If you’re starting a Facebook page, or thinking about starting a Facebook page – you should know that it’s hard work and it’s not something you should do on a whim, or just because you want to a business that has its Facebook page. Running a Facebook page for the sake of running one is by far one of the worst things you can do as a social media marketer or business owner, and you need to have a clear objective in mind when you start a page. At the close of 2012, there were more than 50 million Facebook pages doing the rounds on social media. That’s the kind of clutter you have to break through.
So how do you do it? Getting your Facebook page up and going will require you to lay in some basic foundation to build upon, and here are the six most important points to consider!
1. Get the Basics in Place
If I’m being very honest, it doesn’t take a lot to make a Facebook page look professional. It’s mostly about being particular about the basics like the profile picture size, the cover photo size, your page name, proper grammar used in your page’s description and furnishing the right contact information in your “About” section. Make sure that you furnish all the information you can about your page, fill up all the sections and be very careful when you upload a cover photo and a profile picture.
Tent Social has put together a massive social media image size cheat sheet, you can pick out the information about Facebook from in there! Remember, I’m stressing on this so much because the second someone comes on your page and sees a pixelated profile picture or a grainy cover photo, they immediately lose respect for the professionalism of your brand and product.
2. Use Facebook Advertising Aggressively to Get Your Name Out There
Once you’ve set up your page and you’ve populated it with a few posts and some content, you should start advertising your page and pushing it out to people who you feel will be interested in your product or brand. Facebook lets you run extremely targeted advertising campaigns to fans broken down by age, location, relationship status, interests and pages they’re connected to. Start running a few ads to get the word about your brand out there, and while this is something that involves you shelling out a bit of cash – it’s worth it.
Remember, your first 1,000 fans are the most important. Once you’ve got about 1,000 fans through very specific and targeted advertising, they’ll be the ones sharing your content and talking about it on Facebook that will slowly but steadily bring an influx of fans in. Be sure to use precise targeting however, you don’t want fans who aren’t interested in your product or brand clicking on your ad and liking your page – it ends up costing you money and giving you absolutely nil engagement.
3. Interact With Your Fans – Install Facebook Page Manager to Stay in Touch 24×7
So what’s the difference between your Facebook page that’s just starting out and some massive page out there with 500,000 fans? There are tons, but none more important than this: your fans get a personal experience and real interaction when they come on your page. A lot of comments go unanswered on larger pages and fan questions aren’t always clarified. Ensure that when someone comes to your page and leaves a comment on a post or asks you a question, you get back to them immediately.
An immediate turn-around time is close to impossible, so don’t think that you absolutely have to respond in a couple of seconds, but responding within the hour is definitely something you should aim for. You can’t lug your laptop around everywhere obviously, so installing Facebook’s Mobile Page Manager is a wise thing to do. It might involve you spending a little more time on your phone than you normally do – but this time you’re actually being productive and doing something useful other than playing Candy Crush Saga. What’s with that game anyway? Does no one understand that it’s just a re-hashed version of an age old game?!
4. Use Facebook Apps – Add a Professional Touch to Your Page
Facebook’s an amazing platform for you to interact with and connect with fans, but there are a few things that you can’t quite do on your page which you’d like to, and that’s where Facebook applications come in. Set up a “Contact Us” tab that allows your fans to send your a message that gets delivered right into your E-Mail inbox, or set up a Facebook app on your Facebook page to showcase the various products that your company has to offer in a format that’s not restricted by Facebook’s framework.
Take a look at the three basic apps that every Facebook page should have. There are literally tons of things you can achieve with a Facebook application and setting one up can actually take you barely minutes. Circus Social has a plug and play tool that lets you install apps to your page with absolutely no tech skills, and they’re currently giving out the Contact Us app for free.
5. Hide the “Like” Tab till you get a Respectable Number of Likes on Your Page
The first thing fans see when they reach your page is your profile picture, cover photo and those stream of tabs that are on the top of your page that link them to the Photos on your page, custom Facebook apps that you might have installed and of course, to the number of likes your page has. It’s the truth of life that when a fan sees a page with only 500 odd fans, he or she will think twice before wanting to following the page’s updates because it doesn’t seem like a popular enough page. Hide the “Likes” tab and you take away that blatant in-your-face number and they’re more likely to start following your page’s updates based on the content on your timeline and the professionalism that your page exhibits at the first look.
6. Track Your Competitors
Like any other industry, ensure that you track your competitors and stay up to date with what they’re doing. Monitor what they’re talking about, what kind of updates they’re posting, what posts are working for them and what level of engagement they have versus yours. It’s important to be aware of the experience they’re providing their fans and what you could do to not only match that experience, but perhaps exceed it.
And remember, a Facebook page doesn’t take off in a matter of days or even weeks. Consistent work put in over a few months will give you the results you’re looking for. So if things don’t work in the first month or even three, don’t lose heart!