“Pages” on Facebook are powerful tools for communicating with your customers, visitors and fans. However, at first glance, it may seem difficult to use them. For this reason, I would like to help you by summarizing some easy steps in this article. I will try to write briefly for the sake of reading, you can search more in Facebook Help Center.
Change the URL name
Your fan page comes with a complex URL by default. You have an opportunity to reserve “Facebook.com/YourCuteBrand”. If you have at least 25 fans, then you can choose your username by going to “Facebook.com/username”. It will be very useful since new URL is both user and search engine friendly.
Sending posts is an art
This is the heart of your fan page activity. Majority of people “like” your fan page just for one reason. They want to see what you are providing before everyone else. When you post something new, your fans will see it on their News Feed. This is an invaluable opportunity for your marketing efforts.
However, you must be very careful, you need to optimize your posts. Frequency of your posts is critical. Do not stop for weeks or months. It is a common mistake to create a Facebook page and leave it blank. On the other hand, another common mistake is to send posts 10 times a day. In my opinion, sending a post at intervals of 2-3 days is optimal.
Furthermore, timing is essential for your posts become successful. Know your fan base; their location, their local time, and calculate the best hours of the day. If your visitors are work-related, reach them when they are at work, and vice versa.
Nevertheless, you have the opportunity to target your posts to the right people. Prior to sending your posts, click the lock icon near “Share” button to customize for demographics; location, language, etc.
Fan page insights
Analytics of your fan page is very important to understand your audience. There are 2 main sections in “Page Insights”. First one is “Users” insight. In this section, you can find valuable information like demographics; gender, age, cities and countries of your fans, and find other information like activities; page views, tab views, external referrers and media consumption.
Second part is “Interaction” insight. You can observe how your fans are interacting with your posts. There are detailed reports like number of impressions, “Likes”, comments for each post and number of unsubscribers for page general.
Custom tabs
One of the greatest things about your Facebook page is you can customize it. You can choose the landing page. You can put custom objects on your custom tabs. You can add videos, import your blogs, your photo galleries and you can combine your fan pages with your distinct Facebook applications.
By the way, I see some notable examples which use new Facebook interface for 5 photos at the top, seem like one horizontal picture, that is something creative for custom-made page.
Polls can go viral
They are useful small applications which can go viral. You can catch your potential fans by asking interesting questions on your niche. When a fan answers your question, friends of that fan will see the poll on their News Feed. If they are interested, they will answer the question you asked, and voila; your poll starts to spread among people.
Pages “like” other pages
If you have multiple Facebook pages under your control, it is a perfect time to connect them with each other. Go to your Facebook page and click “Add to My Page’s Favorites” in the left menu of that page. Another way is to go to “Edit Page > Featured” section. When you finish setting, your pages will be shown on the left “Likes” of your page.
Also, you can show “Page Owners” in the same way. Again go to the same “Featured” page to edit.
Advantages of these pages for SEO work
Search engines treat your Facebook page as a separate website. Hence, you can use your fan page for different purposes. For example, it will be a terrific resource for users who search for your brand.
Connect your Facebook page with Twitter
If you want to write something on your Facebook page and want to see it also on your Twitter page, then try “Facebook.com/twitter” to reach the connection settings page. You can also connect your Twitter page to view your tweets on your Facebook page. There are some applications on Facebook for this purpose.
RSS feed
If you do not have a RSS Feed for your web page, you can use the one comes with your Facebook page.
Example: Facebook.com/feeds/page.php?format=atom10&id=(write your FB page ID here)
If you have not changed your name yet, check the URL of your page to find your page ID. If you have changed your username, click “Edit Page” then check the URL for ID.
How to increase the number of fans?
Try to promote your Facebook page everywhere possible. Give links at your websites, blogs, email marketing campaigns, offline marketing efforts. Suggest your page to your friends, and encourage them to suggest to their friends, too.
If you want to pay specially for Facebook page, I suggest Facebook Ads. You can easily target potential fans by their gender, age, city, country, and their interests like favorite movies, bands.
Use social plug ins of Facebook like “Like Button”, “Activity Feed”, and “Like Box”. An extra mini tip; use @YourFacebookPage while writing something in Facebook.
The philosophy behind
Everyone has Facebook pages, but only few is doing extensive marketing with these. The question is; how? If you observe successful ones, you can see that they are all doing similar stuff with this social tool; they are using these pages to “communicate” with their audience. They are trying to “be” there, they are trying to answer questions, try to understand their customers’ needs.
Facebook, like any other social tool, is not an old school advertising channel. People are there to talk, to interact. Fan pages are not different. It will be a huge mistake, to create your Facebook page and never return or to send posts for advertising purposes only.
Respond to comments, and answer questions. Do not be afraid to give links to other websites or resources that you do not own. It is an invaluable social environment if you manage to be part of the conversation. This is the key to success with Facebook pages.
