Since there are over 2 billion Facebook users all around the world. Facebook is a must have opportunity for small businesses to take advantage of more users, more fans and customers, but with more users comes more competition. So how can I drive more traffic to my Facebook business page and have that competitive edge to gain more customers.
In this video, I'm going to be giving easy to follow and straight to the point tips that'll get you more customers to deliver more profits right on your Facebook business page. I'm West McDowell, a Website strategist over at the Deep End. And this is the channel where I show you how to use your website and what's working now in digital marketing to supercharge your customer growth. So you can make more money and build a business you love to show up for every day. Okay? So let's jump right into what you can do on your Facebook business page to increase, engage and get you more customers.
First up we want to use the power of images
So this is probably the most important tip because images can be displayed on all your posts, in Facebook search results. And whenever someone shares your posts on their timeline and choosing the right photo is a great way to create a good first impression. And you're probably already using a profile and cover photo, but are you doing it the right way?
So, first thing you want to do is use a recognizable profile picture, you know, in your profile picture is that little square image that represents your page and your brand throughout Facebook, to both your current and your potential followers.
Now, remember you never get a second chance to make a great first impression and profile images definitely reflect your brand. What do you want to use as a high quality photo that would reflect your brand? So here are some tips for creating a great looking profile picture that your community will recognize immediately.
So first use your logo. If you have one, minimize or eliminate all the text on it, unless it's part of your business name. Don't change it very often use an image that's recognizable on social platforms and finally make sure it's square.
Now let's talk about your cover photo
So cover photos are going to be your first opportunity to tell your story. So take advantage of your cover photo since it's the biggest image on your page. And one of the most impactful. It will be the single greatest opportunity to showcase your business and make that lasting first impression. But unlike your profile picture, I want you to think about changing it regularly. You know, you can match with the seasons, with trends, or with news that is happening in your business.
Personally, I like to use my cover photo the same way. I use a hero section on a website, you know, with a big, beautiful image in the background with a strong headline over it, telling people well, exactly what you do and what's in it for them.
Next, you want to create a custom URL or a vanity URL
You know, there are many ways you can optimize your page once you've set it up. But the first thing you want to do is grab a vanity URL. At first, what Facebook's going to do is they're just going to automatically create a URL for your page made of random numbers and letters, which is not very useful. You know, this is not going to be practical. If you want to advertise your page and share it, you want something that's going to be a lot more customer friendly.
This is also going to give you an easy to read page link that you can post to other places. And the super practical reason I recommend using a vanity URL is it is just good for SEO. You know, your profile page is not only more searchable on Facebook when you use a vanity URL, but it's also more searchable on Google. Google will link it to your site's keywords and besides that, it just looks way more professional, which is a very good thing, right?
Next, you want to step up your Facebook activity
So an active presence on Facebook is a sign of a healthy business to the people that are searching for you. When you never post your Facebook page can look like an abandoned ghost town, you know, tumbleweeds and all, but when you post frequently on Facebook, you give potential customers, the confidence that your business is alive and well, as well as the ability to connect to you.
And I know posting often can be time consuming for your busy business, and it can be tricky to come up with the ideas on what you want to post. So here are a few ideas of what you can post on your business page to help get you going. You can show off your products, share a behind the scenes look at what you do, showcase your hardworking staff and location.
Share your good reviews, cross share from different social media platforms, announce any upcoming events and share who your business loves, including suppliers, neighbors, employees, pets, anything like that.
Next, you want to promote exclusive deals
So it's not enough to offer these deals on your Facebook page. You have to tell people about them, right? You know, Facebook, luckily makes it very easy to add promotions, whatever you want, and then just shout it out with the post.
And this is one of the best ways to get page likes and to build an engaged community because people love a good deal. And not only that, but your followers will also want to like and share a good deal. So the more you promote them, the more extra organic reach you can get out of it too.
Next posts, videos, and create video playlists
So according to studies, videos account for 80% of all internet traffic. Now this is a huge number and posting your most compelling visual content is always a good idea. And live videos are an especially good idea, which I'll be talking more about later on, but you can also use video and Facebook stories for this. And if you wanted to kick it up a notch, creating a video playlist allows you to create more opportunity to add more content through descriptions of the playlist, and titles of the playlist. And it also just helps you organize your content brain neatly.
Next, you want to choose the right call to action button
So the call to action buttons are designed to let you tell people exactly what you want them to do from your page. It links to any destination on or off Facebook that basically aligns with your goals as your business.
This gives you an opportunity to convert your visitors into leads or full on customers. You want to choose the one that's most suitable for your business. A perfect example for this would be adding your contact number on the, get in touch button so that visitors can call you directly from your Facebook page.
Next, you want to earn the VERY RESPONSIVE TO MESSAGES BADGE
Response time basically shows your fans that your business is active and on the ball.
And as a result your business just looks much more trustworthy and professional if you have it. So if you can't always be there to respond, no worries.
Just improve the response time with the away feature, automatic responses and other settings within your Facebook business page that basically led you kind of automatically respond and tend your inbox without that constant engagement on your end, also setting up automatic replies is helpful for two reasons. First it's just considerate for your customers. And secondly, it lowers the response time.
My recommendation for businesses is to have a message that basically asks customers for some standard information like their email and a detailed message of the problem they may be having. The very responsive to messages badge shows people which pages respond quickly and consistently to private messages. Now, if you want to get the BADGE BLOW YOUR PAGES COVER PHOTO, your page must've achieved a response rate of 90%, meaning you respond to 90% of messages and an average response time of under five minutes.
So when your page has the badge, anyone can see it, which just looks really nice. When your page doesn't have the badge, it's not going to really show that you don't have a good response time. Only the people who help manage your page and yourself can see that responsiveness info on your page.
Next, you want to schedule your posts in advance
Now this strategy is gonna allow you to save time. So rather than taking that time out of your day, every day, multiple times a day to post on all the social networks, scheduling allows you the freedom to get everything done at once in batches and people who know me, know I love it to batch stuff. It's how I stay productive. Scheduling also lets you post on your fans and your customers time. So don't think about the most convenient time for you to post because it doesn't really mean that's going to be a good time for your audience.
Scheduling posts also makes it easy, easier to maintain content. You know your business has a set content schedule, or if you're just interested in following the latest trend, it's easy to stay up to date when everything is batch produced and scheduled ahead of time. Lastly, you'll be covered in busy situations. You know, sometimes you get sick. Sometimes you want to take a vacation or sometimes you're just busy.
You know, I get it. You're a business owner, you get busy. So if you find yourself in those situations where social media is just not really a priority, scheduling those posts are going to provide a safety net and help your brand stay visible. Even when you're too busy to do it yourself and you never know what might happen. So it's good to just plan ahead just in case.
Next, you want to enable reviews
So this feature is going to allow people to basically check on what you've done for other people before they do business with you.
So as a business, it's really important to build that credibility. And that is by collecting positive feedback and reviews online. This also happens to be the easiest tip on the list because it's as simple as turning it on with a simple switch.
Next we have Facebook live
So Facebook live is just a really great opportunity to showcase your knowledge and increase your fans, your followers and customer base. And to get it going live on video may sound really scary, but here's the thing. Hear me out. It gives you an instant real time source of content for viewers that just can't be duplicated with anything else. And taking advantage of live videos helps your business to see real time engagement. And that's really going to help you to connect with your audience.
You know, since video is super strong right now, and Facebook live seems to get higher organic reach because of its unique content. It's definitely worth adding live to your marketing plan as soon as you can. And actually not only does it increase your organic reach because Facebook likes showing live video to people, but it's actually been shown to have an effect on your Facebook ads too. If you ever decided to run any, basically if you go live regularly, Facebook loves that engagement that you're providing and it's going to reward, you and your page by showing your ad to more people for less money.
Now, Facebook lives are very different from recorded video that I previously mentioned because obviously it's live and this gives your audience that real time connection with you because what can happen is they can ask you questions. They can give real time comments about you and your product.
And this basically does a lot to build trust between you and your customers as your audience can get a better sense of who you really are as a business. One more really cool thing about Facebook live videos is that it's just cheap and it's easy to do. Inherently, you know, it's all about doing it live in the moment, which means you don't need a fancy camera. People will forgive lower production value. You don't need editing skills or fancy setups. All you need is your smartphone and the Facebook app, and then you just live stream it.
So if you're wondering on how to start with this, I've got some ideas for you that you can take and use for your first live video on Facebook. So you can basically create a balance between talking about your business and what you offer. And at the same time, giving people a peek at who you are outside of work.
So in other words, using your personality, you can go behind the scenes, showing people how you do what you do, or you can spotlight a current customer by talking with them about the experience they had. Now, this might be the best one, do a Q & A where you can tell your followers that you'll be on live on a certain day to answer any other questions that relate to your business or yourself, or you don't have to announce it.
You can just go on without warning as a surprise. It's really up to you how you want to do it. You can do how to's product demos, basically anything.
I sure hope you got some great value from West McDowell. If you implement everyone of these tips on your Facebook Business Page, it will surely be on fire.