Graph Search is an eye-opener all right. Now I can find pictures a specific friend has liked, or places they’ve recently traveled and checked in to.

For those of you who are concerned about your privacy, you have the ability to change those settings on your Facebook account. Perhaps you should take a closer look at your “friends” list. Graph Search didn’t change any settings, it just gave people easier access to information they already had access to.

Now that the general public has been addressed, I’ll move on to discussing how Graph Search will impact Facebook marketers. In order to cross that bridge, however, we must first delve into what exactly what Graph Search is — how it operates, and how to take advantage of its features.

What Is Graph Search?

Graph Search helps Facebook users to develop connections based on people’s interests and opinions. Right now the search is limited to your friends and their friends (friends of friends). If you are familiar with the game “6 Degrees of Separation” then we’re going 2 levels deep. Will Graph Search expand past the second level? We’ll have to wait and see!

As of right now, Graph Search displays 12 results per page, and searches can include over 39 criteria. These are divided up into several categories:

• Basic Info (name, gender, etc.)
• Work and Education (employer, position, etc.)
• Likes and Interests (likes, following, etc.)
• Photos and Videos (tagged in, commented on, etc.)
• Living (birth year, current city, etc.)
• Relationship and Family (relationship to, married to, etc.)

Yes, there are a lot of et cetera’s in there! To give you some more information on how to think in terms of Graph Search, Facebook also recommended these following searches to me when I did a broad search of my friends:

• Photos of these people
• These people’s friends
• Places where they’ve worked
• Places where they’ve studied
• Videos of these people
• Landmarks they’ve visited
• Languages they speak
• Places they’ve lived
• Places they’re from
• Activities they like
• These people groups

One search that didn’t make it onto the suggestion list was “Pages liked by these people”. Yes, you can search for that. Maybe it’s time to think about your Fan Page. Is it ready to be searchable? Let’s get you ready to hit the ground running when Graph Search goes public.

#1 Preparing For Graph Search

Some of your posts, ads, or offers already appear in people’s feeds. We already know that friends of friends see what someone has liked recently, like a page or a photo. We’re used to being discovered or stumbled upon through the News Feed, and have had some moderate success with it already. Search is a different beast though, and requires a closer look at what is behind your Fan Page. Specifically, the About section.

Facebook is now operating as a search engine. Like Google, it will index certain parts of your profile and Fan Page that have relavent information. Make sure that your Fan Page’s About section is accurate. Fill in as many criteria as you can, and don’t try to make your Fan Page something it is not. Get 10,000 Fans is not a restaurant.

I believe one of the more important sections will be the description of your Fan Page. Fill this area with the keywords that you are targeting, but do it naturally. We’re not certain how strict Facebook’s Graph Search algorithm is yet regarding nonsense keyword stacking, but it is generally better to err on the side of caution. Businesses got hurt by Google’s Panda and Penguin updates. Let’s not have another incident like that.

#2 Pictures Are Even More Important

Photos and other media are popular methods for getting engagement and shares on Facebook. Graph Search brings another some more metrics to the table – tags, comments, and locations.

What can you do as a Fan Page owner? Start tagging your pictures and video. Tag yourself in it, tag your coworkers in it, tag whoever wants to be tagged in it. Don’t stop there though. Put in the location of where the photo or video took place. You want to add as many searchable terms and metrics to your content as possible.

Now on the flip side, I wouldn’t recommend you start tagging anyone and everyone. Will you grow your searchable network? Sure, but you’ll also lose fans and credibility by using a tactic we refer to as “spam”. People don’t appreciate that, and it’s not worth sacrificing your brand image to be able to be searched by more people.

A thought occurred to me while writing this – what about contests that involve tagging yourself and commenting? No. You can’t do that. It violates the Facebook guidelines. The only thing contests are able to accomplish are getting you “likes”, or having someone check-in at your establishment. That brings us to my next point.

#3 Brick And Mortar, Pros And Cons

Are check-in’s searchable in Graph Search? You bet. Search in general is also becoming more localized. It’s been reported that 20% of Google searches now show local intent, while 40% of mobile searches are local. Are you taking advantage of these social signals?

Allow me to follow Google’s model briefly. They currently have an app on Google+ called Local, allowing its users to search for businesses and provide reviews. I could see Facebook implementing something similar into their new search capability. If they do, your business will be dependent on reviews as well. Be sure to monitor your reviews and take into consideration how you will handle a negative one.

#4 The Foreseeable Future Of Graph Search

As you’ve read above, I have already alluded to Facebook incorporating a review feature that is searchable in Graph Search. Something else that Facebook itself has teased at is post searching. As of right now, you cannot search for keywords or content located within a post. If you take a peek at the picture above, I believe that feature will be enabled soon.

Some people have been predicting that Graph Search will be the downfall of dating sites and businesses of that nature. Personally, I think that’s a bit of an overstatement. Chances are when Graph Search goes live to the pubic people are going to be making some privacy changes, probably involving pictures and things of a more private nature. I don’t think Fan Pages they’ve liked, commented, or otherwise interacted with will be on the list of concern.

In its infancy, Graph Search does bring some concerns and opportunities to light.

Conclusion

From what we have learned so far about Facebook’s Graph Search, we can see some adjustments that need to be made as marketers. In order to dominate search results, we have to take advantage of the About section of our Fan Pages and fill it in appropriately. Photos and tagging become more important, as does the “like” in general.

Keep your eyes open for updates as more features are unlocked. It will be fun seeing where Facebook decides to take its next step.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to double check my privacy settings and update our Fan Page.

What Ads are most effective?
How many people are actually becoming customers because of an ad?
Is my niche receptive to Sponsored Stories or Facebook Offers?

It becomes tedious to track all of these things at once. Myself and my employees wanted a system designed to make this whole process easier.

Well it’s here – FBConversions.

Find The Money Makers

With FBConversions you can track what Ads, Sponsored Stories, Facebook Offers, or Status Updates are successful.

What defines success? Opt-ins to an email list. Customers. Sales. You pick the goal.

With this tool we were able to easily look at our strategy in-depth and find out what type of content worked best for our niche. More importantly, we were able to weed out the types of strategies that had poor results.

This not only saves us money on wasted Ads, but gives us more time to focus on what actually works.

This is all accomplished in 3 easy steps.

#1 Add The Tracking Script

In order for FBConversions to work properly, a snippet of code has to be inserted into the footer of the websites you want to track. If you’re not tech-savvy, that’s ok. We made some great instructional videos to guide you through the process.

Don’t worry, the script won’t be visible or anything like that. It will be tucked away, ready to track conversions!

Now for the fun part.

#2 Create Campaigns

Ideally, you should make a campaign for every Ad, Post, Offer, or Sponsored Story you make. That being said, try to give them specific names – we wouldn’t want you to get mixed up about what campaign was what!

Each campaign can track the clicks, conversions, and conversion percentage of whatever method you have used to direct visitors to your website.

In order to track conversions, we need to talk about our last step. Goals.

#3 Set Up Goals

Goals are the where you want the user to end up. It can be an email opt-in, a sale, or anything in between.

Each goal requires a separate URL. These can be landing pages, thank you pages, opt-in forms, or blog posts for example.

Now that you have an idea how to set up this conversion tool (it is really easy!) let’s take a look at some scenarios.

The Big Picture

Let’s pretend we have a new product we’d like to drive traffic to.

We have set up several campaigns to cover our various Ads, Sponsored Stories, and Posts, and we want to know what method gets the best results. By setting a goal to a the thank you page of the product we can track how many people clicked the link, went through the sales funnel, and actually purchased the product.

We can also split-test various Ad copy, images, or post format to find out what is most effective.

Social media is constantly shifting. Tactics that have worked for you in the past may not be as effective as they once were. Alternatively, tactics and strategies that you once dismissed may end up working better than you could imagine!

That’s why we created FBConversions.

As marketers, we needed to be able to track and analyze our efforts to maximize our productivity.

And frankly, I really like this tool!

Is your Facebook page lonely? Not getting the number of fans you’d hoped for? Don’t be discouraged! You have to start somewhere and it’s usually at the bottom. The good news is the only direction to go from there is up. When it comes to building an audience, a fan base, clientele, etc., it takes just the right type of marketing to bring in a good crowd.

Facebook, currently one of the most popular social media outlets, has become a superior marketing tool in our society. So, what drives traffic to one’s Facebook page? Posting on Facebook can pique one’s interest, but how do you know what is appropriate in a post and what is not? They say you attract more bees with honey than you do with vinegar. So, in order to be most attractive, we first have to figure out who the bees are (your audience), and then discern what is considered honey and what is considered vinegar.

#1 Are You as Funny as You Think You Are?

Humor is a great way to connect with your audience and to show a lighter side to your business. But, like beauty, humor is in the eye of the beholder. Sometimes posts that we think are hilarious will absolutely flop on our page. And some posts that weren’t really intended to get a laugh end up just killing it.

Humor is always up to the audience. If you know your audience, then you’ll know what they find funny. And if you can’t make them laugh, you need to get to know your audience better! But never shy away from being funny, especially on Facebook where engagement means more traffic.

#2 Be Seriously, Serious

Just as humor can be honey to your bees, serious posts, including anything from holiday-themed posts, to trending topics in your market, can be just as valuable to your audience. Some of our best posts ever published have been about somber holidays like Veteran’s Day, September 11th, and the like. We never create these posts to be self-serving. We know how much our audience cares about these subjects and we approach them very seriously and respectfully, which I think is one of the reasons these posts do so well. Your audience is sure to recognize and appreciate that you have taken the time to learn their interests and are producing sincere, quality content based on that knowledge.

#3 Keep Your Personal Opinions Personal

No matter what topic or issue you’re trying to address, never pick sides. The worst thing you can do for your traffic is bash a certain political candidate, make a socially or racially charged statement, or even post about why your favorite sports team is better than the rest. That’s strong vinegar and is more likely to bring out some stingers.

If you’re running a Fan Page, you need to know your purpose. And more often than not, your true purpose has nothing to do with pop culture, an election, or sports. These are all examples of opinions better left for your personal profile. If you do post about these kinds of topics, make sure to stay in the middle of the road. Don’t get in shouting matches over irrelevant details on your public Fan Page because you want your opinion heard.

#4 Reuse, Recycle

As long as the content is relevant and beneficial to your audience, re-posting someone else’s content is an excellent way to draw attention to your page. If the content is valuable, your audience doesn’t care where it came from, so don’t be afraid to share it! People always want great information, but the truth is they don’t always want to find it on their own. If you’ve put in the work to locate the details, your audience will appreciate it and reap the benefits whether you’re the original author or not.

#5 Simply Be The Best

One of the number one goals we should all strive for in marketing is consistently providing the best information at exactly the right time. People would much rather have information served to them on a shiny silver platter than have to go digging around in dark corners to find it. The most valuable information can be provided by utilizing specific knowledge of your audience and the topics that are important to them, along with being purposeful in the manner in which the topic is delivered.

Facebook can be a fantastic tool for building an engaged audience as long as you put forth the effort to know your audience and make their time worthwhile. Be silly, be serious, be informative, but not opinionated. If you consistently provide premium content and deliver it appropriately, you will become the go-to resource every time the bees need more honey.

There are just so many options and a myriad of ways to accomplish a simple goal. It’s easy to lose sight of your goal.

It’s easy to lose focus.

Well, here of a list of things we all need to focus on to be successful.

#1 Fill Out Your Page Completely

As discussed in a previous post, one of the mistakes that plagues Facebook marketers is using an illegal cover photo.

I’ll stress this again. You cannot advertise your website or use call to actions in your cover photo. Why? Because Facebook has designated a specific place for that information — the about section.

About The About Section

Here you can enter the necessary information for a visitor to become a customer. Mission statement, company description, contact information, they’re all important.

Perhaps the most important of these input boxes is the “Short description” box. This is the box that appears directly below your cover photo, and if you keep the description short enough it’s the ideal place to put a website URL.

You can also grab a custom vanity URL, allowing easier access to your Fan Page.

Try to make it the same across the other social media sites for your company. YouTube, Twitter, and Pinterest for example.

Addressing Multiple Locations

Here is where we run into a bit of a snag.

If you have a brick and mortar business, how do you account for having multiple locations represented by the same Fan Page?

Well there are two options: The easy route is simply list the location in your about section, the more worthwhile route is creating a whole new Fan Page for each location.

This is where tools like 5 Minute Fan Page are invaluable.

#2 Likes Do Not Equal Sales

Before I step on anyone’s toes, yes, Likes are important.

Likes build brand reliability and create this appealing aura of trust on Facebook.

But Likes don’t bring in profit. Plain and simple.

So yes, you should focus on getting Likes, but take it one step further — focus on engagement and generating revenue.

Engagement Is The Mediator

Once you get people engaging on your posts, that’s when you will pique their friend’s interest.

You see, engagement is the way to not only get Likes, but drive “warm” traffic to your Fan Page.

The kind of traffic that has a higher potential to become a customer than your run of the mill “cold” traffic.

So instead of focusing on Likes, aim a rung higher on the ladder. Go for engagement!

Mail, Mail, Mail

Ideally, at least according to our own personal business model, we are driving engagement to opt-in to our mailing list.

Likes –> Engagement –> Mailing List

Why is the mailing list our end goal? It’s a versatile tool we can use *gasp* outside of Facebook!

When we launch a new product or run a sale, we send it to the mailing list.

We can also use the mailing list to generate further engagement by sending them links to posts or pages we’d like to get engagement on.

#3 Watch Your Insights

Insights help you measure what types of posts give you the most engagement, as well as how well your Fan Page is doing in general.

One particular insight metric that is important is the Talking About This number.

This is basically your interaction meter displaying how many people are taking action around your Fan Page in a given week.

Some actions that factor into this metric are:

• Liking
• Commenting
• Sharing
• Answering a Facebook Question
• Checking-in
• Tagging in a photo
• Mentioning in a post

Those all look like ways people engage on your Fan Page to me!

Keep your eye on your talking about number. It should stay pretty consistant, but if it varies dramatically you either did something remarkably right or dreadfully wrong.

When the talking about number skyrockets, try you best to figure out what caused this jump in engagement. Was it a way you shared a photo? Were you running a contest or promoting a particular product? Did your post stand out from your general posting strategy in some way?

Conversely, these same questions can be asked if the talking about number dropped. Find out what you did wrong, and learn from it!

#4 Facebook Ads

If anything has helped us directly get revenue for our business, it’s Facebook Ads. And yes you will have to spend some money to make some money, but not much!

You just have to be smart about it. Start small, and then scale it up if it’s working.

We have plenty of help in dealing with Facebook Ads in our Facebook Ad Academy, but I’ll give you some pointers here.

There are a lot of different kinds of Facebook Ads and a lot of different ways to spend your budget unwisely. Here’s what I like to do.

I primarily stick with CPC ads. That means cost-per-click, and THAT means that I only spend money when visitors physically click my Ad links.

There are also two other forms of ads that I have in my bag of tricks. Let’s take a look at them.

Promoted Posts

These are somewhat new to the Facebook world. Somewhat.

Basically, you can take any post you have on the Fan Page and promote it for a specified amount of money.

Facebook will then show a specified amount of people the post following the various targeting options that you supplied.

This is NOT CPC, but by impression. An impression counts for anytime Facebook shows the ad or post to someone, whether they interact with it or not.

As always, start with a low budget and see if this method works for your fan base.

Facebook Offers

Offers are another relatively new way to promote your content on Facebook.

You can create special promotions for some of your products that you would like to showcase. This also is a good way to drive traffic to a website.

Once an offer is claimed, it shows up on their friend’s Timelines, allowing it to spread across the network. Neat huh?

Conclusion

Running a Facebook Fan Page can be pretty time consuming.

There are just so many variables to keep track of, and endless ways to accomplish a goal. It is SO easy to lose focus. I know because it happens to me every now and then.

Take these things to focus on to heart, and tell us what your current focus is.

Thanks again for reading!

In the process of discovering and highlighting the proper strategies, myself and other marketers had to make some mistakes.

Hey, mistakes are great as long as you learn from them!

Fortunately for you, I’ve compiled a list of the most common mistakes a Fan Page owner makes. Check them out!

#1 Illegal Cover Photo

Sometimes people are so excited about setting up their fan page that they forget to do some important homework — reading the Facebook cover photo guidelines.

Once you understand the rules, they’re fairly simple to follow.

Does it mean everyone follows them? No. In fact, some larger brands still tread a fine line with their cover photos.

Their choice, but frankly I don’t think it’s worth it. Let’s go over some of the rules that are most frequently violated:

• Cover Photos may not contain price or purchase information, such as “40% off,” “Download it at our website,” or “Free Sunglasses All Summer Long.”
• Cover Photos may not contain contact information, such as web address, email, mailing address or other information intended for your Page’s About section.
• Cover Photos may not contain references to user interface elements, such as Like or Share, or other Facebook site features.
• Cover photos may not contain calls to action, such as “Get it now” or “Tell your friends.”

As you can see, this limits the amount of direct marketing and promotion that can be done with a cover photo.

Instead of using these illegal tactics, try using a picture of one of your products. There is no rule about showcasing an image!

And for those of you who lack the image editing software required to do this, here is a program that will help you out.

Posting Failures

Posting on Facebook is how marketers usually generate engagement on their Fan Pages.

It also has room for some potential pitfalls.

Let’s take a look at some posting mistakes that Fan Pages have made in the past, and how to avoid them.

#2 Finding The Right Amount

Facebook suggests that when you first launch your Fan Page, start by posting once or twice a week.

Well, that’s bad advice. Every Fan Page’s market is different.

It is important to establish a relative idea to how often you should post based on the engagement received.

Do not flood your page with posts though! You can (and will) see an adverse effect of saturating your timeline with pictures and text.

Try to find the happy medium between those two points. It can take some time to find the right amount of posts per week, but once you have found it, try to stay close to that number.

The key take-away message here is don’t get excited and post too much, yet don’t be timid with posting either. Find that middle ground.

#3 Straying Off-Topic

Let me preface this point by saying it is ok to go off-topic. It’s why you go off-topic that matters.

It’s fine to diversify your posts. We do it simply to get engagement.

I posted a picture of some Thanksgiving cupcakes to say thank you to all of our fans and customers. In turn, they shared the photo and brought more visitors to our page.

I didn’t mention my website, product, or anything else related to marketing, but it got more fans to my page.

That kind of off-topic posting is just fine!

The kind that isn’t fine is telling everyone what your favorite video game is or how you are glad your favorite football team won. It doesn’t cater to a wide enough audience.

The broader the post the better when going off-topic. It will heighten your engagement levels and drive more traffic to the posts that you want them to see.

#4 Too Much Text In Posts

Another mistake that people often make is writing short essays in their Facebook posts.

Since the introduction of Twitter, people have become accustomed to seeing posts with a limit of 140 characters. That gets you a line or two of text in Facebook.

So naturally, when people are presented with a wall of text, odds are they’re immediately turned off by the length alone.

It could be the best, life-changing advice in the world, and they wouldn’t read it. Shame on them!

Instead of writing down the advice in its entirety, write a headline. A caption. A snippet. Then have a link to your blog / sales page / squeeze letter / marketing tactic that they can click on.

Let your marketing pages and blogs do the work for you — that’s why you made them in the first place. Simply direct them there with the Facebook post and pique their interest.

#5 Breaking Contest Guidelines

This is perfectly legal.

If you want to run a contest on Facebook, it takes a little more research than you would ordinarily think.

Most of the other articles I’ve read are now outdated according to Facebook’s promotion guidelines, so here’s the abridged version.

• The contest must be legal. (ie. no giving alcohol to minors)
• The contest must be run through an app.
• The contest is in no way, shape, or form affiliated with Facebook.
• In order to register, you can have people like your page, check-in at your place, or connect to your app.
• Liking, sharing, or other Facebook functions cannot be the method of registration.
• You cannot contact the winners through Facebook.

Basically, Facebook wants no part of your contest, but are allowing it under some strict guidelines.

One of the guidelines that marketers don’t quite understand is the whole “liking” thing. You can have people like your contest but not like your contest? What?

Here’s the deal with that — you can have what’s commonly known as a Fan Gate to get access to the contest.

The actual action of “liking” may not be used to enter someone into the contest. This is generally done by filling out a form!

So, click “like” to see the contest, and enter your information.

Conclusion

I hope these cleared a few things up for you all. Yes, rules and regulations can be confusing, especially when not everyone abides by them.

By avoiding these mistakes, not only will your Facebook Fan Page be on the straight and narrow, but you’ll get increased engagement on your Fan Page.

For more tips and tricks check out our other blog posts. Our Timeline Blueprint is also full of helpful information.

Thanks for reading everyone, and please share if you found it helpful!

Whether you are a new brand or an established brand, customer service should be a priority.

Here are some tips that allow you to manage your Facebook Fan Page and pay attention to your customer’s needs at the same time.

#1 Keep The Majority Of It Off Facebook

Some of you have probably already figured this out for yourselves, but Facebook is not the ideal customer service platform.

Depending on how large your brand is and how much time and resources you have to dedicate to customer service, you can deal with customer support on Facebook. We’ll touch more on this later.

For the majority of brands with larger customer bases, outsourcing customer service is the solution, and well worth the investment.

Getting a platform that specifically focus on customer service, such as Zendesk, Lithium, or Parature can be the transition your brand needs from being overwhelmed by customer feedback and questions to managing a clearly defined customer support team.

If you are feeling overwhelmed, then look into some customer support platforms.

#2 Have Your Fans Do It For You

Perhaps you have experienced fans answering questions or replying to negative comments on your Fan Page.

If you haven’t, you will, and it’s absolutely wonderful.

These are the fans that you want to attract to your Fan Page. Not only do they provide answers backed by personal experience, but they can save your business some potential money.

Since these fans bring value to your business, it would be nice to reward them and incentivize them. Keep your eyes open for these fans, and try to help them out in some way through discounts or other means. They’re the ones doing you the favor after all!

#3 Keep Your Fan Page Clean

Regardless of the size of your brand, when you promote posts, run Facebook ads, or have a sale, you’re going to get a lot of comments that you don’t want on your Fan Page. I know we do!

I’m not referring to negative comments, but things like chain posts, cursing, and things of that nature. Comments that have nothing to do with the sale or your brand don’t belong on your Fan Page. Period. Here’s an example:

WARNING! Carry on reading! Or you will die, even if you only looked at the word warning! Once there was a little girl called Clarissa, she was ten-years-old and she lived in a mental hospital…

It was much longer than that and actually very graphic, but it gives you the general idea.

Go ahead and delete those!

And if you’re superstitious, don’t worry. I’ve broken many chain posts and I’m fine!

#4 The Face Behind The Brand

Now that we have a clean Fan Page, we can spend some time devoted to replying on Facebook.

Yes, this may sound contradictory to the strategies I’ve listed above but it is good to do this every now and then, and it is especially easy for smaller brands.

Customers appreciate being able to get a direct answer.

Not only does this make it easier for them to get a question answered, but it shows their friends that there is a face behind your brand that is willing to take the time to help out its customers.

Try to do this periodically, or have someone on your team assigned to the task.

#5 Small brand? Use Messages

Larger brands may have this feature turned off, we do, but it sends a message with a very personal feeling to it.

With the messaging feature turned on, people can directly Facebook message your Fan Page.

If you are able, you should take the time to reply to these. Even if the reply directs them to a FAQ that you’ve constructed, it is still a personal reply as long as it doesn’t sound too automated.

Messages can also be a way to get feedback from customers about a product. Listen to your customers and make changes if necessary.

The only downside to messages is that they are private.

No one will be able to see that you’re taking the time to answer questions and helping your customers, but it is still a worthwhile endeavor provided you don’t get overwhelmed with messages.

#6 Build A FAQ

After using the above tactics for some time and monitoring your customer support tickets, you should know what problems your customers run into the most frequent.

Take this opportunity to create a FAQ. In case you didn’t know, that stands for “frequently asked questions”.

Once you’ve gotten a FAQ made, be sure to share the links everywhere you can. Help pages, sales pages, in your products, anywhere someone may think of a relavent question.

This will not only save the customer time because they won’t have to wait for a response, but it will save you time from answering the same questions over and over.

Be sure to update and modify the FAQ as needed.

#7 Don’t Just Focus On The Negative

Be sure to focus some attention to the people leaving positive comments as well.

Take the compliment! Say thank you for it!

This simple gesture helps build and establish your brand identity, and can help shift the “tone” of your wall from a negative to a positive one.

It also will encourage those that leave compliments to come back and leave more in the future.

#8 Keyword Notifications

Some social marketing platforms let you set up alerts for custom keywords.

For instance: you could set up an alert for whenever someone’s comment includes the word “customer service” or “frustrated”. This would let you know exactly when and where someone may need help without having to go through hundreds or thousands of comments.

The only hangup to the keyword notification tactic is that I couldn’t find a tool that let you do this without buying a whole suite of products.

Let me know if you have found something that you have used with success, or we may just have one developed! Would this be helpful?

As always, you can find more tips about Facebook on our website, or try the Timeline Blueprint if you haven’t already.

Thanks for reading guys, and I wish you the best.

It received mixed reviews at first. Would ads cost increase? Would engagement levels drop? Marketers didn’t really know what to expect from this new layout.

After 8 months and plenty of trial and error, we have been able to figure out how to effectively use the Timeline with great results.

#1 Increase your Facebook EdgeRank With Media

Using photos in your posts can give you that extra boost that your Fan Page needs with a high EdgeRank score, which increases the chance of someone seeing your post.

There are three ways to increase your Facebook EdgeRank with your posts: links, video, and photos.

Depending on your visitors, one of these types of media may be preferred so it’s important to know and understand your audience.

Combine CTA’s With Photos

One smart way to generate engagement on your Fan Page is the combination of two methods – posting photos, and call to action.

People’s attention naturally gravitates toward the photo.

Text above the photo has the possibility to be missed. We dont’ want that.

Instead of having a blurb of text and a photo in your next post, try combining the two together.

Insert your call to action directly into the photo itself, but be careful not to overpower the photo with the text.

#2 Plan With Facebook Insights

If you are having trouble developing a Facebook posting strategy, then take a look at your Facebook insights.

You should see a graph below the admin pannel showing your reach and talking about number. This is a snapshot of your insights.

Click on that graph to get detailed information about when you posted things, and the engagement that post got.

Insights To Focus On

Keep an eye out for days with a large amount of engagement.

How many posts did you make each day? How many photos or links did you share?

What types of posts get more engagement and shares?

Insights are a great way to monitor your Fan Page’s reach. Be sure to keep up to speed with all of the different metrics.

#3 Cover Photo Strategies

Your Fan Page cover photo is like a huge billboard with millions of cars driving buy it.

Because it is the first thing your fans see upon visiting your Fan Page, we want to make sure that it’s being used effectively.

There are three main strategies that brands use with cover photos: promotion, direction, and identification. Let’s take a look at each.

Promotion

If you have a product that you would like to promote, then your cover photo is prime real estate for a product advertisement.

The same can be said about a sale or discount that you’re currently running or gearing up for.

Direction

Another cover photo strategy is directing the visitor’s attention elsewhere.

If you are trying to get people to click your custom tabs, this is a great method to do that.

The only problem with this method is that having any sort of call to action in your cover photo is illegal, at least according to Facebook.

As an example, “Click [custom tab name] to find out more / show your support / register / enter the contest…” is against the Facebook regulations. So are listing websites.

Surprisingly, I still see large brands using this method. If it’s a risk you’re willing to take, just be warned that it can get your account shut down.

Identification

Finally, brands use their cover photos to build their brand identity.

They want visitors to recognize them, recognize their products, and become familiar and comfortable with the brand.

You can use your cover photo to display your logo in a clever, interactive way to achieve this.

I’m sure others have tried different strategies than these three. Let us know in the comments if they worked (or didn’t work) for your brand.

#4 Try Some Gamification

Make engaging fun on your Fan Page!

Use things like caption contests, riddles, or pictograms to challenge your visitors while collecting comments, likes, and shares.

If you have a joke that fits in with a picture or a funny video that fits in with a current promotion, share it!

Gamifying your Fan Page should not only be fun for the visitors, you should have fun too.

If you have the resources, think about actually creating a game of your own on Facebook.

#5 Engage In Real Time

Many marketers struggle with this.

They think that actually engaging back with the engagers is time consuming and not worth the effort.

Well, they’re wrong on both points.

Replying to people in comments and liking their comments can go a long way. It shows that there is a person behind the brand, and it encourages fans to interact more with you.

You don’t have to sit behind your computer all day replying to comments. Oftentimes, you just need to get the conversation started.

Next time you post, reply to the comments that come in right away, then check back in 15 minutes or so to reply a final time to some comments.

I know you’re busy. I’m busy, but I try to comment when I can.

#6 Remember To Say Thank You

Sometimes we can get so caught up in our marketing strategies that we forget to do the most important thing – thank our fans.

While you don’t have to thank your fans every day, you should take the opportunity to create a post specifically to thank them every now and then.

After all, without your fans and customers you wouldn’t have a very successful business, would you?

This is a friendly reminder to say “Thank You”.

#7 Short And Sweet

Finally, be specific in your posts. Keep it short and sweet.

People generally won’t take the time to read a wall of text. It just doesn’t happen.

If you have something lengthy to say, try to break it up into several chunks.

For instance, a post about 3 quick tips could easily be broken into 3 separate posts with pictures related to each tip.

Get That Engagement

Give these strategies a try on your Facebook page.

If you see results, please let us know in the comments!

We are also open to any other ideas that you may have related to getting engagement and success on your Fan Page.

Hopefully you’ve done some research already, and put together a nice list of resources for yourself. If you have, please share it in the comments!

If you are new, feel somewhat lost, or are interested in adding to your resource list, then this post is for you.

What You’ll Learn

• Simple steps that can help you save time and money
• Where you can find some great ideas for Facebook campaigns
• Ways to build your email list through Facebook

#1 5 Minute Fan Page

If you have read my other blog posts about Facebook Marketing, you know that I think it’s absolutely necessary to make the best use out of the custom tabs on your Fan Page.

With these custom tabs you can turn your focus on getting emails rather than fans from your Fan Page – that’s how you turn fans into customers, the email list.

That’s why these custom tabs are really powerful in the right hands.

So powerful in fact, we have developed a resource that is dedicated to making custom tab creation as simple as possible.

Customize Your Landing Pages

One of the things that 5 Minute Fan Page (5MFP) lets you do is bring your sales and squeeze pages onto Facebook itself.

You can set up custom tabs with 5MFP with virtually zero knowledge of HTML or CSS code.

Or, if you’re a coder, you can customize it to your specific design.

Once you decide you’d like to generate a new custom tab on your Fan Page, you are presented with a wide variety of templates to choose from and customize.

It’s really user friendly, and it’s a tool that we personally use to save us a lot of time and money!

Click the link if you’re interested in finding out more about this resource, and creating custom tabs in Facebook.

#2 Fiverr

The great thing about Fiverr is that it’s a resource that extends beyond Facebook.

If you are unfamiliar with the Fiverr website, it is set up so that people post various services or requests for services.

The best part about this? Everything is $5.

Depending on what your business needs, this can be a great outsource resource!

In the past, we have used this site for things like video intros, SEO, and images for Facebook campaigns.

#3 Facebook Studio

Sometimes it is hard to keep coming up with new, refreshing ideas for your Facebook campaigns. Facebook Studio can help!

Facebook Studio is a resource full of examples of campaigns that other brands have used.

All of these campaigns are successful campaigns, and generally tell you exactly what they did and the results they received.

There is no subscription fee or anything required. This resource is completely free.

From The Studio Gallery

Taking a quick glace at the Facebook Studio Gallery, a campaign from Guinness caught my attention.

After clicking on the photo for the campaign, a window appears with specific details:

The campaign launched in July 2012. Our objectives for the campaign were to create brand engagement, from the digital world to the real world, and to add real value to points of sale by converting online behavior into physical attendance.

The information also discusses how the campaign on the custom tab was run, along with how they decided to dedicate some resources toward people using mobile devices:

Because over 50% of Facebook users connect to Facebook using their smartphones, we created Sponsored Stories directed solely at mobile users. We also built a mobile mirror site for the campaign so that Facebook smartphone users could register for an event at their favorite local pub, practice pouring directly from their smartphone, and then share their accomplishment with their friends using Facebook Connect.

The campaign reached 50k visitors in its first 2 months, and had an average of 40 people registered for each location to see if they could pour the best pint of Guinness.

See. You learned how they approached the campaign, how important mobile users are becoming, and the results of the campaign.

On top of that, they supply pictures of the custom tabs, so that can spark some creativity too!

Take a look at some more examples at the Facebook Studio Gallery.

#4 Facebook Success Stories

Keeping with the theme of generating ideas for your Facebook campaigns, Facebook Success Stories is another free resource that supplements the aforementioned Facebook Studio.

The main difference being that anyone can submit their campaign to be reviewed and displayed on Facebook Studio.

Facebook Success Stories is where the big name brands are highlighted, but you can still take away some great ideas and tools to add to your campaigns.

Brands Like P.F. Chang’s Are Showcased

To celebrate its 18th birthday, P.F. Chang’s created a coupon app on its Fan Page advertising free lettuce wraps.

If you have never been to P.F. Chang’s, know that their lettuce wraps are amazing. Even better than their great wall of chocolate.

To create even more buzz and to increase visibility of people’s engagement with the brand, P.F. Chang’s also used sponsored stories. It tapped PR outreach, email, its website and other social channels to drive awareness to the Facebook Page and its app.

As with Facebook Studio, you will get the details of each campaign as well as the results.

#5 5 Minute Cover Photo

For do-it-yourself marketers without expensive image editing software, creating the various size images required for a Fan Page can be difficult and time consuming.

Thankfully there is a resource that lets you create these photos in one place. Fast.

Here is a list of the photos that can be made in this tool:

• Cover Photo
• Profile Photo
• Custom Tab Thumbnail
• Regular Post Photo
• Highlighted Post Photo

The tool also allows you to upload your own backgrounds or images to add to the photo if you choose to do so.

So if you’re interested, here’s more information on making Facebook photos easily.

#6 North Social

If you’re looking for a Facebook app that is not available in 5MFP, then you should check out a site like North Social.

They have a wide variety of apps that you can use for your Fan Page.

Some of these include sweepstakes, photos, and coupons.

One thing that we will be focusing on more is contests. I’m on the hunt to find the best contest app out there.

If you are aware of a great contest app, please let me know in the comments!

#7 Right Here!

Finally, I want this blog to be a great resource for you all.

We already have some great posts up, and I would really like to hear what areas you all would like more advice about.

Leave me feedback in the comments, and I will try to construct a blog post that caters to your needs!

Since that was a big hit with our fellow Facebook marketers, I’ve decided to finish off the Top 15 from Optimal.

Remember – these may be big brands, but they use tactics that any size business can integrate into their Facebook marketing strategy. Some tips my need a little tweaking here and there, but they are all applicable.

So with out further adieu, here are some more Fan Pages and the tactics they’ve used to get to the top of the list.

#9 Kohl’s

Fans - 9,347,057
Talking About - 217,350
Engagement – 1.9%

Build Up The Hype

I’ve discussed the benefits of saturating your Fan Page with relavent pictures, videos, and links. This is something that Kohl’s does exceptionally well.

Before every sale or the launch of a new clothing line, Kohl’s promotes it in advance – a whole week in advance!

Building up the hype like this on your Fan Page not only generates engagement, but it gets people interested in the product itself. The more interested they are, the more likely they will turn into customers.

There are a couple ways of going about the week-long promotion strategy, and vary in the degree of “mystery”.

Some Fan Pages like to leave their customers guessing up until the actual day of the sale, while others reveal a little bit each day.

We’ll cover more about this a little later, but you get the general idea. Build up that hype.

Leave It To Bieber

I simply couldn’t ignore this.

The Kohl’s Fan Page is promoting Justin Bieber, and it’s getting them 3x the engagement.

Normal Kohl’s posts receive around 10 – 20 shares.
The ones featuring Bieber got 600.

Now, I’m not saying that we should all start promoting Justin Bieber on our Fan Pages. Although, I don’t think Justin would mind that.

The take-home tactic here is riding those coat tails.

If you have the opportunity to promote someone famous or something famous, latch on to it. Make it yours.

There’s nothing wrong with getting a little helping hand from other people. Chances are they’ll like the attention too!

#10 Monster Energy

Fans - 19,593,566
Talking About - 275,967
Engagement – 1.6%

Cater To Your Audience

One of the reason Monster has so much success on its Fan Page is that it knows its audience very well.

When fans visit the Monster Fan Page, they expect to see extreme photos of various sports, and action shots of pumping adrenaline.

Monster delivers.

Their Fan Page is full of sporty and extreme pictures and video.

Remember – sharing photos, links, and videos are important for your EdgeRank, and allows your Fan Page to get maximum exposure on Facebook.

Custom Tabs Get Free Engagement

I can’t stress how important custom tabs can be guys.

If you have a free offer up on your Fan Page, people will click it. Whether that click takes them to an email opt-in funnel or a contest is something you need to think about, but the point is they will click.

And the best part about this is the click is free. Take advantage of that!

#11 Macy’s

Fans - 8,831,814
Talking About – 200,813
Engagement – 2.5%

Here’s the second department store on our list.

They actually use some different strategies than Kohl’s, and have a higher “Talking About” number.

A Cover Photo That Makes A Statement

Macy’s isn’t afraid to be bold.

Claiming to be the “World’s Largest Store” is quite a declaration, and while your business may not be the largest, you can still excel at something.

Think. What does your business offer its fanbase that separates you from your competition?

Why do people choose your business? What are your strengths?

The cover photo is a great place to promote the reasons why your business is better than the others.

If you do decide to go bold though, be sure you can actually back up your claim!

Post About Your Custom Tabs

I’ve talked about how custom tabs can help generate free traffic.

To be completely honest though, the custom tab has a very small image compared to the rest of your Fan Page.

To get more engagement to your custom tab, create posts dedicated to promoting them.

Macy’s recently ran a contest through a custom tab app called the Little Stars Photo Contest. In this contest, pictures of babies were voted on to select who would win some money to help them toward college.

For starters, this had a high potential to be popular. Babies are just under kittens on the internet popularity list, after all.

No matter what contest or promotion you’re running though, be sure to advertise for it with Fan Page posts.

Give A Sneak Peek

Similar to Kohl’s, Macy’s promotes for upcoming product lines about a week ahead of the launch.

What Macy’s does that different is provide a glimpse at the new product line in advance.

This ties into the mystery aspect of building that hype. The more engagement you can build up before a launch, the more successful the launch will be.

You can easily reveal a bit more each day leading up to the launch for a good effect.

#12 MTV

Fans -38,596,447
Talking About – 642,612
Engagement – 1.8%

MTV stands for Music Television.

They tend to specialize in a wide variety of media now, and their Fan Page reflects it.

Pop Culture Is Popular

MTV has become known for its edgy pop culture take on life, whether it’s through shows or other forms of media.

If you can twist some sort of mainstream pop culture reference into your campaign, then chances are it will get more attention.

I’m not encouraging you to go around screaming the sky is falling, we don’t want negative attention. I’m just encouraging you to open your mind to some new ideas that could potentially help you drive engagement to your Fan Page.

#13 Victoria’s Secret

Fans - 20,157,907
Talking About – 305,190
Engagement – 1.4%

Well, you’re going to get engagement by posting sexy girls in underwear.

If you want to use that tactic, go for it, but let’s look at what else Victoria’s Secret does.

Free. Free? Free!

People love free stuff.

Victoria’s Secret knows that. That’s why they promote their Free Rewards Card on their Fan Page with photos and big letters.

FREE!

If you’re going to give something away to get interaction from fans, be sure to make it highly visible.

Use attention-grabbing photos and use the highlight feature if the image is hi-res enough.

If you’re going to give something away, shout it to the world.

#14 iTunes

Fans - 23,993,771
Talking About – 233,080
Engagement – 1.6%

iConnect To Other iPages

One thing that stands out on the iTunes Fan Page is how it is connected to all of the world-wide iTunes pages for different countries.

If you are managing more than one Fan Page and the businesses are relavent enough, link them together!

This allows all of the linked pages to benefit from one another.

Any engagement you get on one Fan Page can flow onto the other Fan Pages!

#15 Walt Disney World

Fans - 11,483,145
Talking About - 283,944
Engagement – 2.2%

There is a reason why Disney has two Fan Pages in the Top 15 – they are awesome at getting engagement.

Brand Recognition

Brand recognition is primarily why Disney’s Fan Pages get so much engagement.

While millions of people may not recognize your products yet, you can still take the opportunity to promote yourself wherever possible.

Try to build your brand on your Fan Page by exposing all of your visitors through pictures, text, or video.

CTA The Disney Way

Call-to-actions (CTA’s) are a must in posts.

In each and every post, there should be something that directs the visitor to do something.

Things like “comment below” or “share this link” are frequent CTA’s that encourage engagement.

Don’t be afraid to experiment with other CTA’s as well, be creative and use ones that are specific to your audience.

#16 Your Fan Page

Hopefully these two posts gave you some ideas to implement in your Facebook marketing strategy.

And yes, your Fan Page sits in the 16 spot. Let’s see you all work up that chart!

For more game-changing tips, check out our Timeline Blueprint, and keep checking back on our blog!

Thanks so much for reading.