Facebook is one of the most effective ways to reach your customers and drive conversions. However, using Facebook as a business is much different than a personal Facebook account. By following a few best practices you can harness the power of Facebook for your business.
You may already be using Facebook to reach your audience. If you haven’t been intentional in your efforts, you may find that it’s not providing you the results you were hoping to see. The purpose of Facebook is to connect people. You need to understand how your target market uses Facebook and create a strategy to reach them and engage them if you wish to convert them.
Taking an Intentional Approach to Facebook
First, you need to determine what you want your Facebook account to accomplish. Some common objectives for Facebook pages include:
- Foster a Community
- Provide fast response to customers
- Showcase products or services
- Reveal company culture
It’s important that you define an intent for your Facebook presence as this will help you determine what types of content you will post.
Define Your Audience, Create High-Performing Content
When you define your audience, you can fine-tune your users’ experience and begin intentionally creating content that will perform. By looking into Facebook Insights, you can see who is liking your page, who is engaging with your posts and what types of posts perform the best. This is the best way to learn what works and can inform intentional content creation.
Start Posting
After you’ve defined your audience and narrowed down the types of content that will give you the most engagement, it’s time to start posting. You should be posting on Facebook multiple times each week or more. Some businesses with dedicated social media teams post every day. You may not find that that’s possible for your business, but making an effort to post a few times each week is important.
Facebook Post Best Practices
- Use Images or Graphics – Posts with images or graphic receive 87% more engagement over plain text posts.
- Be concise – Posts between 40 and 80 characters typically receive the most engagement from followers. Succinct information is easy to consume and fun to share.
- Use Video – Videos promote more engagement than any other type of content on Facebook. Whether you’re shooting and editing product or service videos or simply using the Facebook Live feature, you can expect a dramatic spike in traffic.
Best Practices Responding to Comments on Facebook
The comments section can be difficult to navigate. Responding to comments is sometimes warranted, but in other cases is unnecessary.
- Respond to comments that have genuine questions about your post or business.
- For example, You post a photo of a new product and you receive a comment asking when it will be available for purchase. It’s a good idea to respond to a comment that helps your customers.
- It’s unnecessary to respond to every comment.
- You post a video of your office pup and receive a comment saying, “Cute Puppy!” It’s not necessary to respond to these types of comments. However, if you feel like it, go ahead!
- Respond to negative comments you can do something about.
- You post an image of a service and receive a comment about how this service didn’t live up to its expectations. If you can respond with a solution to remedy the issue, this can be seen as exceptional customer service and may retain a customer.
- Don’t feed the trolls.
- Sometimes you will get unwarranted, hurtful comments on your posts. It may be a disgruntled former employee or someone having a really bad day. When you respond to these types of comments you can end up being dragged into a digital argument in which you’re the only loser. It’s important to maintain professionalism and move on.
Best Practices for Responding to Facebook Reviews
The review feature on Facebook pages is an important tool. Its aim is to provide transparency by enabling users to rate your business. You cannot delete these reviews. You can only respond to them. The way you respond to negative reviews reveals the character of your business. Thank those who posted positive reviews, and remain professional and polite when you encounter a negative review. Offering a solution to a disgruntled customer may change their mind about your business, but more importantly, shows others that customer service is important to you. For more on responding to reviews, check out the Black Tie Digital Best Practices for Responding to Reviews.
Best Practices for Facebook Messages
Responding to messages you receive through Facebook is essential for excellent customer service. Facebook makes it easy for your customers to message you. A notification is sent directly to your inbox, so it’s extremely easy for you to see and respond to messages. It’s important for you to answer queries promptly and professionally. Invite them to visit your website, call or come to your store and continue to provide exceptional customer service.
You’ll find that downloading the Facebook Messenger App is extremely helpful in quickly and efficiently responding to messages. The app sends notifications directly to your phone when someone sends you a message and enables you to instantly respond.
Ready to Take it a Step Further?
With a service like Mobile Monkey you can create chatbots that respond to Facebook messages when you’re not able to. Don’t worry, it’s much easier than it sounds. You will be guided through the process of setting up chatbots that instantly respond to queries based on common questions and answers. These bots follow “logic conditions” you specify and aim to help Facebook users get the answers they need until you can personally respond.
Facebook is an amazing tool for businesses. It is another place where your customers can connect with you and your brand. You’ll find that interacting with your audience is fun and creating content to post will become easier with every like, comment or share.