Note : Your facebook business page is your company’s virtual address.
Even while you have a fully completed google business listing, website or any other social media handle. Facebook still has a better business edge over all other digital signatures. As per Facebook, more than 80 million businesses have facebook business pages and connect with more than 2.4 billion users worldwide. The prime objective of running a virtual address is to bring in customers. Customers who follow a brand on Facebook are more likely to make a purchase from the same brand.
Just having a facebook business page will not help you. You will have to attract people to your page, especially potential customers. Keep the page live and keep your followers engaged to make your page come up top. All this to be done keeping in mind that your facebook business page is different from your personal profile. In this article, we compile all the best practices in handling a facebook business page from the start.
What makes a facebook business page different
A facebook business page is different from a facebook profile in many ways. The major difference being the purpose of both. Facebook design profile functions to enable individuals to interact with friends, family, acquaintances, etc. A business page is designed to help you increase your customer base and business.
The features of facebook business page include
- Call to action function : link to business landing page or direct selling of a product is possible through business page
- Like function : option to like and follow a page or business rather than waiting for a friend request approval
- Page content control : it is easier to control who can post and comment using a business page
There are many other functions which make a business page different. All these makes starting a business page a must do for every business.
Best facebook business page practices
Creating a facebook business page is as easy as creating a facebook profile. Facebook algorithms guide you pretty well in all the initial steps. It is your own part or actions in setting up your business page and promotions that makes a difference
Profile picture and Cover picture
Do you want any user who visits your page to see a half cut version of your business logo? Profile pictures and cover pictures you upload in your page should be properly sized and of readable quality. It is always better to use a PNG format of your picture than JPEG or any other formats. Other file formats can be easily distorted when viewing on different devices. Facebook displays only a circular shaped middle portion of your profile picture as a preview. To view full content or square content, the user will have to open the image. Try to keep your logo or most important content to the middle portion of your image as possible.
Size of your profile picture image should be at least 180*180 pixels. And cover photo should be at least 820*312 pixels.
Facebook URL
Facebook automatically assigns an unreadable URL to all business pages. The first step to do after creating your page is to claim your business facebook URL.
Goto www.facebook.com/username and follow the steps mentioned to create a url of the type www.facebook.com/businessname for your business.
This can make your business more identifiable among customers
Call to action
This is the step which can change your followers to your customers. The biggest function in a facebook which when viewed from an entrepreneurs point is call to action function.
Call to action function can be ‘Contact us’ or ‘Shop now’ or different options provided by facebook. Choosing this option should be made according to the functioning of your business page.
Page tabs
Facebook pages come with standard side page tabs. You can customize these tabs, add new tabs to make your page more interactive with your followers.
‘Jobs’ or ‘work with us’ tab for job listings, ‘store locator’ for locating the nearest store are few examples of custom tabs.
Once you are done setting up your facebook business page, you will have to start working on promoting your page. Publishing quality authentic contents, engaging with your followers, paid promotion are few things you can do to promote your page.
Regular quality content
Your page can be kept live by adding contents to your page, but will these contents help you in growing followers. That’s where quality authentic content comes into picture. Your contents should be attractive and continuously updated to engage your followers.
Regular publishing of contents on facebook is important because it shows users how active your page is, and also helps in staying in their feeds. This also helps in expanding your reach to those who aren’t following you.
Mixing business entertainment content
Even when you are running a facebook page of a business establishment and you have mentioned it in your page. People don’t follow you to know only about your business. Social media is basically about entertainment, so if you stick on to your business alone, users may get bored. When creating, publishing or promoting content try to maintain a mix of all types of contents. Keep an eye on the analytics and make a better publishing strategy on what your followers follow the most.
Facebook Poll and Questions
Facebook business page or post is not a one way traffic street board ad. You are creating a community of your customers and users who follow you. There are different ways to create engagement with the audience. Facebook poll is one of the methods to create a discussion within your community. This discussion can help you in getting suggestions and opinions and reviews about your business.
Post different poles that can help you in getting information from customers about your product. This can also help in starting a discussion within customers and can even give you better solutions about your own products.
Post questions on facebook to encourage interaction between customers and know better about their needs.
Respond immediately
Customers nowadays prefer customer service through texts than waiting for minutes to get a call connected to an executive. Text service’s create a feeling of talking directly to the business. Research shows that customers are willing to wait for a complaint to get resolved if they were heard immediately.
Autobots or Chatbots are used by different companies to reply to customers in comments or messages. Relying only on chatbots may backfire, because some customers expect personal contact. If you are implementing a chatbot to reply to comments or messages. Make sure to include an option for the customer to shift to a real customer executive.
Paid promotion
Paid promotion by paying to facebook is extremely important if you are in the starting phase of your page management. It helps you in reaching a wider audience who may like your content or business. Relying only on organic likes or followers may help you reach your targets, but the time taken for this achievement will be longer.
This does not mean that you have to over spend on paid promotion. Invest a smaller amount in the beginning, look out for the analytics, change strategies if you have to make any, and then invest more if necessary.
