If you’ve been reading my blogs you are aware that Facebook has made changes to business pages and that I think there are advantages for small businesses using the new Facebook pages. For more information about the changes on Facebook Pages check out this blog from HubSpot. With these new changes in mind here are Five Things you can do with your Small Business Facebook Page.
One: Feature Specials in the Photostrip
No one said that your photos have to be the front door. Get creative. If you are a restaurant you can put up photos of this week’s Chef’s specials. A brew pub can put up photos of this week’s featured beers. It doesn’t have to be a photograph. You could post an ad or an announcement for Saturday’s sale or your menu. Think of this as a billboard on your main page.
Two: iFrame Tab
The tabs are now along the left side rather than on the top. You can also have longer tab names. You can also make a tab an iFrame. This is your own personal web page on your Facebook business page. This could an information page about your business. It can be a link to your website. It could be a portal to your e-commerce page. It can be anything you want it to be. If you start a Facebook Ad campaign you can now point your ads to a specific tab. Make it a special tab with important information or a call to action.
Three: Target Your Posts
Do you have fans all over the state but you want to tell your fans in only one city about a special event or product? You can now target posts by geography and language. Do you want to reach out to Spanish speakers in Arizona or Pirate speakers in Key West? Now you can target your messages to specific fans.
Four: Feature Your Favorite Partners and Spread the Love
Support other businesses or organizations on your Facebook page. Feature them under “Likes” on the left side of the page. For more details on how to do this see my blog post from Monday. Tag them in posts to your wall. The post will also show up on their wall. Go to their wall and make a post. Be sure that you have set your identity under “Use Facebook as Page.” This way when you make the post it will be as your Page and not as you as an individual. Using this method you can go to your favorite charity page and post that employees from your company will be participating in this Saturday’s Charity Run or that your restaurant will now carry wine from your favorite winery.
Five: Respond to new fan posts and likes
When you turn on the new E-mail notification feature you will be alerted as soon as someone posts something to your page or when someone new “likes” your page. You will be listening to the conversation and you can reply in a timely manner. This is important not only for those with active pages but also for those just starting out. I know that the interval between new comments or “likes” on a new Facebook page can often be very long. It is easy to not check your page for days or weeks only to find a new comment that you didn’t respond to in a timely manner. Don’t be caught off guard, get E-mail notifications.
Let me know what ideas you have for Facebook pages and just leave a comment below. If you would like to find out more about using Facebook and other online social media marketing strategies contact us at Image Media Partners for a free evaluation.
Photo Credit: Lee Pickett, UW Digital Collection
