Looking for tips for your Facebook for business page? If you’re using Facebook for business, then this content marketing guide will help you create a content strategy that puts up page edgerank and encourages lots of new likes and shares.

The infographic is easy to digest and contains everything you need to map out and create your own Content Marketing strategy for your latest Facebook campaign.

If you want to digest it even quicker, I have outlined the Facebook For Business tips for you here.

#1 Your Post

• Under 3 lines of text
• Post 5 times a week
• Choose your days carefully and plan in advance
• Check your demographics for optimal time to post.

#2 Your Content

• Share exclusive and earlybird info to make audience feel in the know
• Write about current events and happenings
• Share links relevant info and articles
• Post images and photo updates of current projects

#3 For Your Fans

• Post specials and contests exclusive to Facebook fans
• Show off your brand – use keywords relevant to your image
• Positions your brand as a problem solver – offer solutions
• Go ‘behind the scenes’ show off your brand by sharing insider information

Facebook For Business – Source:Image courtesy of Wishpond

Summary

Do you have any Facebook for Business tips? How is Facebook marketing working for you? Do you have a content marketing strategy in place for your Business Page? Please share and comment below…

Did Facebook Just Pull The Plug On Business Pages?

I’m not sure if you have noticed recently, but Facebook Pages have undergone something quite spectacular in the past few weeks. Apparently it is all down to a recent algorithm change, however nothing official has been released yet, so it is entirely speculation.

My personal experience shows a noticeable decline in reach on updates and posts, some posts on my StartMeInBusiness Fanpage were only seen 105 times, which with over 2,000 fans, leaves a lot to be desired and a huge question mark over exactly what is going on!

Armed with my fan reach information, I decided to check into other business/brand pages that I manage and which have been performing well over the past few months with organic delivery of updates.

Pre Facebook Algorithm Change

Post Change (same page)

RESULT:  Similar findings,with the addition of a decline in engagement and an increase in the promoted post reach tenfold.

So what’s happened?

My gut feeling is that Facebook are encouraging Businesses and Brands to increase their use of Facebook advertising opportunities such as sponsored stories, promoted posts and their new style Facebook ads that incorporates offers.

This therefore increase their revenue model and sets businesses with huge advertising budgets in their line of fire!

Here are todays stats from Page Data showing the increase and decrease on the top fan-pages for brands and businesses alike.

What Can You Do To Help Sustain Fan-page Growth?

Well, no-one really knows right now. Here are a few guidelines for managing your Facebook Business Page. Hold out until there is an official update before making any radical changes.

1. Get ready for it. Many organic page posts are about to decrease anywhere between 5% and as high as 40% Apparently pages following best practices will remain largely unaffected. ( Social@Ogilvy)
2. Facebook is growing it’s organic/paid ratio, where 80% of the newsfeed is organic and 20% is made up of sponsored stories, promoted posts and such.
3. Brands will need to develop their target accordingly and model it to the news-feed.
4. Posting will need to be done at optimal times, so analytics will need to be monitored closely via Page Insights for your fan-page.
5. Try to post audio, photo, video twice a day at optimum times where possible.
6. Use Promoted Posts and sponsored stories to reach a wider audience. Carry out a small test with videos, audio, photo, text at various times of day to suit your audience demographics and find a suitable budget. Create a model based on these results.

I will be investigating this further and will post again when I have some updated information and some hardfast guidelines.

What have you experienced on your Fanpage for Business? Share your story below.

We’re all looking to drum up a little extra business with a little free marketing on social media right?

In fact, nowadays, everyone is at it and there are very few businesses that can afford not to have a social media marketing strategy!

The sheer number of people using Facebook, Twitter, Google+ etc doesn’t mean social media is an easy, free way in to advertise goods and services for sale. Many businesses are smashing it on social media platforms but there are still businesses that are struggling to get interaction of any kind whatsoever and have yet to make a return on their efforts.

Keeping social media marketing simple is key to any engaging campaign for your business, and while learning, setting up and deploying, it’s often the simplest of rules that get forgotten.

So how do you…

• Promote without promoting?
• Sell without selling?
• Advertise without spamming?
• Comment without irritating?

Read The 6 Golden Rules Of Social Media Marketing For Business and take your next campaign straight to the top.

Rule 1. Be Patient

Once you have set up your accounts on different social media, don’t be too excited and overwhelm people with tons of information about your product or service all at once. It’s much better to ease your way into building strong relationships with your audience.

Initially, you won’t see a huge response, so I always advise new business owners to invite friends and family to like or follow and engage, just to get some interaction going.

Be polite, and interact with customers when prompted. Make sure you give them only the most valuable information about your product or service. A simple way of promoting without the hard-sell is to write about features or benefits of your product or service, rather than the service itself.

Rule 2. Don’t Hard Sell

Don’t use hard-selling tactics as it shows you are desperate for sales, and will  eventually turn off your audience. It could also damage your reputation by showing a lack of interest in your customers.

Show a positive attitude towards your industry, share relevant and interesting news and updates and always ensure you put the customer first. No-one likes a self promoting, self indulgent speaker. Seek to become an authority in the consumer eye by becoming a valuable resource.

Rule 3. Interact With Your Customers

It is no use setting up an account on any of the social media platforms and then letting it linger there with no activity. You need to actively participate in activity on these platforms once you have established your business there. You need to interact with your customers, listen to their point of view and discuss problems and solutions with them.

Ask questions. Make sure you thank regularly, RT their interesting content and share anything you feel relevant to your business, including other clients reviews and comments.

Rule 4. Listen To Others

Listen to what others say about your product. Check regularly for reviews and respond swiftly. A good way to keep track is to set up a feed in Google alerts for your company name, and be prepared to act quickly when a review or comment is left, positive or negative. Be positive and open-minded when responding.

Don’t be bothered by criticism – take it as an opportunity to improve your product or service and increase customer loyalty by demonstrating your willingness to adapt to your audience. Focus on constantly improving your product for the benefit of your customers.

Rule 5. Test Different Social Media Platforms

Having a presence on all of the social media platforms will obviously do your business some good, but how do you know its the right social media platform? Try different platforms and measure the results for your business.

You need to remember that different platforms attract different audiences and hence your focus should be on targeting the platform that suits your business. What works for one business may not necessarily work for another. Make a plan for different social platforms and then execute it effectively. Test results and ditch under performing platforms. Your time is best spent focusing on where your customer is at.

Rule 6. Provide Regular, Relevant Content

Finally, the content you provide must be relevant to your product, and you must post on a regular basis. Whether it is a status update, a tweet, a video or a blog post it must all be relevant to your product.

This is extremely important because people are there because they are interested in your company and what you can offer them. They also want to know there will be something new for them next time they visit your profile or feed. You will lose your audience over time if you let your updates go stale. Share your point of view on recent, relevant news stories, industry news and solutions for your audience.

And Finally…

No-one really wants to hear about what you had for breakfast… honest!

Simple as they are, these 6 Golden Rules For Social Media Marketing are often forgotten when you’re caught up in the throws of starting and marketing your business. Remember them, follow them and let me know your results. Share them with us below.

Five Ways to Increase Twitter Engagement

Looking to increase your Business engagement on twitter.Follow these simple steps to make your Twitter account come alive and promote your business on twitter.

1.  Provide Your Followers With Lively Content.

Give your followers quality content. Don’t just waste their time. People will read and follow new and interesting information with interest. Get them hooked on your tweets by creating updates with vibrant and worthwhile information.

Example: Quotes, Images, News.

2.  Be More Engaged With Your Followers.

Keep the conversations going. Tweet at different times of the day. Interact with your followers often by retweeting (RT) and replying to their tweets. Use # Hashtags to get involved in global conversations. If you take part actively in Twitter conversations it will strengthen your relationship with the community and get you more followers too!

Example: Tweet and re-tweet, comment on posts, take part in current trending debates etc.

3. Add the Twitter Button To Promote Your Business

Add a Twitter button to your website so that visitors are able to share content as well as connect with your business. Make it easy for your audience to promote your business easily and quickly.

Example: Add a sharing plugin to your blog so your readers can share your content at the click of a button.

4. Start Conversations By Asking Questions.

Initiate conversations by asking direct questions. People are more likely to react to question rather than plain statements. Make your questions interesting and targeted. Give people a reason to react to the situation. Promote your business indirectly by asking your customers what they think of related services or products and provide them with the best solution 😉

Example: What’s the best….? Have you seen…?

5. Use Twitter Hashtags #

The hashtag (#) shows conversations your are engaged in. Tweets that are tagged with the same hashtag mostly discuss the same topic. They make it easier for the users to search tweets about a particular topic. This also increases the chance of your tweet being re-tweeted as it will be found whenever someone searches for that particular tweet.

Example: #business #entrepreneur #music #FF (follow friday)

Although some of these methods may seem a little indirect, they are perfect for engaging users and will keep your Twitter account alive and vibrant.

So there you have it. 5 simple ways to promote business on Twitter.

What methods are you using to help promote your business?

Social Media Facts and Figures 2011.

I was having a conversation with one of the marketing directors for a well known Motor Factor yesterday, we were discussing his taking over of a £450,000.00 marketing budget for the independent retail arm of  their branded carparts and accessories.

Most of the budget has already been spent on radio and magazine campaigns already, and there’s still little or no sign of any real consumer awareness on the ground. I disagreed with the allocation of the marketing budget at our last quarterly meeting and discussed Facebook and Social Media in general as an option for a faster, more targeted and more measurable ROI and suggested running test campaigns for them to start getting some feedback and results. This was promptly ignored and here we are, three months down the line, with no real results to look at.

When I mentioned Facebook and he said ‘we’re not targeting that generation, most of our targeted audience are still using traditional forms of media such as paper, magazine and radio’

Oh dear…So I went off to gather some information to present to him, and found this great info-graphic, which shows results that show the complete opposite of the traditional ‘social media is a teen world’ stereotype.

For those of you who are still ignoring the Social Media Opportunity, I wanted to share this breakdown of demographics, compiled May 2011.

The results really surprised me, in fact the 21-54 market is on the rise and is much bigger than most perceive. Although you still need to drill down on the stats, reports and figures, I think it’s a worthy read.

Source