Key areas we will cover in chapter 2:

• ✓ choosing the right page type for your needs
• ✓ setting up your Facebook business page
• ✓ coming up with content ideas for a successful page
• ✓ managing your ‘likes’
• ✓ looking at what Facebook ads should include.

Facebook was originally set up for people who wanted to keep in touch while at college and university, but the site has morphed into something much more than that. With nearly two billion active monthly users and about 70 per cent of those users living outside the United States, it truly is global and not to be ignored.

Quick facts on Facebook

Here are some interesting Facebook facts:

• There are nearly two billion users worldwide.
• Fifty per cent of active users log on daily.
• The average user has 130 friends on Facebook.
• It has 300 million photo uploads daily.
• The average time spent on Facebook is 20 minutes.

Using Facebook for marketing

As marketers see the growth and possibilities of this site, more and more brands are setting up business pages and seeing real results from interacting with their customers. By getting real-time feedback, both good and bad, from their business pages, marketers can now really interact and engage with their customers, and for relatively little cost too.

So where do you start? There are many page types to choose from. Which one is for you?

Profile page

The profile, or personal, page is for individuals who want to keep in touch with their friends on a social level, and not for business. You will occasionally see people using it as a business page, but there are a few things to note about doing so:

• It is against Facebook’s terms and conditions, so you risk being closed down.
• You have to be a member of Facebook to join in.
• You have to become a friend of that person to join in the conversation.
• Profile pages are not easily seen by Google, depending on the individual’s security settings.

Group page

A group page is an option if you are running a club, a cause or even a local interest. The group can be public for anyone to join, closed so it’s invitation-only, or completely secret, such as for a small company’s intranet system. This is quite a common choice for towns and local communities to meet and chat to other locals.

Points to consider about a group:

• You can add resources to the page such as PDFs for members to download.
• Like-minded people can discuss things in relative privacy.
• You need to be a member of Facebook to join.
• Group pages are not easily seen by Google, depending on whether the group is public or closed.

Business page

The most practical option for most businesses, the business page is easily created and you don’t need to be a member of Facebook to see it.

Other points about business pages:

• Pages are easily seen by Google.
• A small business could use a Facebook page as its first web presence.
• Facebook is free to join and use.
• Nearly two billion people on Facebook could potentially see your page.
• Updates feed into your fans’ own newsfeeds as you post something.
• When your fans like or comment on a post, their friends see your page name in their newsfeed too, so the viral effect gets to work.

A business page is by far the best option for most businesses, so let’s look at how you can set one up.

Setting up your business page

Once you have decided to create a Facebook page for your business, you need to know how to build it.

There are two ways of setting up your own business page on Facebook. The first is the most common way, but you need to have a personal account with Facebook in order to create your business page. To build your page, simply click the ‘create page’ link from the drop-down menu of your profile page and then follow the easy instructions.

The second way is to go straight to www.facebook.com/pages/create and again follow the simple instructions.

There are pros and cons to everything, and choosing which way to build your page is no exception. There are a few main differences between the two options:

• If you run your business page off a personal profile, you can access it from your usual login if you want to update it.
• You can and should allocate trusted members of your team as ‘admins’, which means they will also have access to the business page for updating it. They will not, however, be able to see your profile page — only their own — which means they must have their own Facebook account.
• Any admin can delete another admin, so choose your team carefully.
• By running your business page off your profile page, you have the ability to share any of the content with your own Facebook friends, and the other admins can also share content with their friends, so it can get your page off to a good start.
• If you run a business-only account — that is, not one off your own profile account — you have no friends to share information with.

Once you have decided which way you are going to go, choose which category of page you would like to make. The categories are as follows:

• Local business. This is really for a bricks-and-mortar store, café, restaurant, and so on, as the page gives you an area to add your opening hours and bus route. With a ‘places’ page, people can check in from their smartphones when they physically visit your premises, alerting their friends to where they are. Great for restaurants and cafés.
• Company, organisation or institution. This is probably the most common as it covers most businesses not needing an actual location to promote. The same for brands and products.
• Artist, band or public figure. Depending on which sub-category you pick, there are different areas within the info tab. For example, if you pick ‘politician’, there is plenty of room to fill out set questions such as which party you are running for, further detailed information about yourself and all of your contact details.

Whichever category you choose, you can switch it later if you need to, perhaps if you see something that is more relevant.

When you have chosen your page and filled in the basic details, take care with the page name as it can only be changed if you have fewer than 100 fans/likes. After that, you have to apply to Facebook and ask them to change it, which they may or may not do!

Your page name has now been created but your page is pretty bare and useless until it has been branded up and has some content added.

Take a look at some examples of what big brands such as Coca-Cola and Red Bull are doing. While they have bigger budgets than most of us, there is no harm in looking at their ideas and adapting them to fit your business.

Do you need multiple pages?

Some companies have several brands under the main company umbrella so you may decide to have more than one Facebook page to separate things, depending on the topics.

If you are a catering company that specialises in weddings and corporate events, you might want two separate pages. Even though you are one brand, there are two distinct sides to the business, one being bridal catering and the other a more corporate focus for business lunches and events.

The bridal page could include not only bridal catering, but other things bridal such as possible venues and photography. This makes the Facebook page almost like a portal site, where a bride or groom could find out all sorts of information to help create their big day, all in one place.

Other articles and blog posts you could share on your wedding catering page include:

• events from the weekend, including photos
• prestigious events you have catered for — name-dropping always helps
• wedding photos
• wedding cakes
• a video of an event
• edible gift ideas for your guests
• a timeline of making the great wedding cake — what was involved
• food at recent celebrity weddings — what they ate
• dealing with dietary requirements for the bridal party
• links to the bride and groom’s blog about the day, if they have one.

In all cases, be sure to add just enough detail about what is happening in each posting. It is no good putting up your lovely pictures of the buffet lunch if you have not gone into loving detail about what was on the buffet. Keep the readers’ mouths watering as they read all about the mini pastries oozing with soft, dill-flavoured cream cheese and delicate pieces of gently smoked salmon … you get the picture. You are trying to convince readers to think of you when it comes time for them to place their own order. You can also think of more personal content, such as what the team has been up to recently, trade competitions you may have been involved in, new team members or even funny stories about what happened during an event. The list is endless.

So what can you do with the corporate catering page? You could add:

• venue ideas for your party
• ideas about wines to accompany the food
• recipes to make at home
• reminders to book catering for key dates such as Easter, Valentine’s Day and Christmas
• food trivia questions and competitions
• recommendations from happy customers
• links to articles published about the company
• new corporate vehicles on the road
• food-tasting events
• daily dinner recipes.

And on the list goes … food is such an easy one!

Back to your content plan

Your content plan is crucial to your page’s success, so spend the time to make it and actually use it.

You don’t need to create everything that you post on your wall: you simply don’t have the time to keep that up. Find resources on the web that are in line with your brand and that complement each other rather than compete against you. Think about the following:

• Which websites do you read regularly to keep abreast of your industry?
• Which sites are there that perhaps do compete in your space, but are overseas and so not a local threat?
• Which other sites are local to you that you could help promote on your page and build a relationship with for referrals?
• Which sites complement your page (for example, wedding planners and wedding caterers)?

Your content plan will pretty much make or break the success of your page. By not having a plan, you will find it very hard to keep being creative and get the right sort of content for your fans, meaning they may lose interest and go elsewhere.

By brainstorming with your team, you will not only get buy-in from them to ensure your page’s success, but many heads are better than one when it comes to thinking up ideas.

It is also a good idea for more than one person to update the page, so that sickness and holidays are covered and the page keeps up its momentum. If there is more than one person updating the page, perhaps sign off your post with your first name so your fans know who they are talking to when they comment, and you know who posted what from the company point of view.

Following are some content ideas for various industries.

• Real estate. Listing all of the properties that you currently have for sale is somewhat boring for your page visitor — they can see that information on the company website in most cases, so there’s no need to duplicate it. Interest as many people in your page as you can so that when it comes their time to sell, your informative page is still on their radar. All they need to do then is get in touch. When people are looking to purchase a house, they may need extra information, such as:
  • – what to look for in the sale contract
  • – where to find a good lawyer to handle the transaction
  • – where to find a good, reliable builder if there’s some work needing to be done
  • – garden design
  • – interior decorating
  • – bargain properties
  • – local surroundings — schools, amenities.
• Garage mechanic. You may wonder what you could possibly put on a mechanic’s page to appeal to a greater audience. One possibility would be to target it to females who want to keep their vehicles running smoothly themselves: you will probably have a captive audience if you get your message right. There are not many garages that are focused on helping women specifically. But if you are not a petrolhead, why would you become a fan of a garage page? How about if it had information on:
  • – how to change a tyre
  • – what warning signs to look out for, such as green brake fluid leaking
  • – car reviews
  • – open days
  • – learning the trade
  • – what different parts of the engine do
  • – wet-weather car care.
• Accountant. This is another subject that could be brought to life to cover its many different aspects, if done well. Consider information on:
  • – how to calculate how much money you should be putting away for your tax at the end of the year
  • – keeping your business plan current
  • – helping with cash flow
  • – seminars (invite your fans and clients)
  • – deciphering technical terms to make them easily understood
  • – planning for selling your business
  • – general business advice.
• Retail shop. Your shop probably has a website, which will pretty much be an online brochure with opening times and contact details, and you may also have a shopping cart to allow you to sell online. So your Facebook page could be a great meeting place for discussion, depending on what you sell. Imagine you own a cycle shop, and your customers love hanging out in your shop to see what is new and discuss their last race and their upcoming events. They can now do it both in your shop and online. Cycling is a lifestyle choice and many riders are very passionate about it, so this gives you the chance to capitalise on that passion even more. With a hobby such as cycling, you tend to have friends who are also heavily into cycling, so your fan page has the opportunity to really make use of the viral effect. Your page could include:
  • – upcoming events
  • – cycle maintenance
  • – race reports
  • – special offers
  • – new product discussions
  • – coaching tips
  • – flash new cycle images
  • – race videos.
• Vineyard. Now this would be an interesting page for quite a few people. Include:
  • – how the grapes are grown
  • – a video of wine being made
  • – what makes a good wine
  • – discussions on what makes a great flavour
  • – special offers and open days
  • – corporate tours
  • – wine reviews.

For all of these examples you should also add interesting company news, photos of products or team members and video footage of products in action, or being made if you manufacture something. The more interesting (and sometimes basic) the information, the better: you might know your industry or products well, but your average visitor may not, so use the opportunity to educate at the same time.

Other things to add to your Facebook page could include links to articles on other websites that you think may be of interest, although the danger in doing this is that your visitors may not come back to your page, so they might not see the rest of what you have to offer. On the other hand, they may come back more frequently because you have a balanced offering of other people’s work on the same or a similar topic that is as interesting as your own. Find the balance between what suits your business and what your fans want. You could even try asking them.

When you do post something to share with your audience, always add a call to action. For example, ask a question or make a statement and add on the end, ‘We would love to read your comments’ or ‘Click “like” if you agree’. That way, people know you want them to do something, and generally they will if it takes only a second or two.

With all of that in mind, consider what resources you could marry up with to make your page an even greater source of information for your visitors.

Should you allow your fans to post on your page?

Why do some big brands and well-known celebrities not allow you to post on their Facebook wall?

Apart from the annoying activity of others posting spam messages and plugs for their own business or activities, I can’t see a real reason — it doesn’t seem a fair way of interacting with the fans, and it really defeats the point of the page.

In the name of research while writing this book, I wanted to become a fan of a well-known car manufacturer’s page and ask what made the car so special to them, but it wouldn’t let me post. I would have thought that car enthusiasts all over the world would want to be able to interact with their favourite brand. Move over to Starbucks, and its page is full of interaction and postings from anybody and everybody about their experiences with Starbucks products from all corners of the world.

I can understand why Beyoncé’s page, with well over 65 million fans, has the facility turned off. Can you imagine the mass of postings from real fans and those that just want to take a pop? Managing the comments alone would be a full-time job, with some of the postings from her team running into the tens of thousands of comments as replies. That really is simply not doable.

If your page is purely another online brochure, and you have one because you are expected to have one, you probably want to take the road with the least amount of hassle or work, in which case you would turn the facility off. I would not advocate even having a Facebook page if you are not really going to use it, so think about your reason for doing it before you get started. The same goes for those who are worried about getting complaints on their page. It’s an opportunity to learn from your customers too, so if you are getting complaints about anything, sort out the issue quickly.

If, on the other hand, you really are trying to generate massive brand awareness, network and engage with your customers and build up a loyal tribe of fans and followers, you will need to have the resources to back it up. If, like Beyoncé, you have the ‘problem’ of millions of fans, simply let your fans know what to expect in the way of answers. Manage people’s expectations by posting a note in the information tab or other visible place on your page that you will be able to reply to only a handful of comments each day. That way, everyone knows where they stand.

A couple of extra things to note about your page:

• Determine how much access to your page you want your fans to have. Did you know you can choose whether to allow them to be able to post images and videos to your wall?
• Don’t overstuff your wall with constant messages all day. One or two posts per day should be enough.
• Do post great images of your product or service with a link to further information.
• Don’t post pictures of the team when they are drunk at their Christmas party.

Comments

Reply to all comments by using the person’s name, just as you would if they were standing in front of you or on the telephone, and be friendly and helpful at all times. If you do happen to get any negative comments, don’t simply delete them unless they are particularly abusive or racial. By deleting negative comments and keeping a clean page, you may be adding fuel to a smouldering fire. Others will be watching to see how you react and deal with a negative comment, so do something about it. If you find that your page is getting quite a lot of negative feedback about your product or service, you need to do something about that whole issue within your company, so it’s great information to have. You might never have known there was a problem without that feedback. (We cover etiquette in more detail in chapter 9.)

Scheduling content

There is also an option to schedule your posts, which means that your posts will go live at a time and date specified by you. This is particularly handy if you have a full day ahead or perhaps you are away for a couple of days: your Facebook page will still receive fresh content that you have pre-loaded. Look for the option to schedule from the drop-down box before you hit ‘Post’. You can also use a scheduling tool such as Hootsuite, which we will discuss in chapter 4 as it’s primarily a Twitter tool.

Using Facebook Live

Fancy showing your audience something live? Well you can. You have the option to create a live video stream directly from your page, which means your followers can tune in and see it in the moment or watch it later as a video that is auto saved. This can be great for events or items of interest you wish to share, and you can plan to use it at a given time too, allowing you to notify your audience in advance. Jamie Oliver took ‘us’ around a fish market in Asia live, which was fascinating and because it’s live, it tends to be more casual so it’s a great way to get to know an individual if they are a brand. Kim Knight, ‘The Kiwi Health Detective’, streams it through her webinar software for those who are not on Facebook. Here’s her take on it:

A few months ago I started using Facebook Live. Initially I had quite a steep learning curve: firstly I discovered my ancient Android phone needed replacing, after which the difference in software speed and quality of camera was amazing! Then I had problems recording Facebook Live from my office because I don’t (by health choice) have wi-f i and it’s a real hassle to install software to do Facebook Live from a desktop. Which meant I had to go and sit in my car or go somewhere else to record Facebook Live!

I then discovered I could simultaneously stream Facebook Live through my webinar software, giving people the choice of watching via Facebook Live or webinar. This is handy for clients who (believe it or not, it happens) do not have a Facebook account.

This year I started a regular weekly Facebook Live webinar, partly because I love sharing this information ‘live’ and also as a lead magnet, and it’s working great. I multipurpose the video and upload it to YouTube, my private membership portal, and iTunes. The video also gets loaded onto my website video blog (vlog), and into other sites which are using my vlogs. So that’s seven birds with one stone:

• live webinar
• Facebook Live
• replay of Facebook Live as a video
• YouTube video
• private membership site
• podcast
• website vlog.

Since starting the weekly Facebook Live I have noticed a definite increase in post watches, shares and likes, even and especially after the live event.

Just loving this technology now it’s all coming together, and interacting with others more and more.

Facebook ads

Only a few years ago, you could be sure that your fans would see within their newsfeed when they surfed Facebook whatever you posted on your page. That’s changed, unfortunately, and due to the algorithm Facebook uses, it means that only some of the content you post will be seen, depending on how much they interact with your page, and some other variables. And it keeps changing, making it near impossible to keep up with. Now that Facebook has shareholders to please, they want you to use their ad platform to get your content seen by more people. Now, while you might not agree with this, since you’re using the site for free, you have to play by their rules. I’ve found there is little point trying to buck the system — just work with it, not against it. If we want the power of Facebook, we need a budget, even just a small one of $5 per day. The topic of ads is huge, but I have given you the basics here to get you started. By trialling and practice, you’ll get better with time.

Facebook ads are a great way to drive traffic to a particular place or to do something in particular. Choose from:

• awareness
• consideration
• conversion.

Go to the drop-down menu from your page, choose ‘create advert’ and you can see what each one means. If you want to drive traffic to your website, choose ‘consideration/traffic’; if you want to collect email addresses for your database, choose ‘consideration/lead generation’; if you want to get more fans, particularly in the beginning, choose ‘consideration/engagement’ and if you want to drive foot traffic to your location, choose ‘awareness/local awareness’. These do tend to change a little, but the end result you’re looking for will be there.

The beauty of using the ads is that you can drill down as far as you want, to find just who you want to talk to. You can choose who to target by:

• location: which country or within a set distance of a town
• demographics: male, female, age group
• interests: reading, cycling, cooking, movies and so on
• connections on Facebook: users who are connected to friends of a page, for example.

Once you have decided to have a go with Facebook ads, you need to consider four things:

1. What is the goal of the ad?
2. Who are you trying to reach — what is your target market?
3. What is your daily/weekly budget?
4. Who is going to monitor the results?

What is the goal of the ad?

Now, you might think this is obvious: you just want more fans/likes, right? Well, not necessarily. It may be that you want more people to visit your website rather than your fan page, as you have a sale on or a new collection being launched. In this case your ad may be pointed straight to your chosen website landing page for visitors to find out more.

If your goal is to generate brand exposure and gain more fans to communicate with, your ad should be pointed to your Facebook page rather than your website.

The advantage of pointing your ad to your Facebook page is that when your visitor clicks ‘like’ and becomes a fan, you can communicate with them through their Facebook newsfeed in future by sending them an update. By sending your visitors to your website, there is generally no way for them to interact with your site and those visitors may never return, so you have lost them.

If you want more people to find your bar, for example, set your ad to show in their newsfeed in the evening when they are most likely to be looking for a bar to drink at.

Who are you trying to reach?

Again you may think it’s obvious who your target market is but, bearing in mind how you can drill down into the Facebook database, you may have a different message for different people. Check out what you concluded in your social media plan for your target market to make sure you are targeting your ads correctly.

Let’s say you are a coffee shop and you want to create an ad to drive traffic to your Facebook page to generate more fans. Your customers could be split into three categories depending on age and wants, and so the three different messages could read as follows:

• Parents — bring your little ones in for a milkshake and get a free chocolate bar when you mention Facebook.
• Students — take a break from studying and grab a hot steaming mug of creamy latte. Have a free chocolate bar on us when you mention Facebook.
• Night owls — we are now open until midnight, so call in for a hot chocolate before bedtime and get a free chocolate bar on us when you mention Facebook.

You get the idea? It’s a different message for different age groups, but the same product. You only have a few characters for the title, and a few for the body, so you may need to fiddle around with your message to make it fit. The ad will tell you as you create it.

What is your daily/weekly budget?

You can set your budget at as much or as little as you want to spend, so if you are a small company and have a budget of only $50 per week, then start with $50. Obviously, the more you spend, the more audience your ad will reach.

The more targeted your ad is, the fewer the people who will see it, but the more relevant it will be to those who do. You can actually create an ad that is seen by everyone in your town who is aged 35 to 40 and who has a particular interest. Very cool, and very targeted.

Who is going to monitor the results?

Someone has to monitor and refine your ad or ads and make adjustments where necessary. In the early days that can take a little time to do while you are getting used to it.

Check your stats daily and watch for any trends. If you’re not quite getting the results you had expected you may wish to stop the ad and start another ad that is almost the same, changing just one thing such as the image or the heading. Slight changes can make a world of difference, but only change one thing at a time or you won’t know what the successful change was. That means either change the image, the text or the headline and test the results again.

Once you are really happy with the results and with how much you are spending, you can afford to let it run for a while. Keep monitoring it though, as you may find the ad’s effectiveness will dwindle in time and you need to refresh the process again.

Facebook has a great self-help area on Facebook ads — click the ‘help’ link for more information.

To keep control on the go, download the ‘Adverts’ app to your smartphone.

Keep in mind that most people are on Facebook for entertainment; they are not there searching for what you have to offer, so your ad needs to stand out visually and the text within the message must be appealing in order to get people to click on it. Heavy business messages may not do as well here, so keep them a little less formal for Facebook.

Sponsored updates

Another type of ad is the sponsored update, which is simply the promotion of a post. That means a post, usually an image and text, can be placed in front of other eyeballs such as your fans’ friends, or even just more of your fans, but you have to pay for it. Both sponsored updates and regular ads will be seen in the newsfeed, but only regular ads will appear down the right side of a computer screen. When they are shown in the newsfeed they are also visible when viewed on a smartphone, and as about 50 per cent of Facebook users access Facebook via their mobile, that’s an important point to remember: they are still visually appealing and can be read easily.

Facebook is a business too; it is out to make money, and as it doesn’t charge you to use its site, it has to make its revenue in other ways — namely, ads. As long as you target your ad to the right demographic, including age, sex, interests and location, you won’t go too far wrong. So, as I said at the beginning, make sure you decide on who your target market actually is — it really is important.

Conclusion of chapter 2

Facebook is becoming a marketer’s dream; the site gets better and better as the months go by. When you have your content plan in place, you really will need to spend only a few minutes in the morning posting your information, and a few minutes again in the afternoon checking to see if you have any comments that need answering — and monitoring those all-important adverts.