Running a Facebook Fan Page can be overwhelming.
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!
