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15 Must Know Tips for Small Businesses to Prevail in Facebook Page Posting

Either you are new on Facebook Page or not, we are all facing a common issue to get our brand pages seen in fans’ news feeds. You may wonder if there is any secret sauce you missed; why is it so difficult to win your fans attention and affection to your Facebook Page? Could you have done anything less than you already did?

Rest assured you’re not alone in this. After managing my page for almost three years and being a fan on other pages too, I’ve seen and experienced the ups and downs of a page. Wished I knew some of these tips earlier when started. If you’re interested, here are some of my findings:

 

#1  Post Status Updates that Invite Massive Engagement

Make sure your page updates are interesting or important enough to earn fans’ responses. The more feedback (likes, comments, shares) you earned the higher chance for your page updates to appear in their news feed. Below posting ideas speak for themselves:

  • News update from your industry/niche
  • General (but relevant) discussions
  • Inspirational stories or quotes that resonate with your fans
  • Creative use of videos and images to capture attention
  • Apply humor to your updates
  • Encourage two-way communications by asking questions and ‘fill in the blanks’

Security Note:

If you are to use Polls or any Facebook applications to increase engagement, take ‘app authorization’ into consideration for some people may feel reluctant to approve an app before able to communicate with your page. Do make sure the app is legit and if need to, instruct your fans how to remove it after used.

 

#2  Add Call to Actions to Your Status Updates

If you don’t bother to interact with fans on your Wall, those attractive custom tabs or links will remain static and won’t do you much good in ROI. Thus, alert your fans about those special tabs and ask them to share with their friends constantly. Please, Help, Like, Comment, Vote, Share … you’ll be amazed a simple call to actions will drive massive responses from fans.

call to actions

Tip: Don’t overdo this or else fed-up fans will ignore them altogether.

 

#3  Respond to Fans’ Enquiries the Soonest

Not everyone can be on Facebook 24/7, but if those are enquiries about your brand (product or services), try to respond as soon as you see them. If not, then at least reply within 24 hours. A great effort I saw over at Mari Smith’s page is that she assigned ‘Team Mari’ (a community page for her official brand page) to answer on her behalf when she’s not available. Smart idea and one doesn’t even have to worry about assigning a new admin to do this.

respond to fans post

Tip: If you wish to do the same, make sure to clarify in the community page so fans won’t get confused with the official page instead.

 

#4  Put Your Heart and Effort in Replies

Before complaining why no one is care enough to visit your page, check if you are responding to fans’ posts. It may be important to have attractive custom tabs but instead of putting ALL your time and effort in them, why not focus a bit more on your engagement with fans? Like welcoming a new fan by featuring his/her work (sincerity counts!):

welcome new fan

It’s important to be real and engage in conversations. For example, if your fan gave a thoughtful answer, ‘like’ his/her comment, address the poster by profile name via tagging:

tag and like

 

#5  Moderate Your Wall posts

As much we welcome fans’ posts, spammy links should be avoided at all costs. Delete unrecognized, affiliate links and weird promotions to give way for quality content offered by (loyal) fans. If your Wall is out of control, make clear in your page posting policy so people are aware how they can contribute properly to your wall.

page posting policy

 

#6  Promote Your Important Update with a Tease

I still have lots to learn in this but I just love Amy Porterfield’s method to create enticing post such as a tease for her blog post so her fans will want to find out more. Create suspense, invoke curiosity to improve click-through rates definitely helps in boosting your Edgerank score.

be a tease

Tip: Your post will only last for a short period of time, so make sure you are posting at the right timing (when your targeted fans are online). Or else, you may consider post scheduling which leads us to #7.

 

#7  Auto-updating is Fine but Use It Sparingly

It is said that Facebook is now treating all third party apps the same in terms of news feed visibility. Even so, there may be some issues with the ‘Share’ option as seen in this screenshot. Take this into consideration before deciding your post type. Test your apps and see how they performed in helping you to reach fans from different time zones. Personally, I prefer to promote my new post manually then use scheduling apps to re-post the article for maximum exposure.

Recommended Apps for Pages: Buffer and Post Planner.

 

#8  Create Exclusives on Your Facebook Page

According to research, 58% of Facebook users expect Exclusive content from brand pages so it’s important to meet your fans’ expectations. Either special tips or exclusive offers for fans only, the idea is to convert first time visitors into returning fans. You can use fan-gating techniques for door gifts; show appreciation or create something that’s hard to resist:

groupon

Tips: You may promote your Facebook offer on other social networking sites but keep the details and activities ‘within’ your Page if you are to attract engagement.

 

#9  Integrate Content about Your Brand @ Expertise to Your Page

You should leverage resources you have at hand and pull in impressive content to your Facebook Page constantly. I believe content marketing could be a winning factor for most brand pages, even small businesses. Share publications and blog posts that talk about brand awareness and how your audience can benefit from those info. Help them to solve daily issues with the products they use and direct them to your database. It will portray you care about their needs and instill trust among your fans. Create quality content and make a post share-able is always #1 when getting your brand heard.

quality content

Tips: If you don’t own a site (which I highly recommend that you do), you can always guest post on prestigious sites and link back to your facebook page.

 

#10  Gain Subscribers for Your Blog or Newsletter

It’s vital to allow opt-in email forms for your fans to subscribe freely. The thing is, you have no control over Facebook platform whatsoever, a bug could easily drive you into panic so why not prevent this by setting up a subscription form so your fans can be reached in time of need. If something happened to your page, you can easily reach out to them and ask for continuous support and engagement.

blog subscribers

 

#11  Be Personal – Feature the Page Owners or Admins

This is optional and only works for those who don’t mind to be attached to the brand with own personal profile/Timeline. If you are okay to be featured, switch on that ‘Subscribe’ button and get personal by allowing fans to subscribe to your profile’s public updates. By doing so, fans are feeling more comfortable to share and contribute, knowing who is/are behind the brand page.

enable facebook subscription

If not, you can always mention your name after replied :

admin who responded

 

#12  Study and Learn from Successful Pages, even Competitors

Learn how other successful pages are posting, see what works and what’s not. Group these Facebook Pages in your custom lists and monitor how each update gain favors (or negative feedback) from others, adjust the way you post and frequency of posting.

 

#13  Use Facebook Ads to Promote your Page via Recent Post

One of the Ad Types for your page is the ‘Page Post Ad’, which makes your wall posting all the more important if you wish to use Facebook ads to promote your brand page. Amy did a fantastic cover about the ad setup at #3 in her post – interesting idea to regain your fans attention and return to their news feed once more.

page post ad

 

#14  There Will Be Negative Comments

No surprise that occasionally you will be greeted by negative feedback, which makes it even more vital to think twice before posting. I once told by an ex-member that she did not like a particular link I shared, which led her to unliking my page. I was surprised because I never intended to upset anyone. I respectfully apologized and explained myself in the comment, without removing her feedback as well. What I learned from this experience is to respond to negative comments as long they don’t appear offensive and harsh. It’s a good way to show others that you respect and welcome all opinions, willing to learn from mistakes and move on.

 

#15  In the end – It’s All About Engagement

Small businesses often think they don’t stand a chance competing with the bigger brands. To me, it’s not about those fancy tabs or big number of fans they have. As a fan to other Facebook pages myself, I endorse small business pages that value two-way communications with their supporters. Therefore, make use of this advantage and turn your page into a living portal where your fans can get informative tips and Q&A session they need about your brand. Interactions will bring your page the attention it needs and triumph in the news feed, throw away your competitors far behind. Your fans will remember to visit you for brand advice and news update.

 

Now Is Your Turn…

Have you had any difficulties trying to reach your fans in their news feed? What are your strategies to prevail in  Facebook page posting? Love to hear your thoughts.

7 Comments

  1. This is a great post! Coincidentally, this very issue was on my mind this morning. The only other tip I would offer is that I get more engagement with short updates.

    1. Hi Frances, so great to see you here. Great tip! I did read about something similar by Hubspot that status update <80 characters get 27% more engagement. Guess that's true. 🙂

    1. Amanda, that’s a good point. If the business owners know how to maximize the use of clients’ testimonials on their page, that could be a huge plus. People do love ‘reality-check’ from others who used the product/service, may even ask further questions if they are interested for details.

  2. Asking really helps. Even when you post an update or piece of information, you can ask your audience to comment or like the same. It’s one of the most effective Facebook posting techniques according to researches done by digital marketing companies. At the same time timing is also very important because different groups of FB users belong to different timezones.

    These are really useful tips. I appreciate the list and the effort that has gone into putting all these pieces of information together.

    Thanks.

  3. This is a great post. Very impressive. My only real addition would be creating an iFrame landing page for your fan page so that you can control how the potential liker is going to be introduced to your product/service. Sometimes it’s hard for someone to just jump in and understand what is going on at your wall. Again, beautiful post.

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