Do’s and Don’ts of Facebook Marketing
Best practices for achieving better engagement from your Facebook marketing
Marketing your small business on Facebook? Here’s a list of some things you should and shouldn’t do on the world’s most popular social media platform.
Don’t …
Buy fans for your company Page. Unless you’re very careful, using the paid options to get new Page fans can lead to a bunch of “likes” from people in faraway places who will never engage with your Page or your company. It’s a waste of money, and it can actually hurt your engagement rates.
Do …
Build up your Facebook fan base with genuine contacts. It’s about quality, not quantity. You really only want fans that will engage with your Page and with your brand. Everything else is just fluff. So offer your target market insights on the issues that are important to them, and let the following build organically. It takes time, but it will happen.
Don’t …
Obsess over your number of fans. Yes, it’s good to have more Page fans, which will extend your marketing reach exponentially. Many experts consider 1,000 fans a good goal, at which point your fan base starts to grow organically. However, that’s a meaningless number if the connections aren’t high quality.
Do …
Focus on quality connections. This follows up on the previous point, but we can’t emphasize this enough: You want quality connections, not sheer numbers. Concentrate on attracting people who have a reasonable chance of doing business with your company.
Don’t …
Split up your company presence into multiple Pages. More is not better when it comes to the number of Facebook pages. In fact, multiple pages could cannibalize each other, dividing your Facebook following between different Pages as opposed to focusing everything on one, optimized Page with a consistent message. Yes, large, international conglomerates can get some value from creating different pages for different brands and product lines, but it takes substantial resources to maintain all those Pages. Probably not the best use of resources for most small to medium-sized businesses.
Do …
Focus your efforts on one, well-maintained Page. Focus your presence. Focus your brand. Focus your efforts. Spend your time and money getting on message and connecting with your core audience. You can always add custom Page Tabs to broaden the scope of your page. Just remember, a Facebook Page isn’t a company website. It’s not meant to describe everything that you do. It’s a snapshot not a photo album. Use it accordingly for best results.
Don’t …
Take the personality out of your Facebook Page. Facebook offers some handy scheduling features, and there are multiple third party apps that allow you to automate your Facebook (and other social media) posts. These tools are great, and we use them a lot at SMO Pros. But don’t let them tempt you into adopting a set-it-and-forget-it attitude toward Facebook. It’s still a social media, and people ultimately want to connect with human beings, not robots posting updates on an auto-schedule.
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Do …
Keep the human element alive on your Page. Monitor your Page. Respond to comments. Ask questions and invite more correspondence. Do all this in concert with your scheduled/automated posts. Facebook is all about engagement. It’s not just an information dissemination device. Companies that engage with their audience generate significantly better brand loyalty and much higher rates of conversion from their social media campaigns.
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