Facebook for Business: 8 Best Practices in 2018

Are you using Facebook for Business as a marketing tool? Awesome. But are you really using it for marketing? Or are you just there making posts? What you don’t know (or know and are ignoring) could be hurting your efforts. Wasting time isn’t a smart idea, especially as a busy business owner. Here are some of the best practices for getting the most out of Facebook for Business in 2018.

Facebook for Business Best Practice #1: Set Goals

You really have to be specific about what you want to get from your social media presence. What do you want the return to be from your effort and financial investment? No pie-in-the-sky goals here; you need to be very, very specific.

If you want leads, say leads. If you want engagement, say engagement. Are you trying to grow your audience or prove your brand? Then specify that. Remember that this is a marketing channel, and you need to be specific with what you’re targeting and what you want to get.

Failure happens; it’s inevitable. But by setting goals, you can measure them and improve. Let’s say you posted something daily for six weeks and nothing happened. If you didn’t have a goal, you don’t know what to measure or what to improve. But if you had goals and didn’t meet them, you have an indicator what you need to change.

Set goals for every channel: Facebook, your website, Twitter, marketing collateral, and any other effort you make. Knowing why you are doing things helps you realize if you are getting a return on investment.

Facebook for Business Best Practice #2: Have a Plan

If you’re on Facebook, you probably think you need to do Facebook advertising. And while that’s a good choice, too many people are creating ads with no thought to how they’ll work. You need to have a full, comprehensive plan about what will happen at every step. It doesn’t stop at what the ad says or what it looks like. You need to know where they’ll go once they click on the ad. How will you get them to convert?

Of course, make sure you have goals for your ads. After all, that’s the first step, right? Have goals and track your ads so you know what’s working and what isn’t.

Facebook for Business Best Practice #3: Use Video

There’s no secret that Facebook has gone more and more to video. From video uploads to Facebook Live, it’s a big deal. And it helps increase engagement, which is what many brands are looking for on Facebook (hint: see Facebook for Business best practice #1 to determine if that’s one of your goals).

Don’t feel comfortable on video? Remember that you don’t have to be in the video. And if you are nervous about it, practice. Plus, videos don’t have to be long. Give yourself permission to try things. How about a voiceover? Or using your clients in videos?

What you want to have is native Facebook video. That is either Facebook Live or a video recorded on Facebook. Those are your best choices. What you don’t want to do is upload your video to YouTube and then link it to Facebook. It needs to live on Facebook because the site wants eyeballs on their site, not on YouTube.

Keep in mind that videos on Facebook don’t have to be fully produced or polished. They just need to speak to your target audience. Don’t overcomplicate it for yourself. Make it short; keep it consistent.

Just so you know, you can upload your video to multiple locations: YouTube, Facebook, your website, and Vimeo, for instance. But if your goal is to get eyes on it in Facebook, you need to upload it directly to Facebook.

Facebook for Business Best Practice #4: Stop Using Hashtags

Have you heard the news? Facebook is no longer the place to use hashtags. The reasoning is that hashtags aren’t really the way people navigate Facebook. They use them for Twitter and Instagram, but not for Facebook.

If you’re using a scheduling system to post to multiple platforms simultaneously, that approach could potentially impede your results. For instance, in Instagram and Twitter, you would use hashtags. In Facebook, you wouldn’t. But the hashtags on Instagram and Twitter will be different. That doesn’t mean you can’t automate your posts, but if you really want effective engagement, you have to think about the channel and how to engage your audience.

Facebook for Business Best Practice #5: Create an Editorial Calendar

Okay, this tip isn’t just for Facebook, because your editorial calendar should include all of your marketing activities, but it should include Facebook for Business. And don’t get overwhelmed here; a calendar just means a plan. If you know your target audience and you know the problems they’re facing, each week you can talk about just one facet of the problem.

As you build your calendar, remember that a new week doesn’t mean you have to address a totally new topic. Think about problems like gemstones. There are so many different facets to them. There are so many different ways to look at problems. And there are so many different ways to present both the problem and the solution. You could just choose one gemstone a month and have four facets. But you have to have a plan so that you’re talking about something that matters to your target audience.

Facebook for Business Best Practice #6: Engage with Messenger (or Don’t)

Is Facebook Messenger really an email killer? Well, it depends. First, you have to figure out if it’s a fit for your audience. You don’t want to annoy your audience by getting in their space when they didn’t want you there. If your audience isn’t already using Messenger and they’re not open to it, don’t go and create a Messenger marketing campaign. Knowing to whom you’re talking is the most important thing.

At the end of the day, Messenger is simply another lead-acquisition channel. It enables you to start conversations. Automation and social media are great for starting conversations, but people haven’t yet been replaced by robots. You still have to have multiple interactions and establish a relationship. You have to establish truth. Messenger can’t do that for you. It can start it, and it can give people an easy way to access information by asking questions. Messenger can replace FAQs, but it can’t replace real human interaction.

When using Messenger, keep in mind Facebook’s 24-to-1 rule for promotional messages. When someone reaches out through Messenger, you have 24 hours in which to offer a promotional message. If that 24-hour window has closed and you haven’t promoted something, your time has passed. You can, of course, send something informational, such as the fact that you’re going to be speaking or doing a webinar, but you can’t sell something. If you do try to sell something with in the 24 hours and the person doesn’t do anything, you have one more chance to follow up.

Facebook is actually banning people for not following the 24-to-1 rule. But the rule seems to be a moving target. If you’re using Messenger in Facebook for Business, you may want to read up on the rules or get some expert help.

Facebook for Business Best Practice #7: Know the Rules

Facebook for Business is a big fan of rules. Unfortunately, they don’t always share the rules. Just like the promotional rule for Messenger is a moving target, so are many rules on the site. For instance, if you are using your personal profile to promote, you could get banned. If you get emails in an unethical way, they can ban you.

When it comes to Facebook, you’re sharecropping. It’s their house and their rules. You have to know those rules, and you have to follow them. Or you could lose—and lose big.

Facebook for Business Best Practice #8: Use the “Extras”

In addition to just posting on Facebook, there are plenty of additional ways you can use the platform. As you’re building your plan, you may want to take into account events, stories, and groups.

Your page can host events, both in real life and virtually. Events allow you to link to them, have conversations within the event online, and promote them.

Stories are relatively new to Facebook and are similar to Instagram stories or Snapchat. Basically, you post a picture or video that lives in stories for 24 hours and then disappears. You can create the stories on Instagram and then link them over to Facebook.

Groups offer a way to get people together to engage and talk to each other. Groups can be public (open) or private (closed) depending on your focus and goals. Some businesses use closed groups for their subscription clients who pay for access to that information and level of engagement. Facebook has also introduced paid groups where people pay a subscription to the site to join the group and you get a cut. Regardless of how you create your groups, they can be a powerful way to create communities.

Still Have Questions about Facebook for Business?

Is your head swimming now? Using Facebook for Business isn’t as simple as just putting up random posts. And how many times a week should you post? (The answer is twice, and one should be video. Unless you’re getting a lot of engagement on your page.) And how about engagement from your page with other pages? It’s definitely confusing.

FieryFX is here to help. We are passionate about reporting, audits, strategy, and execution. To learn more about this topic, go to FieryFX.com/Saccaz to get the slides from my recent presentation. And remember to follow us on Facebook and connect with us to stay informed.