In 2019, Facebook continues to be the #1 social media platform, with 2.23 billion users worldwide and 62% of US users checking their newsfeed daily. It is still a really important platform to establish your brand and business, and connect with prospective clients or customers.
Although Facebook has been around for a while now, there are always changes and updates that occur and may affect how you are using it for your business. Keeping on top of best practices can ensure you are reaching your target audience and making good use of your time and money.
Below Are 4 Tips For Using Facebook For Small Businesses In 2019.
1. Optimize Your Posting Schedule
Creating and sharing great content can be a big investment, and you want to ensure a positive ROI.
Posting at optimum times can have a positive impact on your engagement. According to the social media management system Buffer, the most popular times to post are from 12 to 3 pm during the week and 12 to 1 pm on the weekends.
It’s good to know what the trends are but ideally, you want to optimize your content and posting schedule for your individual audience. Take advantage of the analytics collected by Business Manager and identify the trends for your own audience. Which posts are engaging the most people? What is driving traffic to your website? When are your followers most active?
Once you’ve determined the trends and habits of your target audience, you can adjust your posting schedule and the type of content you post and see if you can further increase engagement.
Fortunately, there are many social media management tools that can simplify scheduling and publishing.
Hubspot is an all-in-one suite that helps you manage everything from social media to blogs, to email lists and website SEO. Being HubSpot partners has helped us simplify and strategize our drafting, scheduling, and publishing on one user-friendly platform.
We also use eClincher to schedule automatic posting to ensure that we always get our content out at the ideal time.
Other free social media management tools include Hootsuite, Buffer, and Facebook Publisher, which can also be upgraded to better serve your needs as your strategy evolves.
2. Video Content
If you frequent Facebook, you’ve probably noticed that many brands are creating and sharing video content, and they tend to perform pretty well. Over the past five years, video content has been the most popular medium and rising, with 59% more engagement than any other media.
Posting the right type of video depends on your audience, but in general, 85% of Facebook viewers preferred to watch videos silently. This means you want to focus on captivating your audience with imagery and include subtitles. You also only have a limited 10 seconds to grab your viewer’s attention before they continue scrolling. Most Facebook users are also on hand-held devices, meaning vertical videos are more suited for this platform than horizontal.
Your content can range from educational to entertaining, but remember to always provide something for the viewer. Give the viewer a reason to engage and watch the whole video.
Some of the most popular video types include live-streams, interviews, giveaways, tutorials, product reviews, and user-generated content.
3. Fully Customize
Facebook has a certain look that might interfere with your branding. Because your content will display natively, you want to distinguish yourself as a brand however you can.
Take advantage of all the places where Facebook lets you customize your page.
First, make sure you are using the most appropriate page template. Business Manager currently offers nine templates- business, nonprofit, politicians, services, shopping, restaurants & cafes, venues, video page, and standard. Which one you pick will affect what tabs and buttons appear on your page, but those can also be customized later.
You also want to create your custom URL, which can be done here through Facebook.
This will create a shorter, optimized URL for your page that will help identify you as a legitimate business.
Visually, you want to include your personal branding wherever possible. Many businesses will use their logo as their profile picture and create a branded banner image.
Using images of the right dimensions can have a big impact on how your images display, which can affect how visitors judge your professionalism. For profile pictures, you ideally want 360×360 pixels and must have a minimum of 180×180 pixels. Banner images should be 820×312 pixels.
Comb through your page to make sure you have filled out every place where you can add information. Having a fully-completed page will reinforce your legitimacy and give your visitors the information they seek, making your page a place they will revisit for valuable information about your brand.
4. Interactive Ads
Facebook is helping you improve your advertising game with many new ad features.
Video ads, particularly interactive ads, are one of the most popular forms of ads on social media.
Stories Ads target mobile users. These ads will show up full screen on the device in between users’ Stories, similarly to story ads on Instagram and Snapchat.
If you’re advertising a product, especially beauty products and accessories, AR Ads (augmented reality) let viewers try your product from their phone. The viewer can hold the camera up and use filters to try on sunglasses, hair dye, or even makeup. Your branding and a link to the product will display on the screen screen while the user is engaging.
Whether you’re advertising a game app or just want to try something a little more fun, Playable Ads let the user experience the game straight from the ad. These ads are a great way to get people to try out your product, making users more likely to buy.
As you continue to develop your Facebook page, you will collect more valuable information that will help you continue optimizing your content. Staying up-to-date on trends and updates will also tell you what part of your strategy could be refined. Keep revising and updating your page and content to get the most that Facebook has to offer for your business.
