Facebook’s algorithm constantly changes, making it difficult for businesses to keep engagement on their pages growing.
Mari Smith, a widely known Facebook expert, put on a great session at Social Media Marketing World (Social Media Examiner‘s annual conference) which detailed a number of different features that brands can utilize on Facebook.
The session, called “How companies are succeeding with Facebook” shared a wide number of tools, tactics and takeaways that marketers can use to start leveraging the power of Facebook.
The rise of video
Video is growing in popularity because it is the perfect vehicle for creative storytelling.
Brands are starting to use video to create meaningful connections to their fans through how-to’s and informational tutorials, behind-the-scenes glimpses, client spotlights and product demos.
If you’re not starting to test around with Facebook Live, or another broadcasting app like Periscope, you’re going to start to fall behind.
Facebook’s algorithm prioritizes both video and Live, making them the best options for brands looking to capture a large audience without spending money.
Creating video is as easy as using your iPhone; start creating personal, appealing clips (especially if you’re in the food service industry) that make your business relatable to your audience.
Whenever you make a video, be sure to add a caption, keywords and tags, choose a thumbnail, and add a call to action;.
Once you’ve got the hang of video, you’re going to want to dive in to Facebook Live.
Live video is Facebook’s baby right now, so those who start utilizing this feature are going to see a lot of prioritization in the Facebook newsfeed.
The key to Facebook Live is quality; be sure you’re streaming high-quality information whether it’s news, a how-to, Q&A or weekly show.
Below are a few more tips to keep in mind when doing a Facebook Live:
- Add a compelling & catchy title to capture attention
- Encourage people to subscribe
- Broadcast for at least 5 minutes but not more than 30
- Edit video afterwards: add CTA, description, URL, tags
Using the tips above will help you get more viewers and engagement on your Live video.
Mobile matters
While video is going to be an incredibly important vehicle for marketers, it’s important to keep in mind the shift to mobile. When creating and placing video ads, marketers should start to test out the Instagram and/or mobile placement.
Connect through customization
It’s important to keep in mind that people are using Facebook for personal reasons; if you don’t respect that as a business, you’ll lose fans and followers.
Advertisers should focus on making their ads relevant to their audience.
One way to do this is to get strategic when it comes to placement and targeting options.
Facebook has 15 different ad types, 5+ placement options and 1,200+ targeting options; you want to pick the ones that align best with your overall objective and target audience preferences.
If your audience is young, you want to place your ads on mobile. If you’re looking to reach an older generation, use the targeting options to define the age, location, and interests, and be sure to use the desktop placement.
The second way to do this is to use custom audiences. Custom audiences allow advertisers to serve highly relevant, personalized ads to specific segments of an audience.
The combination of custom audiences and tracking pixels allow you to get a great deal of insight about the behavior of your audience online.
Let’s say you want to serve an ad to people who have visited your website before and read a specific blog post; you can do this through the use of pixels and custom audiences.
A third way to deliver a highly relevant and valuable experience to your Facebook fans is to utilize messenger as a business.
Messenger allows businesses to have direct communication with their customers; it allows for personalized customer service because you can tag people and address them by first name.
The brands that are going to win with messenger are those that start using it to respond to unhappy customers, thank loyal fans and/or re-engage customers that you haven’t heard from.
Enhanced exposure
Posting videos, doing live streams, using custom audiences and creating highly relevant ads will all lead to increased exposure for your Facebook page.
Creating relevant and timely content on a consistent basis will keep fans coming back to your page. The best way to do this is to dive into your insights to see what types of posts work best.
However, below are a few statistics that you can keep in mind to enhance your exposure in the newsfeed:
- Posts on Sundays get 52.9% more interaction
- Posts between 10-11 p.m. get 88% more interaction
- Images get 179% more interaction
- Questions get 162% more interaction
I highly recommend using these statistics to do your own testing on Facebook.
Create status updates with questions, use more imagery, post on Sundays between 10-11 p.m. and see whether or not your page gets a boost in engagement or exposure.
If you want to keep growing engagement and exposure on Facebook, you need to prioritize personalization.
Through video and messenger, you can deliver personalized messages to you fans and keep them connected and engaged with your business.
