was announced, marketers worldwide cried foul & got ticked off — myself included.

We worked diligently to get our fans — why should only 16% get to see our posts?!

The truth is — 16% is just an average.

Pages doing things the right way (posting good content) will see a higher — sometimes much higher — percentage.

But still… 16% is a good number, IMHO. It means about 1 in 6 fans see your posts & get the opportunity to engage.

On Twitter you’re lucky if 1 in 100 followers sees your posts.

So embrace the filtering — and again, post great content so more than 16% of your fans see your posts.

3. Edgerank is a Customized View

Facebook — more than any other social network — wants you to have a great experience on their site.

They achieve this goal via Edgerank.

Guess what?

Yep, this is fantastic news!

As a user it’s awesome because you see (mostly) what you’re interested in. So you love being on Facebook.

As a page owner it’s awesome because your fans (like you) love being on Facebook — and will be more likely to see & engage with your posts.

If users had to constantly scroll & chase posts to engage, they’d have a miserable experience & your posts would never been seen or get responses.

Are you embracing Edgerank yet?

 4. Edgerank Keeps Users Engaged

Yes, I “see” every post made on Twitter and Google+… but do I engage with all of them?

Nope.

In fact I couldn’t do so even if I wanted to — because the stream moves too fast.

With a focused & filtered news feed, users are more likely to engage with the content that shows up in it.

When I go to a restaurant & the waitress hands me a 10 page (front & back) menu I get overwhelmed. I spend the next 10 minutes never truly looking at the menu items because there are too many choices.

When it’s time to order I just order something I know I like & never try anything new.

Facebook is the same.

If users see too many posts in their news feed, they stop engaging because they don’t have enough time to add valuable input.

Think of the Edgerank filtered news feed like ordering at Chipotle — you only have a few choices to start (bowl, burrito or tacos), then you choose your meat and toppings. That’s it.

Simplified. Streamlined. Optimized. Customized.

That’s the beauty and power of Edgerank.

And that’s why I’ve begun to embrace it.

Who’s With Me?!

Are you on my side yet as a cheerleader for Edgerank?

Maybe not today, but if you’re a smart marketer you will be soon.

Which means you’re ultimately on Facebook to make more money.

I mean, you’re not just doing this to distribute cat memes, are you?

Ok, some of you are.

But for those of you who are serious about making a profit on Facebook, please pay close attention to the recommendations I make in this blogpost.

If you don’t, it could literally cost you thousands of dollars!

Below I’ll be reviewing the fan page of Rod’s Racers – submitted by one of our fans.

ALL of the changes I recommend can apply to YOUR page too!  And I promise — if you make the changes, you’ll see tangible results on your bottom line.

Make these Changes on Your Fan Page ASAP

1. Optimize your Cover Photo

With all the new changes to the news feed & cover photo layout — it’s more important than ever to take advantage of your cover photo real estate.

Make no mistake — your cover photo is one of the biggest & best branding opportunities you have on the web.

Unfortunately, Rod’s Racers’ cover photo offers little branding — other than the extremely fit (and somewhat out-of-focus) woman running along a bridge.

Remember: when someone Likes your page, a “Like story” shows up in the news feed of their friends. This story consists of a cropped version of your cover photo.

If the cropped photo says nothing about your brand, then you’ve missed a huge opportunity to grab new (and free) fans.

Here’s an example of one of these “Like stories” (with effective branding):

The exact slice of your cover photo that Facebook shows in these stories still seems to be changing.

Previously it was showing the lower portion of the cover photo — but now seems to be showing the upper portion along with your profile image.

Here’s what Woodford Reserve’s full cover photo looks like:

And here’s the “Like story” again:

Notice that brand’s slogan gets covered up by the profile image — which isn’t optimal. But at least we see some repetition of the branded bottles — and we know they’re all about selling bourbon.

Compare the Rod’s Racers “Like story”. Here’s approximately how it would look:

Not terrible… but it still seems like a missed opportunity to me.

The story as a whole (cover & profile image) doesn’t tell me much about what Rod’s Racers is — nor the value they offer & why I should Like their page.

Also, the page name overlaps the lighter background of the runner in the cover photo — and makes it hard to read.

Remember — if I’m a potential fan seeing your “Like story” in my news feed, I want to be able to do the following instantaneously:

1. read who you are
2. know the value your page offers me

If I can’t do these things in a fraction of a second, then I’ll probably keep scrolling… and instantaneously forget your page instead.

If I do that — if I forget you & don’t Like your page — then you probably won’t get another chance to convert me into a fan — and then from a fan into a customer.

That, my friends, is why having a great looking, high-quality cover photo — along with a branded, relevant value proposition in the cover’s upper half — is crucial to your bottom line.

2. Optimize your Profile Image

Your profile image is easily the most important image you have on Facebook.

It’s what your fans (and other FB users) see in the news feed when you communicate with them.

My advice is to not clutter this image up with phone numbers, slogans, etc.

Remember — your profile image shows up so small in the news feed (and even smaller in comments) that no one will be able to read any text in it — nor will they be interested in trying.

For example, can you read any text here:

Rod’s Racers would be much better off just displaying the 3 silhouetted runners in full size.  At least that would be recognizable — and thus convey information.

Remember — the #1 place fans interact with your page is in the news feed — not on your Timeline. So optimize your profile image for the news feed!

You can do this by making your profile image:

• high quality
• easy to read & recognize
• branded
• consistent across all social platforms (Twitter, Linkedin, Facebook, etc.)

If you follow major brands on Facebook, you’ll quickly see that they almost all use their brand’s logo as the profile image. They know what they’re doing, in my opinion.

So please resist the temptation to add phone numbers, URLs, bullet points, etc. in your profile image.

Keep it simple, recognizable & branded.

3. Choose the Appropriate Category for Your Page

The category you choose on your page is ultra important. I’ve mentioned a few reasons why in a previous post on how to create a Facebook Business page.

What I want to focus on here is the difference between calling your page a “Local Business” or a “Company”.

Below is the “About” section for Rod’s Racers:

Notice anything wrong?

Yep, they’re:

1. listing a P.O. Box as their physical address
2. not showing their website link

This is a real bummer, because Rod’s Racers is missing out on a huge opportunity for people to learn more about them & also to click over to their site – and it could be costing them thousands of dollars in lost revenue.

Plus, the whole reason to be listed as a local business is for people to find your location & check in — which is impossible at a P.O. Box.

I’d recommend Rod’s Racers:

1. choose a different category
2. edit their About section to show their website link & some keywords — like we have on Post Planner:

By including a link to your site & great keywords, you will create more opportunities for people to find your site & page.

Do this asap!  :)

4. Dump the Useless Apps

In my opinion, the most important goals of tab apps on fan pages are to:

• Drive traffic to your website
• Gather Leads

Anything else is taking up space & confusing your fans.

I know many “experts” love to recommend putting Pinterest, Twitter & Instagram apps on your page. But why? What is the real value of doing this?

My guess is you’re just distracting the attention of your visitors & missing opportunities to get them to your website.

Now… if you want to post links to your Pinterest page in the news feed as posts — then go for it! At least that’s driving traffic to a destination.

But adding a tab app to your fan page doesn’t do that — and it probably won’t result in repins, shares or more followers on those platforms.

Also… Rod’s Racers has 2 Instagram apps on their page instead of one — probably causing more confusion. If you can’t live without Instagram on you page, then please only add one tab app with it.

And if you haven’t added any new notes to your “Notes” app in over a year, then it’s probably best to hide it. Nothing worse than someone visiting your page, clicking an app thumbnail & finding outdated information

The same is true with the Events app.

Remember — with tab apps, less is more!

5. Stop Over Posting!

I’ll be upfront here — there’s no “magic” number of posts you should be publishing every day.

But posting 20 updates in a 24 hour time period without getting much engagement may be doing you more harm than good.

For example, the content posted by Rod’s Racers is very informative, but the engagement is low — and I believe could be much higher.

The low engagement is probably a sign that the page needs to post less often in order to increase engagement.

*** If you are posting 20 times per day & seeing tons of engagement, by all means keep doing it!

Most pages however need to post less often so they can get users re-engaged with the page. This is a key factor in Edgerank — Facebook’s algorithm that determines what shows up in your news feed.

By publishing so many posts, most fans are probably missing the opportunity to engage with most posts — and the less someone engages with posts from your page, the less often your posts will show up in their news feed later.

Sounds unfair, I know.  But that’s Edgerank, people!

My recommendation is to post at least 3 times per day — morning, noon & night.

And if your page attracts fans from around the globe, you should be publishing your posts at the appropriate times in all time zones.

So… Are You Ready to Make More Money?

Cool.  Me too.

So let’s make these changes to our fan pages & stop burning the potential cash that could be in our bank accounts!

You’ve seen pages that are crushing it & pages that are full-on ghost towns.

So there must be some sort of “secret” to successful Facebook pages, right?

That’s what I set out to discover when I asked a few friends of mine — who happen to be Facebook experts — a simple question.

I asked them:

What’s the #1 Secret of Successful Facebook Pages?

Brian Carter

The people running the page should understand Facebook is a new & different type of marketing & adjust their strategy accordingly.

This is much easier when your company is small or a one-person-show.

Bigger brands face internal obstacles like coordinating the people doing posting & ads (for both insights gained from ads as tests & for ad folks to be able to create good long-running post promotions) and maybe even getting a budget for Facebook ads.

Not to mention the scenario where a company’s normal brand positioning doesn’t fit with what works best on Facebook.

Some companies haven’t fully integrated search marketing — though they should have been doing this at least 5 years ago.  So as they try to integrate social marketing they run into the same issues that haven’t been resolved in search marketing — things like inflexible budgets chosen a year ahead of time, or learning how their customers respond on a monthly rather than annual basis.

It often seems like new Internet-based companies have an advantage over traditional rivals here.

But it’s not just the tools, or the youth of the people involved. It’s also that the new companies aren’t stuck in old paradigms & strategies that were created for other advertising & marketing mediums.

Brian Moran

The #1 Secret is custom tabs.

There’s no call-to-action on a fan page until you add one. You should do this using a custom tab. Use custom tabs to collect leads, or sell products & services.

You should be driving all fans and non-fans to a custom tab where you can actually monetize all the effort you’re putting into your fan page.

Without that, you’re flat out wasting your time.

Ravi Shukle

My number #1 secret is to be human & transparent with your fans.

How can you humanise your brand? Here are the top 3 ways:

1. Sign of comments with your name – Your fans like to feel like they’re talking to a real person, not a logo. Signing off with your name lets you build a personal relationship with your audience.
2. Tone of voice – When talking to your fans, avoid using corporate jargon. Use a more personal tone they can relate to. For example, use the fan’s first name in conversations.
3. Create conversation — When commenting & replying to fans, instead of just Liking comments or offering a 1-word reply, start a conversation & ask them “why” they like the post. Or when replying to a query, ask if there’s anything else they need help with. This increases both interaction & trust.

How can your brand be transparent? Here are 3 great ways:

1. Share your plans – Keep your fans in the loop & give them behind the scenes access. This builds trust & engagement as fans feel like they’re part of the process.
2. Invite fans to help make decisions – Don’t be afraid to get feedback from your fans. They’re your target market so you should value their opinions like gold. Ask multiple choice questions or give them a choice via an image e.g. Logo A or B?
3. Take your fans on the journey with you – Take advantage of Facebook’s milestones feature & share your company’s history with your fans.  Taking your fans on this journey with you helps build affinity with your brand.

Do these 6 things on your fan page & start enjoying a deeper & more engaging relationship with your fans.

Mike Stenger

As much as understanding Edgerank is important, it all comes down to great content.

You can know all the ins & outs of making sure your posts reach more of your audience — but if the content is lacking in any way, it won’t matter.

Mike Gingerich

I feel the #1 Secret of Successful Facebook Pages is engaging content.

This means posts & apps on the page that spur fan interaction & sharing.  There no way to succeed on Facebook that skips focusing on content.

Since Facebook users are less prone to return to a page after  becoming a fan, content in the News Feed that captures attention & invites comments, Likes & Shares is critical.

While apps & promotions on tabs are key ways to add further engagement to a page, the means of alerting users to a promotion on Facebook is largely via posts.

Since Facebook moved to Timeline in 2012, the News Feed has become integral to the user experience on Facebook.  Brands that are succeeding are finding inviting & innovative ways to interact with their community in the News Feed, which in turn, extends their page’s reach.

Content in the News Feed can & should vary — and the best interactive Pages know this.  From images to videos to update posts that drive traffic to promotion apps, thinking strategically about content is essential for success on Facebook for any brand.

Conclusion

Great responses here from 5 guys who know what they’re talking about when it comes to Facebook — and social media, in general.

Hopefully you can take away some nuggets from this little experiment and apply them to your page.

Your Turn

What do YOU think the #1 Secret to Successful Fan Pages is?

Bad assumption!

Just because someone has Liked your fan page doesn’t mean they’ll Like & comment on your posts.

After all, you aren’t “Friends” with them.

The ONLY way to capture the attention of your fans is to publish great posts that entice them to engage.

Here are 5 posts that will do that:

5 Posts to Increase Engagement on Facebook Immediately

1. Caption This Photo

Every time I post a funny picture like this and then ask fans to caption it, the response is huge.

People just love to add their funny comments to photos like this.

I posted this image while writing this blog post and quickly have gotten 20 shares, 20 likes and 10 comments.

We already know that photos get great Edgerank in Facebook.  So by getting people to comment on a photo like this, you’ll definitely increase the reach of your post — which will create more opportunities for engagement.

Check out Josh’s post where he shows you how to find awesome photos to share on Facebook if you’re having trouble finding images.

2. Quotes

Quotes are maybe the simplest way to increase engagement on your page.

Why?

Because people love to share & Like quotes — especially whimsical or motivational quotes.

You can post a text update like this motivational quote:

Or you can post the quote as a photo update like Kim Garst often does:

Notice her post got 132 shares & 379 people Liked it. That’s HUGE engagement!

I’d recommend mixing up your quotes between text only updates & photos so you can measure their effectiveness.

 3. Fill-in-the-Blank

Fill-in-the-blank posts are a quick way to elicit a response from your fans — and thus increase engagement.

Let’s face it — people love to be creative & show off their smarts. The key here is to keep the update short & make it a knee-jerk reaction to fill in the blank.

Notice in this post we actually gave people 2 choices — making it even easier for them to answer.

This post got 3 times as many comments as Likes — which is exactly what we wanted.

Here’s a great post showing you some awesome templates for Fill-in-the-blank statuses on Facebook.

4. Timely & Comical Photos

Facebook will give photos ever more prominence in the News Feed — which should excite you as a page owner.

Images have always carried a lot of weight in Edgerank. And with the majority of Facebook users being mobile-only, photos should see even more engagement moving forward.

As you can see, the above timely & comical image got a ton of engagement — which boosted our reach nearly 16,000 people (around half of our Like count).

It’s an example of a hugely successful post that created tons of engagement for our page — and probably exposed our page to a whole new crop of fans.

Why?

Again, because the photo was:

• Timely & Comical
• but also… it had a Call-to-Action

These are all key elements in a good photo post.

If you want to take it a step further, try posting a link in the photo caption — to drive traffic to your site.

And consider editing the photos you post to add your logo and/or url at the bottom of the image. That way when it does get shared 109 times, everyone will know where it came from!

5. Questions

Asking a question on your page is another easy way to increase engagement — and it requires few resources (ie. photos).

We ask a ton of questions on the Post Planner page, because:

1. we know they get engagement — as shown in the above example
2. we have a huge arsenal of questions in our Status Ideas Engine

My advice on questions is to:

• keep them short
• ask Yes/No questions when possible
• ask multiple choice questions and list the choices as A, B, C
• ask light-hearted questions to get the biggest response (lighten up!)

We do NOT recommend using the “Questions” feature on Facebook Pages.

Why? Because even if the post gets lots of engagement and goes “viral” it won’t really help your Edgerank. Plus people who answer the question often won’t even see where it’s from.

Sure it could be great to gather stats & do research for a blog post, but as a way to get engagement I’d recommend just asking the question as a text update instead.

Did You Know?

Did you know that 3 of the above 5 post types are ready-made functions in the Post Planner app?

Yep… Questions, Fill-in-the-blanks & Quotes are specific categories in our Status Ideas Engine – which makes it super simple to find & share awesome status updates.

In fact, we’ve taken the guessing game out of creating engaging posts by providing you with an endless assortment of pre-written statuses to choose from.

I can tell you from personal experience — I’ve used the database since it was launched 2 years ago — that Post Planner’s Status Ideas Engine has been essential in increasing engagement on the myriad pages I’ve run during that time period.

So if you haven’t connected to the app and tried our Status Ideas Engine, do it right now!

Remember — it’s FREE to post to all of your pages!

CLICK HERE to connect.

Then use the “Promoted Posts” feature on your page Timeline ASAP!

Facebook has recently changed the default settings on Promoted Posts to force page owners to promote their posts to Fans AND Friends of Fans.

In the past you could choose Fans ONLY — and not their Friends too.

Not anymore.

Why is this a BIG deal?

It’s a big deal because the potential downside of promoting posts to non-fans is much larger than the potential upside.

In fact, by promoting your posts to non-fans, you risk a huge backlash & significant long-term damage to your page.

In almost every case where I’ve seen pages promoting posts to non-fans, the sentiment on the posts (judging from the comments) is super negative.

Ie. hundreds of comments screaming “spam” (and other 4-letter words) — and hundreds of people clicking “Report Story or Spam” on the post.

Edgerank Nosedive

If hundreds of people mark your post as spam — whether the post is promoted or not — then your page’s Edgerank will surely take an immediate nose dive.

Facebook has made it clear that “negative” feedback on posts greatly reduces Edgerank — and when fans hide your post or mark it as spam — well, that’s about as negative as feedback can get.

But is this fair? The post you promoted wasn’t even spammy, was it?

Doesn’t matter.

If other people see your post as spam & mark it as spam — then it’s spam.

In truth, these people probably have a legitimate gripe. Your post is essentially an unsolicited marketing message — no matter how valuable & informative it is.

It’s unsolicited because non-fans have NOT Liked your page & have NOT asked to see your content.

“Unsolicited marketing message” is the very definition of spam, my friends.

So what should you do?

Well, first off don’t panic. There’s a way to still promote your posts without pissing off non-fans.

Just follow these instructions:

Step-By-Step Guide to Promoting a Post to Fans Only

Step 1: Go to the Ad Manager

There’s a bunch of ways to get here. Facebook has links everywhere these days.

For a shortcut just use this link: Ad Manager

Step 2: Choose your page as the “Facebook Destination”

Find & choose the page you want to Promote a Post on.

Step 3: Select “Promote Page Posts”

The “Get More Page Likes” option will be selected by default — so you’ll need to change this to “Promote Page Posts”.

Step 4: Choose the Page Post you Want to Promote

You have 2 options here:

1. Select an existing post on your page… or
2. Create a new page post.

(For this tutorial, we’ll select an existing post)

Once you select it, you’ll see a preview in the Right Column Preview:

Step 5: Sponsored Stories Settings

You can choose to deactivate certain options here, like:

• People liking your Page post
• People commenting on your Page post
• People sharing your Page post

My suggestion is to leave them all checked & activated.

As I mentioned in a previous post about Like Ads, showing social proof on your ads makes them much more effective.

Step 6: Choose Your Audience

Here’s where you choose the Location, Age & Gender you want to target.

In my opinion, you should definitely segment your ads by different location, age & gender targets, as it lets you measure & compare the response of the different segments

Also, if it’s 2am in a certain location, then it doesn’t really make sense to pay to promote a post there. And unless your page is geared towards teens, you should bump up minimum age to at least 20.

For our ad, we’ll choose “United States”, ages 20-50 & men.

Step 7: Choose Interests

Next you can choose to target fans based on Interests.

This is especially handy if you have a large page & want to drill down & show your post only to people who are interested.

If your post is about baseball, for example, you can choose “Baseball” as an interest — and the likelihood of engagement will increase.

For our ad we won’t choose any interests.

Step 8: Narrow down the Connections

This is THE most important part of the setup process — and the reason I’m writing this tutorial.

Remember — if you run a Promoted Post from your Timeline, Facebook requires that you show the post to your Fans AND the Friends of your Fans.

Again, this will only cause you headaches & kill your page’s Edgerank.

Here’s the way to avoid that!

• Select “Only people connected to XYZ Page” (Post Planner in this example)
• Leave the “Friends of Connections” blank

Step 9: Name the Campaign & Choose Your Budget

You get to name your campaign anything you want. I suggest naming it something descriptive & recognizable — so you can easily distinguish it from your other ads.

Then you’ll need to decide how much you want to spend on the promotion.

If you had promoted the post from your Timeline, you’d be shown something like this:

As you can see, both the Reach numbers AND dollar amounts are pretty high — plus you have no control over the age, gender or location targeting.

By using the Ad Manager instead, you can drill down by location, age & gender and also choose a specific budget.

Select your daily or lifetime budget for the promoted post.

Pay attention to the fact that Facebook selects “Run my campaign continuously starting today” by default — which means the post will be promoted until you turn it off.

For this ad, I’ll set it to run for just one day.

Your promoted post will be set by default to CPM (Cost Per Impression) — and I’d recommend leaving it that way. Trying to bid on a CPC (Cost Per Click) basis could be tough for a promoted post.

Step 10: Place Order

Here you should click “Review Ad” and check for any errors. Once you’ve done that — and corrected any errors — just click “Place Order” & you’re done.

Step 11: Wait for Facebook to Approve the Ad

Now you just have to wait for Facebook to approve your promoted post & start running it.

Waiting for Facebook’s approval definitely sucks — and it’s the obvious downside of promoting posts via the Ad Manager.

If you promote a post from your Timeline, for example, the promotion will start running immediately — although it will still be stopped if your post violates any of Facebook rules.

But again, because Facebook won’t let you target ONLY FANS when promoting posts from your Timeline, you should not do it there.

Key Takeaways

The Bad News — You can’t promote posts to ONLY FANS from your Timeline anymore.

The Good News – There’s an alternative, and it only require a few more steps.

By using the Ad Manager to promote your posts, you keep control of how the post looks, how it’s targeted and most importantly, whether it’s promoted to ONLY FANS.

So just use the Ad Manager.

ENAH Facebook app

ENAH which has more than 28K fans has launched a Facebook app – ENAH Fcommerce. The Facebook app is exclusive to its fans so you would have to like the page before you could shop from the store. Once you have liked the page, you would witness the entire ENAH eCommerce site embedded in the Facebook app. The screen grab below gives you the hint.

The Facebook store which is targeting women only allows you to browse through the available stocks, shop by collection, etc. In other words, you can perform all the action that you would do on the website. Select what you want according to your colour, size, add to wishlist or you can proceed to buy. However, once you click on the option “Check Out”, you are driven to the payment website. So in other words, the app only allows you to browse the products on Facebook.

Does ENAH provide a Facebook Commerce experience?

No! The Facebook app has simply taken the website and embedded it in the app. The app has two basic problems – 1. Not tested properly, and 2. Fails to provide a complete experience of Facebook Commerce to fans.

The “Continue Shopping” button right now fails to give desired results. Additionally, the app drives you to the website to complete the payment operation. However, Facebook Commerce means that the brand provides the complete experience of browsing and buying on Facebook itself, without you having to move out from Facebook. It is only during payment when entering the 3D secure code that you are moved out onto a third party site, because of the security guidelines placed by RBI.

In addition to this, the app also needs to have some social plugins such as the feature of sharing and liking. These features would not only help fans to share the activities with the community but also create conversations about ENAH on Facebook.

Companies like Exprestore, SellMojo have already ventured in Facebook Commerce from India and have a much better execution. Along with Facebook Commerce, there are companies like ShopSocially, Badhai.in, 99 Presents, etc. who have ventured into social commerce.

Despite the ongoing debate that Facebook is not a place where you would love to transact but in India this may differ. One of the growing sectors in India, eCommerce is already on Facebook if not anywhere else on social media. So with time, the shift to Facebook commerce will be a deliberate move by E-commerce.

But for now, ENAH needs to rethink on providing a better experience to its fans if it really wants to be the Facebook Commerce providing brand.

My #1 goal here is to make you a better Facebook marketer — which in turn makes you a better user of Post Planner.

But today I want to go back to the beginning & make sure we’re all on an equal playing field.

Maybe you’ve created a Facebook page before — or maybe you haven’t — or maybe you created one in haste and aren’t sure you did everything right.

Today I want to walk you through the process of setting up a Facebook page the right way.

So let’s get to it!

How to Create a Facebook Business Page

Step 1 : Go to “Create Page” Link

There are lots of ways to get to this page, but I’ll make it easy for you. Just click here: https://www.facebook.com/pages/create/

You should see something like this:

Step 2 : Choose a Page Type

Choose one of the following:

• Local Business or Place
• Company, Organization or Institution
• Brand or Product
• Artist, Band or Public Figure
• Entertainment
• Cause or Community

You’ll need to decide which page type is best for you as each type has different benefits & drawbacks.

For our example I’ll choose “Local Business or Place”

Step 3: Choose a Category

If you choose a page type other than Cause or Community then you’ll need to choose a category for your page.

You’re category is VERY important with Graph Search – so choose wisely so people can find you easier.

Just click the dropdown and you’ll be given plenty of choices.

For our example I’ll choose “Restaurant/Cafe”.

Step 4 : Choose a Business Name

Pretty simple — yet SUPER important. Enter your exact business name here.

Keep in mind people need to be able to find your business in Graph Search — so choose the name people know you by. Some “experts” recommend that you add keywords to you business name.

I think this is a mistake.

If your business is “Post Planner Burgers” then name your page that, not “Burger, Fries & Sodas in Texas”.

Plus if your page name is too generic, Facebook could take it over as a “Community” page — which limits the page features.

In the example above you’ll notice I’ve entered an address & phone number. This is only necessary if you select “Local Business or Place” — all other page types require only the Category & Business name.

Step 5: Agree to Facebook Pages Terms

To proceed further in creating your page you must agree to Facebook’s terms.

It’s a good idea to read over these terms every few months, as Facebook is constantly tweaking them.

Inside the Facebook Pages Terms you’ll find out information regarding:

• Page Administration
• Content
• Page Management
• Page Names
• Collection of Data
• Page Features
• Advertising on Pages
• Cover Photos
• Apps on Pages
• Offers
• Promotion Guidelines

As a page owner, this is info you should definitely stay familiar with.

Step 6: Click “Get Started”

Now that you’ve followed the first 5 steps it’s time to “Get Started”. So click the blue button.

Step 7: Set Up Page

Here’s where the fun starts!

You can choose to fill out this info or you can skip it. The best thing to do is fill it out now.

The info will show up on your “About” page and in the “About” section on your page’s Timeline.

You’ll need to enter the following:

• Category — No dropdown here, just type in the category you want to associate with (important in Graph Search)
• Add a description — This will show on your Timeline as the “About Section” — unless you’ve chosen a Local Business
• Website — Let people know how to find you online outside of Facebook

Facebook then asks you “Is XYZ business a real establishment, business or venue”? Kind of a dumb question, but check Yes anyway.

Once you select Yes, Facebook will ask you “Will XYZ business be the authorized and official representation of this establishment, business or venue on Facebook?”.

Again seems like a dumb question, but check Yes — unless you’re setting up a fan page for a TV show or celebrity and aren’t the official brand representative.

Once you’re finished with the above info, you’ll see something like this:

Notice how I selected multiple categories and Facebook gives me more to choose from.

Select the ones that apply & click the “Save Info” button.

 Step 8: Add Profile Picture

Here you need to upload an image from your computer or import from a website:

Your image needs to be at least 180 pixels wide in order for Facebook to accept it.

Upload your image & click “Next”.

Step 9: Like Your Page

Facebook will now walk you through a few steps.

The first one directs you to Like your page:

If you aren’t ready for people to see your page it’s probably best to hold off on Liking it just yet.

I clicked “Skip”.

Step 10: Invite Your Email Contacts

This is a great way to get your initial burst of Likes.

But as mentioned above, if your page isn’t 100% ready for primetime I’d hold off on inviting people just yet.

Step 11: Share Something

At this point Facebook considers your page ready to go & encourages you to share a status update to your Timeline.

But if you don’t have any Likes yet, no one will see it — unless they come to your Timeline later.

You might consider posting a “Welcome” image or greeting. But posting any sort of important link or other update might be a waste — seeing as you have no fans yet!

Step 12: Add a Cover

Facebook doesn’t prompt you to upload a cover photo like it does all of the other setup features. But you should definitely add a cover to your page — otherwise it looks like it’s not ready for business.

Your cover needs to be 851 pixels wide, 315 pixels tall & less than 100 kb to get the best load time.

Also, it can’t contain more than 20% text. You can test your cover photo here to see if it breaks the rules.

Your Page is Created!

Congrats! You’ve officially created a Facebook fan page! Hopefully this step-by-step guide was helpful to you.

Right — but do you ever feel like you might be missing certain Facebook features or tricks?

No matter how long you’ve been running your Facebook page, my bet is you still have a few things to learn.

And even if you’ve learned everything — you still might have forgotten something.  ;)

So this blogpost is either going to be a refresher for you — or be full of things you never knew about.

Either way — I hope it helps!

6 Awesome Fan Page Features

1. Pinning a Post

When Timeline for pages came out, one of most popular new features was the ability to “Pin” a post to the top of your Timeline.

This is a great feature for page owners because it lets you keep an important update, sale, blog post, or photo at the top of your page for up to 7 days — so when people visit your page (especially new fans), they see the post.

For example, I’ve seen creative page owners pin a “Welcome” photo giving visitors instructions on where to find things on the page.

To pin a post to the top of your page, just click on the “pencil” icon on any post on your Timeline — and then click “Pin to top”.

Once you pin the post, you’ll notice a ribbon icon indicating the post has been pinned:

2. Adding a Featured Page Owner

This feature is great whether you’re a local small biz or a global behemoth brand.

It adds a personal touch to your page, while also helping build a following for the page owners.

To add a featured owner, click “Update Page Info” (above your cover) and then “Featured” and then “Edit Featured Page Owners”.

Once you choose which Page Owners to feature, their profile pics — linked to their profiles — will show up on your page’s “About” page.

3. Quickly Viewing How Many People Saw Your Post

Looking at Facebook Insights can be a pain in the butt sometimes — not to mention confusing.

But did you know Facebook lets you quickly see how many people have seen your post?

Just go to any post on your page and hover over “xxxx people saw this post”.

A pop-up will show you how many people saw it, broken down into:

• “Organic” — which means your fans
• “Viral” — which means friends of your fans
• “Paid” — which means you Promoted the post & exposed it to other fans & non-fans

The pop-up will also give you a link to your most viewed post so you can quickly compare it.

4. Managing “Posts by Others”

Other people posting on your fan page is usually a good thing — but sometimes it’s just spam.

As a small biz owner, it can be hard to keep up with fan posts — and to manage them in an easy way.

There are 2 quick ways to do this.

1)  Click dropdown arrow on “Highlights” (at top of Timeline) and select “Posts by Others”

Then you can like, comment, hide or ban as you wish.

2)  Click “See All” on “Recent Posts by Others” box

If you’ve allowed the “Posts by Others” box to show on your Timeline, you can just click “See All” in the top right corner and see all the posts made by fans.

To me this is the quickest, most efficient way to manage posts on your page:

5) Re-positioning Photos

When you upload an image to Facebook — whether on your profile Timeline or page Timeline — and the image is too large or of strange proportions, it can end up looking goofy on the Timeline.

Did you know Facebook allows you to Reposition your photo so it looks better on your Timeline?

Just find the photo on your Timeline and click the “pencil” icon.

Then choose “Reposition photo”.

Hover over the image and you’ll see a 4 way arrow that lets you re-position it. Once you have the image positioned how you want it, click “Save”.

As you can see, the bottom re-positioned image is much more appealing on our Timeline.

6) Adding Featured Likes

Did you know your fan page can actually “Like” other fan pages?

Yep.  All you have to do is click “Use Facebook as Your Page” and then visit other pages & click “Like”.

Once you do this, Facebook will start showing 5 of your Liked pages in the top right slot of your Timeline.

I recommend that you make sure the pages shown are ones that compliment your page.

You might even want to approach the page owners of pages that can compliment your page and agree to “Feature” each other.

Here’s how you do it:

1. Click “Edit Page Info” (above your cover photo)
2. Click “Featured”
3. Click “Edit Featured Likes”:

4. Select the pages you want to Feature & click “Save”:

Keep in mind a maximum of 5 Featured pages will be shown on your Timeline. If you’ve selected more than 5 to feature, then Facebook will rotate them randomly on your page:

Did I Miss Anything?

Hopefully now you won’t be missing out on these “hidden” Facebook page features.

But please leave a comment and let me know any great tricks and features I didn’t mention here.

Facebook is still the most popular social network around, but it might actually be losing its attraction among its main target audience: teens. They’re blaming an increasing adult presence on the site, people sharing excessively and what they call stressful drama. “While Facebook is still deeply integrated in teens’ everyday lives, it is sometimes seen as a utility and an obligation rather than an exciting new platform that teens can claim as their own.”

I’m going to start with a couple of incredible statistics, though you’ve probably seen them before.

Facebook has roughly 1.06 billion monthly active users (Source: CNET)

Facebook has roughly 680 million mobile monthly active users (Source: CNET)

I’ll do the quick math for you; that’s well over half of Facebook’s monthly active users that are accessing the world’s most popular social media network on their mobile devices.

Why should you care about this?

Well, the fact that over half of all people are going to be consuming your content on mobile devices, should impact the format of content you choose to produce, and be considered when measuring and analyzing the performance of your business’ Facebook updates.

Plain and simple, the user experience (UX) of consuming different formats of content varies on mobile devices versus on a PC. The experience of consuming photos and text, for instance, does not suffer on a mobile device. Video, however, requires a time commitment, strong connection speed, and device processing power that is inconsistent at best on different mobile platforms and networks.

Here are a few things you can do to maximize the UX of consuming your content and considerations that should be made when analyzing performance:

Adjust your content mix to ensure it is mobile-friendly

A bit of a no-brainer, but important none-the-less. We are all well aware that photos tend to garner the highest engagement rates of all content types on Facebook. This is fantastic, as the UX of consuming photo content on mobile devices does not degrade versus consumption on a PC.

Even when planning your photo or image-based content, remember to account for a wide array of mobile devices and screen sizes. Impactful and vibrant photographs that are a standard size will look amazing on most mobile devices, whereas lengthy infographics that requires scrolling for days to view in entirety will be a complete pain to view on most devices.

Don’t overlook the power of text updates

Text-based updates on Facebook aren’t typically thought of as being particularly exciting or effective.

Did you know that text-based updates receive the second highest engagement rates on average of any type of content?

Again, the experience of consuming a text update on a mobile version of Facebook does not degrade versus consuming it on a PC. Consider investing more time and energy in your text-based updates. You’ll be rewarded for your efforts by seeing higher engagement rates from mobile users.

Modify performance expectations for content that isn’t mobile-friendly

A result of so many Facebook users consuming content on mobile devices is that some types of content may appear to underperform – video, being a prime example.

When assessing the performance of your content that isn’t mobile-friendly, it will be worthwhile to modify expectations to account for lower engagement from mobile users.

You can get a sense for the proportion of your audience that may be consuming your content on mobile devices by viewing your Facebook Insights and checking out your ‘Like Sources’ to see how many are from mobile. This certainly isn’t perfect, but it may give you an idea of how many community members are predisposed to checking their Facebook news feeds on non-PC devices.

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As the technological landscape continues to shift, and users consume increasing amounts of content on non-PC devices, it’s will be increasingly important to the success of your social media marketing efforts to cater to these users by optimizing your content to provide a great mobile user experience.

How do you cater to mobile users of Facebook with your content?

Have you noticed higher engagement rates with certain types of content?

Conversely, have you noticed particularly low engagement rates with certain types of content?

It would be awesome to chat with you about this more in the comments, or on Twitter @RGBSocial

Original Article

Facebook has so many things about it that most of us users love. The pictures and comments are fun. You have instant messaging. You have the ability to check it on all your platforms. You have groups, business pages, apps, interests, family, friends and so much more. Then, when you look at Facebook though an app like FlipBoard, you realize how much it’s really missing.

It generally offers you bunches of information from your friends and fans, but there are certain features that make it less than user friendly. More importantly… If you are using this as a way to communicate, these flaws make it a challenge for your messages and trying to get them to people you really want to communicate with. Generally, these three problems are the things that some find frustrating when trying to communicate with friends and people we actually have relationships with…

1) Real Search

Face it. Facebook search sucks. LinkedIn at least makes it easy to differentiate between people, companies and groups. Twitter has a better search and the added bonus of hashtags (#keywords). Finding a business or a person on Facebook is a challenge at best. There is no advanced search like in LinkedIn where you can filter by location or country or city, company and more. To find a company on Facebook, you not only have to know an exact spelling, but if they use special characters or something like Inc. in their name, good luck if you did not know that! The suggestions offered by Facebook and or Bing are mostly useless and frustrating.

2) Consistent Messaging

When someone sends you a message, it pops up on your computer screen or your phone interface. On a desktop you cannot send back a picture without searching the person out and sending a message from there. On mobile platforms, instead of the ability to send an image you have these funky emoticons seen here (seriously regular emoticons are not enough that you have to create THESE?). Facebook changes the metaphor depending on whether you are using a desktop, tablet, or smart phone. Most people have a challenge using one of these, without making technologically challenged people learn two or three or more??? Please create some consistency across all platforms, if you want people to use Facebook across ALL platforms!

3) Filters

Wouldn’t you like to see just what you want to see… instead of everything in your news feed? Let’s say you are watching a sporting event and what to see what your friends are commenting on. There is no easy way to filter out just that content. You have to scroll through everything from ads, to general family or friends posts, or even commentary on every topic imaginary. I am not saying that all that other content is not useful or necessary, but if you want specific information you have to scroll through everything to find it. Yes you can create a group or interests, but that does not filter group or general friends posts.

P.S. – The three above emoticons above are from the Facebook app on IPhone.. and I want to use these to communicate business information WHY?

Final Thoughts…

Facebook. If you want businesses to take you seriously enough to pay for your service, you better make it easier for the people who are trying to reach us… PLEASE!!!

What are your thoughts? What other things could you add to this list? Comment away!

At least for businesses who want to reach more customers & make more money.

Yet, because business owners face so much pressure to get active on Facebook, a lot of them struggle to do it right.

That’s understandable — you’ve got employees, vendors, bill collectors, customers and a family to deal with.

When your Facebook page becomes just another to-do, it’s easy to neglect it.

So whether you’re a newbie trying to figure out Facebook for the first time or a seasoned “Social Media Manager” — I’m going to try to help you – so take notes !

4 Quick Fixes for a Boring Facebook Page

1. Have a Plan

If you don’t have a plan you will fail. Period.

You simply MUST put some thought into your Facebook strategy regarding what you post & when you post. Not doing so is mistake.

There are tons of tips I could give you here — but let me refer you to a few easy-to-read resources about planning posts on Facebook:

• 5 Posting Templates Every Facebook Page Can Use
• Give Your Page Mouth to Mouth with just 3 posts Per day
• Are You a Crappy Fan Page Owner?
• How to Manage Your Facebook Page in Just 5 Minutes Per Day

 2. Make a Good First Impression

Your Cover Photo is the most important piece of real estate on your Facebook Page.

Use it wisely and you’ll see great results — use it poorly and your bottom line will suffer.

3 Point Checklist for a Great Cover Photo on Facebook

1. High Quality
2. Representative of your Brand
3. Current

If you follow this checklist, you’re sure to have a cover photo that makes a great 1st impression on potential fans.

You’ll also need to make sure you’re following Facebook’s recently updated 20% text rule.

And if you need a little inspiration, check out these 20 Awesome Cover Photos.

3. Only Install Apps that Matter

Apps on pages are great — and can be of huge value if used correctly.

The most common ones today center around contests run on Facebook, maps, email capture forms, etc.

Sure, apps on pages aren’t as important as they were before Timeline. I’m seeing fewer & fewer pages use them since the change.

In any case, if you’re going to have apps on your page, make sure they’re current, working, high quality & offering value.

4. Post More Photos

Regardless of what some Facebook “experts” are saying, photos still perform very well on Facebook — and typically get great engagement (likes, shares & comments).

Here’s a study by EdgerankChecker:

Your main goals with your Facebook posts should be:

1. Engagement
2. Driving traffic to your site

So if photos are getting great engagement, then your page should be posting lots of photos.

However, I do want to caution you about posting too many nonsense photos just for engagement’s sake.

While posting a meme every 3 hours might get you some engagement — it will also likely get you tons of negative feedback (when fans hide or mark your posts as spam), not to mention unlikes.

Edgerank Checker studied what types of posts got the most negative feedback and found that photos were the primary culprit:

My Advice on Posting Images on Facebook:

• Post timely photos
• Keep them high quality
• Mix it up — don’t post 10 photos in a row

You’re Done!

Now go fix your lackluster fan page and get out of Boringville.

By using these 4 quick fixes, your page should go from dull to engaging in no time.

4 Quick Fixes Recap:

1. Have a Plan
2. Make a Good First Impression
3. Only Install Apps That Matter
4. Post More Photos

Your Facebook Page sucks.

I’m not saying you suck personally, don’t confuse things here.

I’m just saying that most people marketing their business on Facebook are doing a poor job with their pages.

And they need a wake-up call!

5 Reasons Your Facebook Page Sucks

I could probably list 100 items here — but I’m going to keep it simple and list the Top 5 reasons your Facebook page sucks.

1. Your Cover Photo Sucks

I’m probably beating a dead horse here — but it’s just too important to ignore.

Your cover photo is the first thing new visitors see on your page — and the image potential fans see in “Like Stories” about your page (in the news feed).

So do your due diligence & make sure you put up (1) a quality image that (2) follows all of Facebook’s rules.

Here are some free resources for you regarding cover photo best practices:

• Test your cover photo against the 20% text rule.
• 20 Awesome and Inspiring Cover Photos
• 3 Point Check List for great Cover Photos

2. Your Profile Picture Sucks

After someone Likes your page, they’ll probably never visit it again.

Which means your only real branding opportunity with these fans is via posts in the news feed.

Guess what your biggest branding opportunity on your posts is?

Yep, your profile pic.

So make it stand out!

Make it representative of your brand so fans can easily recognize you — and not mistake you for some random page they’re not connected with.

I recently wrote a fan page review for Rod’s Racers and pointed out that their profile was not optimized — and that it was hurting them more than helping them.

I’m happy to see they’ve changed it — check out the before & after:

As you can see, their old profile pic contained a bunch of useless text & a phone number no one could read.

Their new profile image is much cleaner & will be much easier for fans to recognize & notice.

3. Your Page URL Sucks

If you want your page to really suck & look unprofessional, then by all means — never claim your vanity URL!

But if you want to have an easy-to-find & easy-to-share URL that looks branded & professional, then you should claim it immediately!

For example, which of these URL’s would you rather share with your customers & potential customers?

This one:

• www.facebook.com/pages/Post-Planner/5478569871236

Or this one:

• www.facebook.com/PostPlanner

Which one do you think is easier to share in print, videos, etc.? Which one do you think is easier for potential customers to remember?

To claim your vanity URL, just head to:

www.facebook.com/username

Once there you can claim URL’s for all of your pages that qualify.

Do note that Facebook typically requires your page to have 25 Likes before claiming a vanity URL — although sometimes I’ve been able to claim a URL without that minimum.

4. Your Content Strategy Sucks

Do you have a goal with your page?

Are you looking for more Likes? Are you trying to grow an email list? Are you wanting to drive traffic to your website?

All of these are important pieces of a successful Facebook page — but if you aren’t strategically planning your efforts, what’s the point?

For help on figuring out what to post on your page, check out these resources:

• 3 Essential Ingredients of an Enticing Facebook Post
• 5 Posts to Increase Engagement
• Give your Page Mouth-to-Mouth with 3 posts per day

5. Your Customer Service Sucks

Your Facebook page isn’t just about marketing your product & getting people to click on links.

A huge portion of what happens on a page is customer service oriented.

As the “Community Manager” of your page, you need to have customer service top of mind when responding to comments, posts & messages.

Are you polite? Are you responding in a timely manner?

We just recently witnessed the meltdown of the Amy’s Bakery page and how to NOT be customer friendly on Facebook.

And while we might get a good laugh from it, we should really learn from the debacle.

Here are some customer service tips to remember:

• Always respond positively — avoid negative words or sarcasm
• Respond in a timely manner — people expect a response within 24 hours, usually sooner
• Never post negative updates.
• Use names when replying — people love to read their names!

Awake Now?

I hope this wake-up call worked.

Remember — our #1 goal at Post Planner is to make you a master of the Facebook domain. And not just for the next couple months.

Facebook will be the go-to place for online marketing for the foreseeable future.  Let’s make sure you’re set up to benefit from it for years to come!

It all starts with not sucking!

If you guessed over 3,200 then give yourself a pat on the back!

It’s a lot, I know. But I’m trying to follow as many Facebook pages as I can.

Why?

To test Facebook’s Edgerank, for one — I want to know how my news feed will look after Liking 5,000 pages!

But also because I love seeing what others are doing:

• how they’re marketing
• how they’re targeting ads
• how they’re running Sponsored Stories
• what content they’re posting
• etc. etc.

What are My Favorite Facebook Pages?

A friend recently asked me what my 5 favorite Facebook pages are that no one knows about.

I knew the answer immediately.

My answer may shock you — no, they’re not all “Social Media Marketing” pages.

Sure, my wife may disagree — but I don’t actually eat, sleep & dream Facebook all day every day!

In fact, lately I’ve been spending less time on Facebook — so I can focus more & get more done.

In any case, here they are:

5 Facebook Pages You’re Not Following But Should ASAP!

1. Invisible People

This is a page I’ve only recently discovered. But I’m addicted to it — and challenged by it.

Invisible People is the passion of Mark Horvath and exists to tell the stories of homeless people around the globe.

Mark’s videos are not only professional (his background is in television) but also incredibly moving — I’d challenge you not to tear up while watching one!

Here’s their About section:

Invisible People is an innovative storytelling organization that inspires action by curating thoughtful content and networking individuals, brands, and organizations to change the way we think about people experiencing homelessness.

If you want to be encouraged & inspired to make a difference, then please go Like this page — and then share it with your friends & followers.

2. UnMarketing

Scott Stratten is absolutely crushing it with his Facebook page, UnMarketing.

The company’s slogan is simple, yet powerful:

Stop Marketing, Start Engaging

I agree 110%!

Sure, Scott tends to rant a bit here & there on the page — pointing out the ridiculous ways brands & marketers misuse and abuse social media & email marketing.

But his rants contain tons of pointers to listen to & learn from.

3. Marketing Profs

MarketingProfs is a must follow for anyone marketing a business.

From their About page:

MarketingProfs provides marketing know-how through its newsletters, templates, guides, courses, online seminars, conferences, and research (whew!).

They share tons of insights & real world tips that can help any business. They also use a lot of humor in their posts — which makes me engage more.

You can get a free membership on their site — tons of courses & resources!

4. Buzz:60

I’ve been a huge fan of Buzz:60 for a while now.

Basically they produce 60-second videos on various news topics from around the world. The videos are a successful because they’re short & to the point — a great combination when it comes to Facebook Marketing.

Surprisingly, they don’t get a ton of interaction on their page lately — perhaps they need to read our blog posts about how to increase engagement on Facebook!

Here’s an example of a recent video about diapers & Twitter.

5. Killer Infographics

I’m a sucker for a great infographic — maybe this goes back to my days of reading books with pictures only. 

Infographics are getting hotter & hotter in the social media world — especially on blogs.

The Killer Infographics fan page doesn’t have a ton of followers — only 776 Likes as of writing this — but they provide great value & are entertaining to follow.

They were just recently voted the “Geekiest Office Space” by GeekWire.com

If you’re looking for ideas on graphics & ways to use them in your marketing, this is a great page to follow.

They also do motion graphics — like this great one called “Seth Godin vs Guy Kawasaki”

Like ‘em up!

Make sure to Like all of these pages & engage with their posts.

My advice: don’t just follow pages in your niche!

Try to find pages that can compliment your business & that you can learn from.

So what do you think?…. What are your favorite pages that not many people know about?

Pew Study Shows Insight into Teens and Facebook

Teens are a huge market for traditional advertising and increasingly online advertising. The rise of social media and the internet has made teens more active consumers than they ever have been before. Plenty of businesses and agencies interact with teens on social media like Facebook, Twitter, and others. But these teens and young adults have to grow up with social media – something no generation before them has had to manage in addition to all of the normal troubles of growing up.

A Pew study reported on yesterday shows some interesting information for Facebook and how teens are using (and not using) the social media site. As Emily Babay writes for Philly.com, “as Facebook has vastly broadened its reach, teens say they’re less enthusiastic about the social-networking site.” What does this lesser enthusiasm entail? Mostly it’s the fact that adults are the fastest growing users on the site.

Facebook may have started out as a majority of younger users, but it is long past that. Now the site is truly more social and more representative of the population. With that, teens have to spend a lot more time managing the information that goes public on Facebook. The report mentions that teens “dislike the increasing number of adults on the site, get annoyed when their Facebook friends share inane details,” and ultimately are tired of handling excessive drama.

But Teens Love Twitter

Twitter is on the flipside of this relaxing of Facebook enthusiasm by teens. As Mike Isaac implies in his piece for All Things D, “Facebook … just ain’t cool anymore” and Twitter may be starting to fill that coolness factor.

Now, upwards of 25% of teens online use Twitter which is up from about 12% last year. I find it interesting that Twitter began primarily with adults, but is now attracting teens, and the opposite is true for Facebook. Facebook definitely needs to ensure that teens’ enthusiasm for its service doesn’t wane. Currently the dislike of Facebook isn’t affecting user activity but it very well could.

Those teens will be adults before we know it, and the consumers that businesses and agencies rely on Facebook to target might have to think twice in the future if those same consumers are focused on Twitter and other platforms. Mike nails part of the problem in an important line from the report, saying that Facebook “is sometimes seen as a utility and an obligation rather than an exciting new platform that teens can claim as their own.”

Teens and Social Media Will Always Have a Relationship

For businesses whose primary markets are the younger crowds (and there are many of them) there’s a small lesson in that last quote from the report. Teens like to feel separate and special, and we can see this in action as they shy away from Facebook. Facebook includes everyone and it’s not directly focused on teens as much as they wanted it to be. Anyone trying to reach younger consumers should consider being direct and exclusive with them. Don’t clump them up into a broad marketing or advertising campaign.

After all, Jessica Guynn informs us that “just 9% of teens said they were concerned about how their information is being collected.” Knowing how to target future consumers won’t be hard. The data is there and will increasingly become better. But will businesses and agencies in the future be able to reach these teens? All I know is that it may take some perspective adjusting once these teens become young professionals and adults.

Do you think teens will move even more towards Twitter and away from Facebook?

Let this be your warning: by ignoring Facebook, you’re turning your back on the opportunity to interact with more than 1 billion users. It almost sounds silly when you look at it like that, right? You may argue that your intended audience isn’t on Facebook, but that simply isn’t the case.

Of course your audience is on Facebook. They may not view Facebook as a medium for business, but they certainly have a presence, and you should too.

Here’s how you can use Facebook effectively:

1. Integrate it with the Rest

The first key to properly using Facebook is to integrate it with the rest of your marketing campaign instead of treating it as a standalone strategy. This will enable you to reach broader business goals as it will supplement the campaigns you are already running.

Post SlideShare presentations or event links to Facebook. Share your email marketing campaigns and other helpful material.

2. Don’t Talk Like a Business

The second key is ensuring you use Facebook the right way by humanizing your company. Remember, people use Facebook to connect with family and friends, and to find entertainment. They’re not usually there looking for business. You need to craft messages that align with those habits. According to Jason Miller, Marketo’s social media strategist, “humor is vital” to making Facebook work.

B2B companies that can make a prospect laugh are using Facebook exactly right. It’s about showing a lighter side and maintaining contact with your key audience.

The Personality Effect

When you boil it down, Facebook is an opportunity for B2B companies to show their personality. Because of Facebook’s casual, visual environment, it can’t be treated like other channels where the goal is closing a deal. It’s important to use humor and a relaxed tone instead of driving home the hard sell. By keeping in touch with prospects on Facebook in an informal and fun manner, you are ensuring your company is top-of-mind when it comes time for business decisions.

March Communications is a tech PR firm located in Boston. Be sure to check out our blog, PR Nonsense, for more stories like this.

Differentiators

Besides serving front-and-center in Facebook’s most prominent location, retargeted ads in the News Feed offer a higher-quality, more engaging advertising experience. With the additional 500 characters of text in the message portion, advertisers can connect with potential customers with more nuanced updates, descriptions, and/or offers. In our campaign, for example, we used that space to introduce retargeting as a concept and elicit initial reaction from viewers. Facebook’s trademark like, share and comment buttons underneath each retargeted News Feed ad serve to increase engagement and improve social sharing of the units.

Another nuanced difference is that technically speaking, News Feed units are bought and served on a Cost-Per-Insertion (CPI) basis, deviating from the usual Cost-Per-Impression (CPM) model. Instead of focusing on a single ad impression, we now bid on insertions or slots in a person’s News Feed. This results in the potential to serve more than a single impression per insertion – an added bonus! The insertion remains in a feed until it’s forced out by new events.

Performance

These units have performed incredibly well for our initial group of advertisers. We’re finding click-through-rates (CTR) to be in the single digit percentages orders of magnitudes better than the fractions of a percent we see on standard FBX ads. Additionally, ads are seeing viral distribution — our house campaign is a great example of this.

Our call-to-action inviting those who viewed our ad to “comment to let us know if you’re excited about retargeting in the News Feed” saw more comments and likes than any other post on our page.

Best Practices

We’re ramping up more and more clients each day and are excited to see how these units perform. In the meantime, we’ve come up with a few early best practices and will be posting more retargeting best practices in the next few days:

• Carefully choose creative (image and copy) when launching campaigns. Because of the highly-visible nature of these units, users aren’t going to be able to miss them! Advertisers need to make sure they’re putting forth only the most relevant and useful information.
• Keep an eye on frequency cap and adjust accordingly. Advertisers will know if their potential customers enjoy the advertisements or not – customers can easily leave feedback in comments. Keep heed of the responses (and number of likes) and don’t hesitate to test and iterate.

Conclusion

News Feed retargeting is the newly-minted gangbuster of Facebook advertiser. With an opportunity like this, there will undoubtedly be a few challenges to overcome. However, those who can do so quickly will be rewarded handsomely.

Today’s post originally appeared on FBPPC.com. 

According to the folks at PostRocket, there are 6 easy ways you can get your posts seen by more of your fans:

1. Shorter is Better – post between 100-250 characters get 60% more engagement than those over 250 characters.
2. A Picture Is Worth a Thousand Words – Images and videos garner 100-120% more engagement than posts without them.
3. Just Ask – Asking your fans for their opinion, or a question garners 90% more engagement than the average post.
4. Be Useful – You’ll be more successful on Facebook if you provide useful and relevant content to your fans without the selly-sell. Tips, how-tos, recipes, advice, it’s all fair game.
5. The Time is Now – There is no one-size-fits-all answer for the best times to post on Facebook as it depends on who your fans are. Does your company target 18-24 year old males? They may be most active on Facebook at 11 pm, but the maternity store down the street will most likely have a much different ideal time to post.
6. Do It Daily – Posting engaging content on a daily basis is the best way to have a chance to get on the News Feeds of your fans. Remember, most folks see your posts within their News Feeds, not on your Business Page.

PostRocket also created this super-useful infographic which breaks down EdgeRank into easy-to-understand language. We think you’ll like it.

Infographic courtesy of PostRocket

Commitment. It means different things to different people. When it comes to social media marketing and Facebook in particular, it means making the choice to work hard, keep going, and stay disciplined.

Facebook is extremely fickle. Its algorithm relies on momentum, something that dies very quickly after only a few bad posts or skipped days. It’s for this reason that businesses and marketers have to make a choice before diving in. Are they going to take it all the way or is it better to keep it slow and simple?

Both methods work at achieving their respective goals. The majority should consider going for the latter as the effort that goes into going “all the way” must be sustained indefinitely to be successful. There are plenty of strategies that work with each method, but before we get into those, here’s the difference between the two.

Keep in mind, there’s really no in between.

The Easy Road

This isn’t the “stick your head in the sand approach”. Let’s assume that you wouldn’t be reading this article if your goal is to pretend that social media doesn’t exist, that it’s a fad, or that your business cannot benefit from being on it.

The easy road is one that is only targeting interested parties. It isn’t about aggressively going after new fans. It isn’t about using Facebook advertising. It isn’t about playing the algorithm game or going for additional reach for your message. The easy road is only targeting those people who will find your Facebook page through search or through your website. This isn’t about getting into users’ news feeds.

This path takes very little time. While I would never suggest using automation such as RSS feed posts, it’s just a notch above that. With this strategy, the goal is to make sure you’re presenting a strong presence for those who find your page. It means posting text, images, links, and videos on a regular basis. Once a day is plenty but a business on this path can easily get away with a couple of posts a week.

This takes very little time and effort. Use Post Planner, Buffer, Facebook’s native scheduling tool, or any tool with a queue feature and make sure it’s loaded up. That’s it. Put a week’s worth of posts in every week, schedule the replenishing tasks once a week, and let your presence become a good representation of your business for those who proactively seek your page.

There are plenty of advantages to this style. It takes much, much less time. It requires fewer touches of your social accounts. Your posts can be easily scheduled and as long as you’re monitoring via email or alerts for inbound contacts, this method is almost foolproof.

Again, it’s important to remember that you will not be getting into news feeds. Very few people will see your posts, but those who do see them will not be disappointed by seeing and abandoned page or one that is RSS automated.

The Hard Road

The other option is to commit. It’s that simple. If you’re wanting to use facebook as a true advertising and marketing platform, you will want to be extremely active. You’ll need to learn about and keep up with the algorithm, touch your account daily (possibly multiple times per day depending on your reach), and craft content perfectly.

This is the path that most want to take because it’s aggressive. It is the way to get real exposure through Facebook, to get into news feeds and to get your message in front of as many people as possible. The key point is to understand that social media doesn’t sleep, it doesn’t take weekends off, and it knows when you’ve been away for an extended period of time.

It also requires an investment. Any expert that says Facebook can be effective in an aggressive strategy that does not include a Facebook advertising spend is trying to sell something to a potential client. It cannot be done unless you’re an A-list celebrity or a major brand. Local businesses, smaller brands, and just about any entity that is not a household name within their market cannot achieve maximum success on Facebook without spending on ads. I’d happily debate that with anyone who says something to the contrary.

The hard road requires constant monitoring and interaction. If someone comments on a post, it’s imperative that there’s a very quick response. The next day often won’t cut it. You can get more engagement when people are replied to while they’re still online and the comment is fresh to them. It’s also the quickest way to get your posts to spread quickly. When a long conversation thread can be sustained, those involved will help your post become visible on others’ feeds, they’ll tag people that they want to join the conversation, and suddenly the post has the ability to get real traction.

Most of these things are obvious to those who have been doing it for a while, but one thing that so many are missing is that you can never waste a post. There is too much algorithmic damage that can be done with bad posts. They all have to count – every single one of them. They all need a purpose whether it’s creatively delivering a business-oriented message or just posting high-quality content that can be universally liked to boost your algorithmic authority.

One can still use tools and plan out posts, but it’s important to not let them make you lazy. Just because you’re scheduling posts ahead of time doesn’t mean that you can let it sit dormant or that you can stop paying attention for a little while.

This isn’t intended to scare people. It definitely doesn’t mean that you have to live on Facebook to be successful. It’s just necessary to make the commitment to spend enough time, energy, and money to make your Facebook presence strong and to aggressively pursue greater reach. It’s not a matter of fans. The truth is that fans are a very small part of an aggressive strategy. The hard road takes you down a path where reach is 99% of the goal. The more people you can get to see your message and to communicate with you, the more success you can have.

To reach this success, you have to be willing to go all in. There is no gray area. There’s no middle ground. A halfway aggressive approach is not half as successful as the aggressive approach. It’s barely more successful than taking the safe road, which is why most businesses should opt for that path.

It’s all or nothing. Which is best for you?

If you know anyone serious about improving their Facebook fan page, be sure to pass this along!

ShortStack has released a cool infographic to jump start your results!

Facebook Page Checklist:

• “About” section: is your website URL the first thing listed?
• Additional “About” section: Are you providing links to your company’s other social channels, like your Twitter account and blog?
• Cover photo: is it well-designed and does it meet Facebook’s Guidelines?
• Cover photo description: when someone clicks on your cover photo, do you have a photo description with information, a call to action, or links?
• Profile photo: does it clearly reflect your brand?
• App thumbnails: are the three most important apps featured as “favorite” apps, and do the app thumbnails include a call to action or have a promising label?
• “Talking about this number”: Divide your “Talking about this number” by your Page’s total number of Likes. This will calculate your Page’s engagement from the past seven days. Average Page engagement is two percent. If you’re below two percent, your content strategy needs to be adjusted.
• Content strategy
• Exclusive content: What are you offering your Facebook fans that they can’t get anywhere else?
• Branding: What does your brand say about the users who like your Page?
• Commenting: Are you engaging back with your Facebook fans? You should be Liking their comments and responding to all their questions.
• Industry opportunities

Time to tweak those Facebook Pages!

In case you’re not familiar with it, the 70/20/10 rule of social media follows that you of the stuff you are sharing, 70% should be adding value or building your brand, 20% should sharing other’s posts/ideas, and 10% should be promoting yourself or your business. A very healthy balance!

What was your favorite tip?

The complaint that has been filed at Gomtinagar police station in Lucknow by Thakur alleges that Facebook group “Aao mil kar kaaten Gaay” (Let us come together and slaughter cow) openly exhorted and glorified cow slaughter. However, I did a search for the group but the social network failed to drive any results.

The FIR was registered under Indian Penal Code’s sections dealing with provocation with intent to cause riot, public nuisance and intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of peace, and Section 66-A of the IT Act.

In his complaint, Thakur said that the group has extremely abusive and dirty words by various users against Hindu and Islam religion and also against the Prophet Mohammad and Hindu Gods and Goddesses. These insults could lead to breach of peace added Thakur, who has previously filed four more FIRs against the social network.

Holding Facebook responsible for Facebook groups that are being opened on the platform by individuals or a group of people, is naive. One could always report abuse for the content that is being shared. However, dragging Facebook into legal implications in a country where it is just having a sales office is really not showing any results. We recently reported how US government had rejected the request of serving summons to the US companies such as Facebook, Google, etc. since it implicates free speech principles.

Furthermore, the US authorities have also made a point that they will not be able to assist with the execution of the request without additional information being provided to them. However, the US authorities have also said that if there are other facts like information indicating a risk or threat to Indian lives, that have been pertinent to this case and have not been provided, then they are ready to help.

Under such situations, filing FIRs wouldn’t be the immediate solution but reporting such incidents or taking in Facebook India in confidence would be a better approach.