Is your Facebook marketing strategy ready for 2015? Upcoming algorithm changes may affect Fan Page reach (and reduce it even more than what page owners have already experienced).
So we’re sharing a total of 12 tips to help small business owners prepare for these changes. The first six tips were shared in Part 1 of this series. Let’s move on to the remaining six tips on how to increase your Fan Page Reach.
Tip #1: Use Facebook Groups
The great thing about Groups is that they give you a way to either join or create a place for focusing on a targeted segment of Facebook’s users. There are two ways to get the most out of Facebook Groups:
(1) Connect with your target audience by joining groups they join, and then offer value as a member. You can use Facebook’s Graph Search to find groups your current Fans (or Fans of another Page) have joined.
Just enter search parameters like: “Groups joined by people who Like [your Fan Page or another Fan Page]”
Once you’ve joined a Group, make sure you read all the guidelines set up by Group admins, and don’t spam other group members with self-serving links or sales’ pitches. Offer real value to other members through content, questions, or answers to their questions.
(2) Create your own Group for customers or target audiences. Many people will tell you that the best Groups are those made up of people who have purchased a product/service from you, because it’s a way to provide on-going service, build a deeper relationship, and ultimately get continued sales from existing customers.
Other Page owners have had great success when creating topical, non-customer Groups, where membership is open to anyone who has an interest in the topic(s) addressed in the Group. Members of this type of Group may turn into future customers as you offer value and build a relationship over the long-term.
Whatever Group you decide to create, they can become a very successful extension of your Page, and offer an additional way to reach your target audience. And with Facebook’s new, separate stand-alone App for Groups, we may see additional features in the near future.
Tip #2: Test Posting Times
You may find that posting during non-peak hours (late-night or very early morning) increases the reach on those posts. Some prominent marketers have shared that posting older blog posts during these non-peak times has been a good way to get those posts seen by more people.
Or you may find that some of your Fans are in a different time zone than you, and don’t normally see posts that are shared when you are online.
So do some testing on your Page. Check your Page Insights (go to the Posts tab and then the When Your Fans are Online tab) and take note of the best times to post. Try posting at those times for a few weeks, and then check Reach and Engagement (in your Page Insights tab as well).
Then do some testing for non-peak hours or specific time zones to see what changes.
Some Page admins find that letting their Fans know the Page posting schedule (“We share new blog posts every Monday , Wednesday and Friday at 9:00 am, and answer a question of the week every Thursday at noon”) keeps Fans engaged.
The bottom line is that “optimal” posting times for Fan Pages vary among industry, Page type, and seasons…so as a Page owner, plan to always be testing.
Tip #3: Use Your Personal Profile
Facebook’s terms of service state that you shouldn’t be using a Personal Profile to run a business; but you can periodically share content from your Fan Page.
If you’ve posted a new update from your blog that you think may benefit your Friends (or Followers) or you’ve posted something about current events or a trending topic, you may want to share that post on your Profile too.
If you haven’t turned on the Follow option on your Personal Profile, you may want to consider it, as it gives people (who are not your Facebook “Friends”) a way to see your public posts.
Just make sure that when you are sharing a post from your Page to your Personal Profile you’ve set the viewing option to “Public” so all Followers can see it as well. (And then check your viewing option the next time you post on your Personal Profile – it sometimes defaults to the last post you’ve created.)
Tip #4: Share Facebook Page Posts on Other Sites
Another way to increase your Page Reach is to share a post somewhere other than Facebook, to drive traffic back to your Page.
Each post has an “embed” option – just click on the arrow in the upper right corner of the post – and you’ll see code that can be added to your website.
Or you can click on the post’s date and time stamp – located under the Page name on each post (desktop only) – to see the post’s unique URL. Copy that unique URL into a link shortener like bit.ly, or use the Buffer App or Hootsuite, and share it to Twitter, LinkedIn, G+ Page, etc.
I recommend sharing specific posts to other sites rather than sharing every post (linking Facebook to Twitter for example). Users can tell that it’s an automatic sharing system, and your Facebook posts get truncated on Twitter due to the 140-character limit of Tweets.
You can also use the unique URL for your Facebook post as the source of a Pin on Pinterest. This works well if the Pin you’ve posted is for a special offer, event, or blog post. Pinterest users will be taken to that specific post.
If you just want to drive traffic to your Page in general, you can use your Page’s URL https://facebook.com/Your PageName as a Pin’s source. That option will take people to your Page’s Timeline.
Keep in mind that photo albums have unique URLs as well, so you could Pin several individual images and drive Pinterest users back to the album on Facebook.
Tip #5: Get Inspiration and Ideas from Other Pages
Facebook Page admins have several tools available to keep an eye on industry leaders, competitors, and big brand Pages. Make sure you’re putting them to good use.
(1) Pages to Watch – go to your Page Insights and choose 5 or more Pages to “watch”. Facebook will even make suggestions for Pages to watch if you don’t have any in mind right away. You’ll be able to see how your Page compares to the ones you’re watching in respect to Likes, Posts, and Engagement.
If you don’t know which Pages to watch, use Facebook Graph Search and find other Pages your Fans like. Type in a search that goes something like “Pages Liked by Fans of [Your FanPage]”.
By monitoring other Pages, you can see what’s working for them, get ideas on the types of posts that work best for your target audience, and get some inspiration for your own Page posts.
(2) Notifications – another way to keep an eye on other Pages or People is to get a notification any time a Page or Person posts a new update.
Go to a Page or Profile you’ve already Liked, Followed or Friended, and if you hover over the Like button, you’ll see an option for Get Notifications. Click on it and you’ll now receive a notification inside Facebook every time that Page or Person posts something new.
This is the best way to make sure you see every post from a Page or Profile (and a great reminder to your own Fans periodically on how they’ll never miss a post from you).
Obviously, you don’t want to steal content from other Pages, but if a big brand or industry leader has posted something that’s getting a high rate of engagement (and it relates to your Page’s content strategy), you may want to share that post on your own Page.
Tip #6: Use Other Tools to Optimize Your Time on Facebook
Spend your time wisely on Facebook so you can put more effort into your marketing strategy. If you’re not using any of the tools below, spend a few minutes experimenting with them so you can put an effective content/posting strategy in place.
(1) Facebook’s built-in scheduling tool – this easy-to-use tool is found in the status update box, with the ability to schedule into the future, backdate a post, and save a draft.
(2) Pin a Post tool – you can pin any post to the top of your Page’s Timeline for up to 7 days. This can work especially well on mobile, where most users don’t take the time to scroll through posts on your Timeline.
(3) Interest Lists – create these Lists on your Personal Profile as an easy way to filter your NewsFeed by topics, events, and/or users. You can put all of your top customers’ Pages on an Interest List (if you’re a B2B company), and then view a chronological feed of posts. It makes keeping up with your top customers easy.
(4) SAVE Feature – use Facebook as a content curation tool with the SAVE feature. Any time you see a post you want to save and share later, just click on the arrow in the upper right corner of the post and choose “SAVE …”. Then click on SAVED in your Personal Profile’s navigation menu to read it/share it later.
Now that you have all 12 tips from us for Facebook marketing in the new year, use a few of these ideas and see what effect they have on your Fan Page Reach. Just remember that Facebook marketing is an ever-changing topic of discussion, and each Page will have its own unique successes (and challenges).
We’ll continue to share tips as the new year begins and we see how the upcoming algorithm changes are affecting Pages. Let us know if you have questions or need some help with your Facebook marketing strategy!
photo credit (derived from): fuzzysaurus via photopin cc
About Terry League