How to Create a Strong Facebook Strategy in 2018.
Love it or hate it, if you have a business, you need to be on Facebook.
Why?
2 reasons:
- People are using the platform (whether they like using it or not)
- Facebook knows (nearly) everything about what people like.
In the past two years, FB growth has spiked by 17%. That’s massive! Your customers are on Facebook, and you should be too. With more (user provided) data and sophisticated algorithms, this platform is more powerful than anything else. And today we’re sharing tips on how to maximize it with all of 2018s trends (spoiler: tricks are out, trust is in).
Post Great Content
Quality content wins every time. If you focus on nothing else with Facebook, focus on this: creating content people actually want to read/watch/share. Business reach continues to drop as FB wants to encourage a pay to play model for businesses, and a relational focus for users. People are seeing business content in between posts from their grandmothers and friends with new babies, so make your content fit in, rather than something people want to scroll past.
Paying attention to timing or ads makes no difference at all if you don’t create good content. Facebook is just like Google in this way: they both want to serve up content their audiences want to see, so create it!
And if you’re feeling overwhelmed by the thought of constantly creating good content, outsource it. It’s too important to ignore, and you simply can’t afford not to do this.
So what makes great content?
- Helpful
- Original
- Thorough
- Transparent (not misleading or clickbait)
With the massive rise of bots and untrustworthy accounts, what Facebook values more than ever are accounts and content that people can trust. So create content like you’re talking to real people (because you are!).
When to Post
The biggest question, right? People always want to know when to post for the best engagement, but it’s hard to know because algorithms determine so much of how and when content gets seen.
However, we love this graphic from Sprout Social about the best times to post on social media. From the looks of it, people are on FB in the afternoon hours. We recommend testing out different times to see what the best engagement for you is and using tools like HootSuite or MeetEdgar to monitor your growth.
Features You Should be Using
FB Ads
Facebook is definitely a ‘pay to play’ platform. Businesses that don’t pay for ads have a very slim chance of getting in front of their audiences. Thanks to the Cambridge Analytica scandal of 2018, FB is making the platform a more relational place, and thus ensuring that people see less business content, and more from people they actually know.
So what does this mean for businesses?
- You need to pay more, or at least more frequently, to get in front of audiences
- Your ads need to be really, really good to stand a chance of getting seen. Good ads get shared. Bad ones don’t.
We won’t get into the depths of optimizing FB ads in this post, because that’s it’s own deep topic, but know this: ads on facebook give you targeting control that no other platform does, including Google. So if you have a business, you should consider using targeted FB ads.
(Also, if you need a good laugh, enjoy this clip of Zuckerburg trying to keep a straight face while explaining how ad revenue works to a senator. It’s hilarious.)
Business Page
If you’ve ever set up a business account on Instagram, you know that you have to set up a business page on Facebook. That’s because FB owns IG, and wants you, as a business owner, to be tied to their platforms. If you already
Private Groups
At CDM have a private group for our clients, and we use groups to connect with other like-minded businesses
Quick Tips
1. Stay Active
Don’t let your business page grow stale. Just like our friend Google, the FB algorithm loves fresh content. So since you’re writing great content anyway for your site’s blog, repurpose that content by sharing it on Facebook.
The rule of thumb here, like all great content, is to provide useful & helpful content. If you’re constantly promoting your products, you’ll lose your audience.
Respond to comments. Comment on your audience’s work. Answer people’s questions. Engage with your community and they will engage with you.
2. Participate in Groups
Just like you want people to engage with your content, engage with theirs. Often this means participating in groups by answering questions in a helpful way, posting thoughtful content, and sharing other people’s work.
Don’t make groups all about you…make them about others, and you’ll build a community through it (just like real life!).
3. Use Video
Video is growing like crazy, and our hunch is that’s because video is such an easy kind of content for people to digest. Most video plays automatically, can be on while someone is doing something else, and provides a more intimate connection than other types of content.
If you’re not comfortable being on video, practice! Start with Instagram stories for quick clips, then as you grow comfortable do a FB live, FB stories, or video. And be sure to include captions! Most people don’t watch videos with sound, so you need captions to reach the most people.
If you remember one thing…
If you take away one thing from this post, let it be this: like all digital platforms, the best way to connect and engage with people is by doing it in a real and authentic way. There aren’t ‘tricks’ to success; more and more quality matters more than anything else. So focus on quality, and you’ll be doing the best thing possible for your business.
We’re always cheering you on!
Meg and the CDM team
