Posts
- A Practical Guide
Or, how I worked hard to get to my first 1,000 fans
There are any number of guides on Internet about what you should do to promote your page. They boil down to ‘engage your fans’, ‘post quality content’ and ‘give a reason to return’. Nice, but not what you would call very useful. You KNOW that you need to engage your fans, and that they are looking for quality content - the question is what, when and how.
So we’ve decided to give you a few practical tips on what and how you should post.
1. Status or Link?
You may not know this, but Facebook grades the content of your posts, and gives them each an Edgerank. I won’t go into the details of Edgerank (that’s for a different post), but it’s important to know that posting statuses aren’t as effective as posting images, for example. The higher your grade, by the way, the higher the likelihood that your updates will appear in your fans stream, and that is what this is all about.
The best thing to post are Videos, followed by Pictures, Links and Statuses.
By the way, if you REALLY want Facebook to like your video or image - make sure you write something about the link.
OK, but what do I do?
Well, what’s your page about?
Is it a restaurant? Post a video showing how you make your special dish. Post pictures of your menu and venue. Post links to recipes that you love, or that your customers sent in.
Are you running a bookstore? Post movie trailers that are based on books (Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings and so on), post pictures of your book covers or favorite authors, and post links to their websites or blogs.
Have you got a moving business? Videos of trucks, pictures of the New York skyline, your favorite stop along the way - anything goes.
Got more tips as to what people can post on their pages? Leave them in the comments!
2. Ask people to like your posts
This is a very important step - without people actively seeking out your posts, liking and sharing them, there’s a good chance that they won’t be seen by fans of your page. Facebook makes it difficult for newcomers to break the viscous cycle - you need to be seen in order to be seen.
OK, but what do I do?
First of all, your real-life friends that are also your Facebook friends - ask them to go to your page and like and share your posts.
Then ask your Facebook friends to do the same, and ask them to ask their friends to join in the fun - and your posts will start getting enough juice to run under their own power and Facebook will start showing them in the news feed as top stories, and the Ticker
Got more tips as to how to ask people to like and share? Leave them in the comments!
3. It matters when you post
As you already know, your post doesn’t stay in your fans’ news feed for very long, so timing is critical. I mean, if all your fans are on Facebook at two in the morning (maybe you cater to the younger crowd), and you update your page at around 10 in the morning, well, your posts just won’t be seen.
OK, so what do I do?
Go to your Business Page, and click ‘View Insights’. That’s the link on the top right that gives you a bit of.. well.. insight, into how the page works.
Now there’s tons of information we can get from the insights - and we’ll get back to this - but right now, we want to concentrate on one specific piece of information. Check out the small ‘See Details’ link (yeah, they made it really small).
You’ll be able to see when your posts got the most interactions - the most likes and comments. And that’s when it’s the best time for you to post. There are usually two or three times during a day that your post will get a good amount of attention.
Got more tips that will help people promote their Business Page? Let us know in the comments
Good Luck!
