I don’t often do ’10 top tips’, but it has been recently pointed out to me that they are very popular, so here is my take on top tips to use Facebook marketing for business. I could easily do more than 10 – but here are 10 for a starter.
1. Is it the right tool?
I really don’t believe that every business should have a Facebook page. They can take 
time to manage with little success if you are not careful. However, if you are a business that can generate plenty of images, have a consumer based audience or have an audience who like to belong to a community, then Facebook is the right tool for you. Just make sure you have a strategy for using it and know why you want to use it.
2. Create a Page
It is very important to create a Facebook Page for your business and not just use your personal profile. If Facebook feels you are using your personal profile for business updates, then it may shut the account down. You can choose to make your Facebook profile very secure so that you can only be found via your page.
3. Select the right category
When you first create a Facebook page, you can choose to select whether it is a local 
business, brand, company, etc. Only choose ‘local business’ if you want people to appear at your door. If you are running your business from home, choose ‘brand’. Each category has different information attached which might not be appropriate. For example, ‘local business’ requires you to add opening hours, parking information, directions etc. Probably not applicable if you are working at home!
4. Brand the page
Make sure that the cover photo, profile picture and ‘about us’ information shows your branding and makes your products and services clear to the casual browser. The ‘about us’ information should contain your keywords to help your Facebook Page to get found.
5. Multiple administrators
It is always a good idea to have multiple administrators on the page. You can ask anybody who has liked the page to be an administrator just in case your account gets locked out for some reason. If a visitor looks at the page, there is no way of identifying the administrators.
6. Gather likes
Once you have created and branded your page, you need to start to gather people who ‘like’ the page. This should be a continual process and done over time. I wouldn’t recommend that you purchase likes to increase your numbers. You want to get people who like your page because they like you or like what you are saying. Ideally you want people who will then engage with your page. To advertise your page initially, access your page as yourself and invite your Facebook friends (if you have any) to like the page. You should also promote it on your email signature and across any other social networks.
7. Post Images
Images (or videos) are the updates which generally get the most engagement (likes, comments, shares). Cute or funny photos tend to get the most engagement! At the very least, post pictures of your products or the results of your services (eg. a beauty salon posts pictures of painted nails). The more engagement you get on your page, the more Facebook will show your post to other people on Facebook.
8. Post Questions
The other type of update that gets engagement is if you ask a question. If you can ask a question with an image then even better. For example, post an image of a shoe in two different colours and ask which colour people prefer.
9. Post Regularly
Facebook has an algorithm called EdgeRank which determines who sees your posts. Generally it is 12% – 16% of the people who have liked your page. The algorithm decides who sees your post based on the amount of engagement the person has had with your page, the type of post and how recent the post is. Consider posting in 3 hour intervals. Facebook works if you keep at it. You can build momentum over time which will drop off if you don’t post for a few days.
10. Measure
Facebook Insights gives you fantastic information about the growth of engagement of your page and which posts have been most popular. Make sure you look at the analytics regularly and feed the results into future posts.
If you would like help on these tips and more, have a look at our Facebook Workshop on 4th October in Faringdon, Oxfordshire or if you can’t make the date, look at our Facebook E-Learning course which covers even more information than the workshop.
Let me know what you think – what is your top Facebook tip?