Are you wondering if Facebook is still worth spending your marketing bucks on?
Well, you’re not alone!
According to a recent Pew survey, Facebook is experiencing a marked decline in user activity and engagement since last year.
Almost 40% of Facebook users have lessened their time on the social media platform over a 3-month period.
So, is Facebook still relevant?
It depends on whom you ask. While the younger users are deleting the app off their phones completely, the older users are spending more time on the social media platform.
If you’re targeting the 40 above age bracket, then you’re still safe for now.
But if you’re after the millennial crowd and younger, you would’ve already noticed the slump from last year.
Experts believe that the reason behind this is much simpler than the Cambridge Analytica controversy.
Younger users don’t want to hang out where their parents, grandparents, uncles, and aunts are so they’re moving to other apps where they’re free to be themselves.
But no matter what specific demographic of the population you’re targeting, there are plenty of ways to improve your Facebook marketing game. For anyone managing a business Facebook page, here are 50 tips and tricks you should know.
50 Facebook Tips and Tricks
- Link your personal Facebook page to your business page by choosing it as your place of employment. It will attract your own contacts to check out your page.
- Be consistent with your social media branding. Use the same logo, cover photo, writing tone, and content across all your social media accounts.
- Use a vanity URL (facebook.com/yourbrand) to solidify brand awareness. Whenever someone thinks of visiting your Facebook page, they instinctively already know where to go.
- Connect with other niche-related pages and engage with their own followers. Regularly leave thoughtful responses that add value to their posts. Make sure that you comment as your page and not your personal account.
- Customize your business page by choosing an appropriate layout. There are different templates that you can choose from like “services”, “venues”,
“Nonprofits”, “restaurants”, and more! - Start a group where you can facilitate discussions about your niche. Groups are great for engaging your target audience with topics related to your niche.
- Make your content interesting for your target demographic. Most people unfollow pages because they post the same old boring content. Don’t be a “been there, done that” kind of business page.
- Go straight to the point. Don’t waste your audience’s time by posting text-heavy content without driving a point. Unless you’re posting a story, try not to get past the “read more” point.
- When inserting links, choose your own image as a thumbnail. This way, you can be sure that the image that will appear will suit the link.
- Post an album instead of just a single picture. Studies show that album posts get more exposure than single images.
- Keep promotional posts to the barest minimum. No one wants to see the same promotional post over and over again.
- Invest in a short explainer video series about your brand to get your target audience’s attention. Video content is all the rage across the most popular social media platforms so take advantage of it while it lasts by creating interesting and innovative content.
- Make “Quick Win” videos that entertain and inform. Quick win videos are a surefire way to get people to notice your content.
- Offer Facebook followers an exclusive discount code. Most people admit to liking pages in the first place to get access to exclusive discounts and freebies.
- Show behind-the-scenes content of your brand. Take your audience into the life of your brand by posting ATM and progress content.
- Create infographics that spark interest in your target audience. Infographics may have seen its heyday in 2014, but today, they can still be relevant as long as you find new information that you can communicate into an infographic.
- Shout out to other pages by tagging them in relevant posts. It’s similar to namedropping, but with the intention of fostering collaboration within your niche.
- Create a video ad. With Facebook allowing brands to pay for airtime in other pages’ video content, it’s an easy way to get your brand in front of your target audience.
- Activate your page’s chatbot. It’s the most effective ways to start a conversation with people who recently liked your page. Plus, it’s free!
- Go live. People, in general, are drawn to what’s happening at the moment so give them a look into your work process by going live and having a conversation with your audience.
- Invite people who have engaged with your posts to like your page. Facebook has this cool feature that allows you to invite people who liked or commented on your posts but haven’t liked your page yet.
- Schedule your posts so that most of your followers see it as soon as it’s published. Consistency is key when it comes to building a brand on social media so make sure to post something on your page daily.
- Collaborate with complementary brand pages in your niche. Ask other brand pages if they’re willing to collaborate with you on a giveaway or contest.
- Embed Facebook’s page plugin on your homepage so that your web visitors can like your page without having to leave your website.
- Make sure to include your Facebook URL in all your printed marketing materials.
- Promote your Facebook page to your followers on your other social media platforms. Consider cross-posting some of your content.
- Pick an interesting discussion happening on your Facebook page and reference it in your blog. If it’s interesting enough, your website visitors will visit your Facebook page to check it out for themselves.
- Set your website pop-up to ask visitors to like your Facebook page. You can get a number of impulse likes from this nifty trick.
- For WordPress sites, you can use a plugin to allow Facebook commenting on your blog.
- Reply to questions and comments promptly. Engagement should always be your #1 priority.
- Upload photos and videos from live events and ask your followers to tag themselves. People love being a part of something and they’ll be more than happy to tag themselves in your content.
- Use a video as your cover photo. It’s a good way to show people what your brand is about.
- Run a survey or a poll to start a discussion with your followers. Chime in to what your audience really wants.
- Master the art of storytelling. Think “Humans of New York” but more befitting of your brand.
- Create and share motivational images. They’re still the most popularly shared type of content on Facebook.
- Do a Q&A with an influencer in your niche. It’s a good way to get an influencer’s tribe to visit and like your page.
- Invite your followers to join you in a weekly challenge and post daily updates to show them how you’re doing. Or you can also post daily tips to help them succeed in the challenge.
- Create giveaway events to promote your page, but make sure to adhere to Facebook’s guidelines.
- Ask followers to caption an image. Give a prize to the best caption as voted by the likes on the comment.
- Search for a “Fan of the Week”. It’s a good way to show love to your dedicated and most loyal Facebook followers. Hold different contests every week to decide who the lucky person will be.
- Target your Lookalike Audience for some of your sponsored content. This allows you to reach new people who share the same qualities as your audience.
- Regularly check on your page’s Facebook Insights. Audience Insights gives you all the important facts and figures you’ll need to make a marketing decision on Facebook. It basically tells you how you can get the most out of your marketing budget on Facebook.
- Sponsor your most popular posts. It’s a good opportunity to show your most engaging posts to a wider audience. As long as it’s evergreen content, then you’re good to go.
- Spy on your competition by adding them to your “Pages to Watch” list.
- See a content idea on your newsfeed? Add it to your “Save for Later” list. This way, you can look over all your collected content ideas in one list at the same time.
- Pin your most recent event, contest, article, or most engaging post to the top of your page. This lets visitors know “what’s hot” on your brand page.
- Connect your brand’s Instagram account to your Facebook page. If you have a larger following on Instagram, ask them to follow you on Facebook as well. Your crowd on Instagram may be younger, but there’s no harm in trying.
- Spread clickbait content with real value. Fake news may be all around Facebook, which can be distressing a lot of times. Spread feel-good clickbait content that actually delivers to counteract that.
- Don’t be afraid to get personal sometimes. Show people that your brand is being run by real people.
- Be the change you want to see on Facebook. At some point, you may feel like Facebook isn’t worth your marketing bucks anymore because of all the controversies surrounding it and its rising cost in advertising. Don’t be discouraged. There are still a lot of creative things you can do to set your brand apart. It’s just a matter of constantly asking yourself, “what value can I bring to the table?”
