Facebook is often the first social media stop for most businesses, such as the meetings and events industry – probably because it has the largest base of personal users (somewhere between 890 million and 1.11 billion, depending on who you believe).
Facebook is all about relationships – whether you’re unearthing new customers/members/attendees, or deepening and continuing relationships with old ones. Your Facebook community can be a strong and loyal advocate, helping to improve your event, crowdsource content and spread the word about your initiatives.
Unfortunately, Facebook is also one of the more complicated social media platforms. There are a lot of moving parts and various depths of activities. Not to mention the fact that Facebook makes wholesale changes rather frequently. But don’t worry – setting up and starting your business on Facebook is actually pretty straightforward. You can save the more complex work for later.
Here are 25 tips for using Facebook:
- Set a specific goal. How many likes this month? Do you want to drive registrations or gather leads? Make sure you have a system in place to measure that goal.
- Respond to people immediately. More people are using Facebook as a customer service tool, and according to Edison Research, 42% of them expect a response within an hour!
- Be human; Tell stories; Be entertaining.
- Have a content plan – maybe an editorial calendar. Plan activities, events, contests, polls, surveys, etc.
- Comment on other’s pages as your Page. Like other industry pages and watch for their news in your feed. Be where your audience already is and let them hear from you.
- Use Facebook to crowdsource content. Ask followers what topics or speakers they want, or throw some ideas out and ask for votes.
- Lots and lots of pictures! People share photos.
- Be educational. Teach me something relevant and I’ll share it.
- Don’t just post – have conversations.
- Use calls to action.
- Use trackable URLs like bit.ly.
- Tease me – give me enough information, but make me want to click the link.
- Do your research. Review your Insights pages and competitor’s Facebook pages to see what they’re doing.
- Add social share buttons everywhere – above the fold.
- Cross-promote your social media channels.
- Think mobile.
- Rotate your cover and profile photos often.
- Keep your end goal in mind with every post. Make offers, lead people to your reg page, etc.
- Always measure your progress against your goals.
- Always provide a link to your website.
- Call people by name when you comment using the “@” in front of their name.
- Take the time of learn about Facebook and how it works.
- Stay on top of Facebook changes.
- “Like” the Facebook Marketing page so you get new tips all the time.
- Always respond to comments and private messages so people know you’re listening.