Facebook is enormously popular. We’d go as far to say that every business should have a Facebook page. But why? Hasn’t it waned in popularity compared to it’s heyday? Well; 1.7bn people use Facebook per month, 68% of whom use the site daily.

What is Facebook?

Facebook is a social media and networking website. As well as the social aspect, businesses can create Pages to promote themselves.

A page is your virtual shopfront on Facebook. It gives you a presence and a way to connect with your customers online. You can post your contact details, get customer reviews, post updates and images of your finished fencing projects.

You can use call to action buttons to meet goals and get leads on Facebook – asking people to call, email or visit. Facebook also provides business insights so you can measure the success of your page.

Why Every Business Should Have a Facebook Page

Some people will be wondering why you need a Facebook Page. Can’t you just use your Facebook profile? No – don’t do it!

So why do businesses use Facebook Pages? Apart from the pitfalls of mixing personal and professional, there are features available to pages. These include insights, advertising and unlimited ‘likes’ versus limited ‘friends’. You can run competitions and discounts and even a shop. It’s a great way to build brand loyalty, drive traffic to your website and garner easy to understand insights.

And you can use Facebook to strengthen customer relationships. For example, when someone checks in at your venue, indicates interest in an event, or posts a picture of themselves enjoying your new mint choc mocha. Their social network will see their connection with your business, and it works as a tacit endorsement. They want to try the gorgeous looking coffee that Jane shared online; or head to the same event as Fergus.

It works as an authentic, word of mouth form of advertising that won’t cost you a penny.

You can encourage it by engaging with your followers and offering incentives for people to like, share or post pictures.

But the reverse is also true. Ignoring your customers will alienate them. Responding to customers inappropriately (easy with the speed of social media) can cause huge problems.

What it Can Do For You

You can entice customers with news or special discounts, via regular or boosted (paid for) posts. Invite them to special events with Facebook’s inbuilt tool and let them know about special milestones.

Notifications will let you know who’s interacting with your page; use the About section to display information about your business, such as your business address, phone number, website and more. You can even display your services, products, menus, price ranges and milestones for your business, such as events or promotions. Insights is essentially Facebook’s analytics tab; where you can explore data related to your page’s performance.

Page Insights

With Page Insights, you can find out which posts are the most successful. The results will help you build your audience and improve engagement.

You can use Insights to check:

• Actions on Page – this can include visiting your website and clicking on your call to action button. Or else shopping on your page, or calling your number.
• Reach – this shows you many people saw, liked, shared and commented on your posts.
• Page Views – Here you can see how many people are viewing your page, and which sections. The information is then broken down by age, gender and location.
• Posts – This gives you a breakdown of post performance.

Facebook Page Tips and Tricks

• Do stay active online, but ignore calls to post hourly. Posting too often will irritate your fans and lead to mass ‘unlikes’ and having your page hidden from their newsfeeds.
• Don’t be afraid to cross promote your page across other social media channels. Facebook bought Instagram recently and the two platforms are crossing over more than ever.
• Don’t neglect your mobile customers – a large majority access Facebook through their mobile devices and it can be a great way for local businesses to generate calls.
  
• Keep repurposing your old content; turn posts into slideshows, slideshows into videos, and cross platforms.
• Talk about your business and industry: don’t just promote what you do.

Stats

1.7bn people use Facebook per month.

1.16bn people visit Facebook daily.

92% of SMB owners who use Facebook say it is important to their marketing.

80% of users prefer to connect to brands through Facebook.

42% of marketers say Facebook is important or critical to their brand success.

More than one billion people use Messenger, automatically integrated with every Page, to connect with a person or business every month. (Facebook Quarterly Data, 2013)

In the State of Social Selling in 2015, nearly 75 percent of companies that engaged in selling on social media reported an increase in sales in 12 months.

(Screenshots via Pact Coffee (not a customer of ours) a popular coffee retailer in London, and our own page).

Need some help with your Facebook Business Page? Get in touch and we can discuss options with you.