Facebook has had its ups and downs when it comes to marketing.
It was the first social media platform to launch ads, and it has since become a benchmark for how other social sites run their ad algorithms.
Of course, it hasn’t been without its controversies.
The founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, recently announced plans to reduce the impact of ads on user news feeds.
It’s a move that many see as a hit to advertisers and marketers alike.
But don’t worry quite yet. Even with algorithm changes, Facebook is still a powerhouse for growing your social reach.
Here’s why.
Why Facebook is still a powerful marketing tool
If you compare it to every other social platform out there, Facebook is still the biggest.
It now has over 2 billion monthly active users and over 1 billion daily active users. And they grew to this size within the span of 13 years.
Let’s put these figures into context. According to TechCrunch, no other platform has reached this many monthly active users:
- YouTube has 1.5 billion monthly active users.
- WeChat has 889 million monthly active users.
- Instagram has 700 million monthly active users.
- Twitter has 328 million monthly active users.
- Snapchat has an estimated 255 million monthly active users.
Though YouTube and Instagram are putting in the effort, Facebook remains on top.
And 93% of marketers admit to using Facebook advertising regularly. That represents roughly 3 million businesses that use Facebook strictly for marketing purposes.
But despite Facebook’s widespread use, marketers are worried about the recent algorithm changes.
According to Recode, some marketers have been reporting ad impression decreases and cost increases since January of 2018.
1. Choose the right category for your business page
First thing’s first: You need a business page and not a personal profile.
But I’m going to assume you already know that. If not, here’s how to set one up.
Before I get to all of that, however, I want to mention something important about the setup process.
You’re going to want to create your profile under a specific category. Facebook has six options:
For the majority of people reading this, you will probably fall under the Local Business or Brand categories.
The category type matters because each category has different features.
Local businesses, for example, will have a section for a physical location listing, while an online brand will not. This will be important if you’re looking to raise brand awareness.
2. Get a vanity URL
There are many ways that you can optimize your page once you’ve set it up, but the first thing you’ll want to do is grab a vanity URL.
This will give you an easy-to-read page link that you can post in other places (see #14).
I just use my name for my vanity URL because it’s also my brand name:
Neil Patel Home3
When marketing is your goal, the reason I recommend using a vanity URL is that it’s good for SEO.
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.
Besides that, it just looks more professional, which never hurts.
3. Optimize your photos
The next thing you want to do is get some high-quality photos up on your profile.
Facebook (and almost every social site) is highly visual.
I use my headshot. But if you’re a brand, you will most likely use your logo for your profile image.
You also want to choose the right cover photo.
I like what Quick Sprout does. They have a clear logo for their profile picture, and they include a CTA image as their cover photo:
4. Choose your CTA button
There’s a little CTA button on every Facebook business page.
What it says will be up to you, so you have some options to play around with.
If you remember, mine says, “Sign Up.”
I use almost all of the CTAs on my website to grow my email list, so that’s why I chose that particular CTA on my Facebook page.
You can choose from a list of options, including:
- Book Now
- Contact Us
- Use App
- Play Game
- Shop Now
- Sign Up
- Watch Video
You can link these to any number of things like a landing page on your website, a contact form, a video, or an opt-in page.
It all depends on your ultimate conversion goals.
5. Use custom Facebook tabs
Do you remember the little sidebar tabs on my profile that I mentioned?
They’re customizable.
This is important for a few reasons:
You can include any and all pertinent information about your brand.
You can use it as another way to include a CTA.
It helps answer questions that users might have before they “buy in.”
Take a look at this example from Moz’s Facebook page:
They have separate tabs that include information about them, videos, posts, and a community page, which tell you even more about the company.
Their community page is actually pretty active.
6. Follow the “70-20-10” rule
Once you’ve optimized your profile for engagement, it’s time to create content.
You don’t want to stick to just one type of content. This is your chance to test out different formats that your audience will love.
Start with some link-based or visual content like a business update:
7. Clean up your posts
The Facebook news feed can be a crowded space.
The way you format your posts will either make them stand out or fade away into the background.
A social media post accompanied by a high-quality photo is ten times more likely to get engagement than a post that only has plain text.
8. Share user-generated content
You can also share user-generated content instead of having to come up with your own.
This not only saves you time and energy, but it can also promote brand loyalty and help users feel included.
One of the easiest ways to do this is by having users share photos of interactions with your brand or product.
Buffer, for example, features photo albums from their followers from different meetups:
9. Post videos (especially live videos)
Another big way to boost engagement is with video content.
Facebook users watch over 100 million hours of video every day.
And the popularity of videos appears only to be growing. Between April and November of 2015, the number of video views per day doubled from 4 billion to 8 billion.
Facebook is also making changes to how their algorithm measures people’s interest with videos.
This means that videos will most likely appear first in some of your followers’ feeds.
10. Use Facebook Page Insights to analyze content
Posting quality content is only part of the battle.
Another part is monitoring your metrics to find trends in engagement so that you know what content is succeeding.
The best tool for this job is Facebook’s internal analytics tool, Facebook Page Insights.
This will provide you with a snapshot of the last seven days of your page’s performance, including:
- Page likes — Measures the total and new likes for your page
- Post reach — Measures the total number of unique views on your page and posts
- Engagement — Measures the total number of unique people who engaged with your page and posts
You’ll also be able to access information about your page’s reach, including likes, comments, and shares.
11. Test your timing (based on Facebook Insights)
Another thing you want to do is play around with the timing of your posts.
You can get that information from your Page Insights data.
It will show you when your followers are online, what types of posts do better during different times of the day, and which posts are the most engaging.
12. Use Audience Insights to analyze user behavior
Another analytics tool you’ll want to use is Facebook Audience Insights.
This is a little different than Page Insights in that it gives you information about your core audiences rather than pure engagement metrics. (HubSpot has a step-by-step guide to Audience Insights.)
13. Promote your page with Facebook Ads
Organic posts aren’t the only way to engage users.
I know that Facebook’s algorithm changes might have you wary of using Facebook Ads.
14. Target specific audiences to boost ad reach
If you really want to ensure that your Facebook Ads are effective, learn how to narrow your audience.
According to WordStream, there are at least 11 specific audiences you can target
15. Promote your page outside of Facebook
If you want to improve engagement on your Facebook page, you need to find ways to bring traffic to it.
Yes, using promoted posts and paid ads can highlight your page to Facebook users who are browsing the platform.
But what about your users who don’t even know that you have a Facebook page?
Include a link to your Facebook page (and other social accounts) on your website.
16. Partner with influencers
If you’re still struggling with Facebook engagement, partner with someone who already has it all figured out.
