9 Practical Tips to Improve Your Facebook Page Performance

As you’re working hard to improve your brand visibility with the new Timeline layout, there is often a feature or two that gone under your radar. Along with some buggy issues that may interfere your daily page engagement effort! Give this post a quick check and see if you could improve your Page with minor tweaking this week.

 

How to Improve Brand Visibility and Engagement on Your Page

#1 To Educate Fans to Subscribe to Page Updates

Facebook removed the RSS subscription for Page updates after launching Timeline. Since then, users are advised to use ‘Interest Lists’ to keep track of their favorite Pages. But as the custom list grow larger, active pages may dominate the news feed, overshadowing the rest.

Workaround:

Kristi suggested a method to retrieve the Facebook Page’s RSS feed via a standard URL:

• https://www.facebook.com/feeds/page.php?id=YOURFANPAGEID&format=rss20

Replace ‘YOURFANPAGEID’ in the URL above with the selected Page’s actual ID. For example, the RSS feed for my Page is:

https://www.facebook.com/feeds/page.php?id=106236190962&format=rss20

Now you should be able to subscribe to Page updates via your preferred RSS reader.

Extra Tip:

If you would like to receive email updates instead, try using RSS-to-Email app such as feedmyinbox (Updated 03/12/12: will be shut down on January 10, 2013):

or Blottrottr:

 

 

#2 To Use ‘Pin to Top’ for Maximum Visibility

Cover photo receives most buzz when Timeline was introduced. While users are worrying not getting enough space for brand-advertising, pinned post manages to regain visitors’ attention on what’s hot and requires immediate attention on the page.

Don’t worry when people say that users don’t visit to actual Page no more. Think about how new visitors may land on your page from external referrers! Isn’t it nice to be greeted with a welcoming message?

or get notified about an upcoming project/event:

Extra Tip:

Remember to ‘Highlight’ your post before Pin to top. That way after it has been replaced by upcoming Pins, it will still be visible in its own Timeline (added advantage if a bigger photo is used).

 

#3 To Use ‘Featured Likes’ Effectively

‘Featured Likes’ has always been a method to show support to other relevant Pages or reward visibility to loyal fans. How? More in Media has a way to feature fan’s pages while adding a little ‘suspense’ to her note – act fast while the spots still available. A good way to increase engagement.

 

#4 To Consider Facebook Notes for SEO Benefits

Facebook Notes do get indexed in search results. Many times I was brought back to a Facebook Note from the search term I use. Quite amazed with this as I have been neglecting Notes since… well, maybe it’s time to dig it out and test drive its performance again. Don’t forget to fill in the Tag box with keywords of your choice.

 

#5 To ‘Not’ Only Post During Peak Hours and Weekdays

Update your page during peak hours meaning more eyeballs, right? But don’t forget the amount of noise you need to break through (and the competition)! While you are strategically posting all the good stuff at selected time-slots, try different timings, even during weekends! But of course, find out WHEN your target audience will be online is vital.

Extra Tips:

General recommendations on ‘when you should post’ by researchers are useful, but these will remain ‘references’ until you proved them worked – hand in hand with your own posting rhythm and content strategy. Experiment!

 

#6 To Diversify Your Posting Types

Not merely to increase engagement, but the importance of being SEEN in news feed! People love hot topics, breaking news… but so do other pages. What posting habit/type you can adjust so your page updates stand out from the rest?

 

#7 To Encourage Quality Content via ‘Allowed on Page’

Timeline layout squeezes all fans posts into a square box which will only appear on your Timeline several weeks later. Good news is, now you can publish fan’s post instantly via the ‘Highlight’ or ‘Allow on Page’ option. Big plus for engagement and community-building on Page! (Thanks to Hugh from Social Identities for the heads up)

 

#8 To Receive Upcoming Comment Notifications for Longer Threads

Facebook Notification system seems to stop notifying users with upcoming comments for longer threads. To ensure on-going, dynamic conversations with your fans, consider third party Facebook notification tools like Hyper Alerts or MediaFeedia to track fans responses.

But don’t get over confident that this will ensure continuous engagement with your fans. Due to Facebook system error or notification settings, your fans may not even get notified about your replies to them. Luckily David informed me about this on my page. We’re still trying to figure out if this is a temporary glitch. Otherwise, this will be another serious issue interfering page managers to deal with page engagement.

 

#9 To Measure Page Performance with Google Analytics and Insights

In order to improve your social media effort, you need to measure! It’s now more than just numbers alone, but people’s behaviors, interests and experiences on your Page may affect your content strategy. Even for custom apps, find out which call to action gives the best click through rates; which link directed them to a specific transaction or subscription. John did a great job explaining how to use UTM tags for your custom apps below:

Not forgetting Facebook Insights as well in measuring your posting effort. Make sure you read this article about ‘5 Vital Facebook Reports Every Community Manager Should Know’.

 

Now Is Your Turn

Have you been implementing some of these tips for your Page? If you have more practical ideas to add, don’t be shy. I’d love to hear from you in the comments.

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