20 Ways to Give Facebook Business Pages a Tune Up [Infographic]

Social media has become a major player when it comes to building business. Here are twenty ways to tune up Facebook business pages in order to get them in top working order.

Are Your Facebook Business Pages Getting the Job Done? [Infographic]

It’s not me, it’s you! If Facebook business pages aren’t bringing in new business or converting more prospects into customers, it might come down to the way they’re set up on social media. Here are twenty tips for putting the best face on Facebook business pages.

In Hubspot’s annual state of inbound marketing report for 2014, more than 80% of brand marketers said that social media is an increasingly important tool to them; and it’s not just about the engagement that these social networks facilitate. Search engine algorithms also now take social signals, including social followers and traffic from social sites into account when serving up information in online search.

If Facebook is a key player in your social marketing strategy (and it should be, given that roughly three-quarters of all US adults use Facebook), it’s vital that your Facebook business page is complete, up to date and ready to engage your buyers wherever they are; from the beginning of the customer buying journey through to conversion.

A picture is worth a thousand words – or clicks! That’s true on social networks (updates with photos get far more clicks and shares than those without) and pictures can also help education to be more engaging and meaningful. So while we have summarized this list of 20 things you can do to improve your business Facebook pages, we know that you’ll probably want to scroll down to the infographic in order to complete your Facebook business page checkup checklist, instead!

20 Ways to Improve Facebook Business Pages + Infographic

1. Fill out the information section, completely.

Remember how when you set up your Facebook business pages you skimped on content in the “Basic Info” section in order to save time and publish it? Remember how you promised to come back and complete it? Guess what? Today’s the day!

2. Update your Facebook page’s cover image.

Even if your cover image is suitable, it’s not a bad idea to plan on changing it with the seasons, the quarters, or even every month, for two reasons. One, it’s a change! People will take more time to check out something that their brain perceives as “NEW!” Two, it’s another engagement opportunity with followers in your news stream. When they see that beautiful or provocative billboard style photo come up in their stream, they’re going to take note and remember that it’s time to come and visit your business again.

3. Update your profile picture.

This is the small square that shows up not only on your Facebook business page but is the icon that displays every time your business comments, likes, posts updates, etc. Make sure that your profile picture is bold and simple enough to stand out and get the attention of target markets and followers.

4. Get in the game.

Share stuff, answer questions, leave comments, respond to likes and comments on your own posts and be present. If your Facebook activity leaves your brand page looking like a ghost town, it’s not going to help you build your business.

5. Engage your audience.

You need a strategy that goes beyond “what’s on your mind.” In fact, you may seriously need to stop talking about yourself (or your business). Talk about things that are likely to get your customers or members of your target markets to respond, comment, share and engage with your brand on social networks.

6. Use pictures.

Links with photos, infographics, videos and other visual content get the most engagement including views, likes, shares, comments and other important social actions.

7. Don’t be a one-note.

It’s likely that you don’t have just one “ideal customer type,” but several. Be sure that you are posting a variety of different types of content so that you engage different segments of your target markets and don’t become a bore!

8. Don’t ramble.

Focus on one main point in status updates and make it the point that is most likely to be most important to the buyer type that you want the update to engage.

9. Don’t hog the news feed!

Marketing experts recommend that a business Facebook page be updated with 2-4 posts each day (and those posts should be staggered throughout the day.

10. Don’t be boring!

Facebook is a social network, not an English-teacher-approved-corporate-speak venue. If a topic would bore your guests at a cocktail party or business networking event, why bother sharing it on Facebook? Your goal should be to make people laugh, think, respond – and – if you’re lucky – share your content with their connections.

11. Be transparent.

A virtual setting doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be real. Forego pretension on social networks and make sure that your Facebook business page is an honest representation of your business and your brand.

12. Show up.

Make sure that you show up each day to post, weigh in, respond to any comments or questions and be relevant. Don’t be afraid to “interrupt the regularly scheduled” Facebook marketing program to talk about breaking news and hot topics.

13. Remember that it IS your page.

Set up your page’s permissions so that you are comfortable. This might mean requiring moderation or approval of all comments or questions; and that’s ok. If you do leave your page wide open for public comments, be prepared to moderate comments when necessary in a reasonable manner; this might mean that you have to let a negative comment or review stand.

14. Watch for Facebook platform updates.

Stay on top of social network news so that when Facebook changes the best practice rules of the game you are ready to play.

15. Minimize or forego automation.

It’s tempting to believe that you can “set it and forget it” and allow social network automation services to serve up content on your brand’s behalf. But unless you are in control of the content review and selection process, it’s not possible to rely on automation. Sooner or later (and probably sooner), the automated service is going to serve up content that’s wrong for your audience or even serve up your competitor’s content, instead!

Another downside of automation is in posting style. Each platform’s status updates can be different lengths, types, with or without hashtags, @ signs, + marks, etc. Take the time to style updates across networks, even if you use a tool like Hootsuite to post them for you.

16. When it comes to social media, there are points for style.

Close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades, as they say. Even though you don’t need to write for your high school English teacher, you do need to write grammatically correct posts and proof for spelling, transposition and other common errors.

17. Get comfy with Facebook insights.

Behind every Facebook business page is an Insights page which can give you great information about what type of content is working to engage your audience, as well as help you keep track of your competitors, best days and time of day to post and other important data.

18. Be likeable.

When your audience members take a social action (like, comment, share, etc.) on your content, Facebook notices. Brand content that does a better job of engaging their audience gets far, far more reach.

19. Test the waters with Facebook ads and 20. Give a boost to your best content.

Among SEM and PPC options, Facebook ads can be super-effective at even a very small level of spending. Use it to promote your most engaging content in order to drive web traffic and get more followers on Facebook.

21. BONUS! This one is from me –Don’t forget to integrate!

Be sure that you integrate Facebook and other social network buttons on every page of your website, so that site visitors can quickly navigate to your Facebook business pages and other social profiles. Likewise, if you are posting original content on your web site or blog, make sure that you incorporate social sharing buttons so that people can easily share your content with their followers online.

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