{"id":276314,"date":"2016-05-19T01:09:31","date_gmt":"2016-05-18T15:09:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/content.easyweddings.com\/au\/pro-education\/five-facebook-features-every-business-needs-know\/"},"modified":"2016-05-19T01:09:31","modified_gmt":"2016-05-18T15:09:31","slug":"five-facebook-features-every-business-needs-know","status":"publish","type":"au-pro-education","link":"https:\/\/www.easyweddings.com.au\/pro-education\/five-facebook-features-every-business-needs-know\/","title":{"rendered":"Five Facebook features every business needs to know"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Five<\/a><\/p>\n

If you’re one of 50 million<\/a> small businesses using Facebook as a channel to promote your brand, but you’re struggling to attract\u00a0users’ attention\u00a0after the\u00a0infamous\u00a0algorithm changes<\/a>, there are free tools available\u00a0to help you\u00a0reconnect with followers, learn from competition<\/a> and convert the visitors that\u00a0find their way to\u00a0your Page. Here are five\u00a0easy-to-use features to start including\u00a0in your Facebook marketing today:<\/p>\n

1. Call-to-action button<\/a><\/span><\/h2>\n

You’ll notice on the Easy Weddings Facebook page<\/a>\u00a0there’s a “Sign Up” button inviting visitors to join the Easy Weddings community for access to wedding tools and resources. This is Facebook’s call-to-action (CTA) feature\u00a0that encourages Business Page visitors\u00a0to take a specific action. CTA options include Book Now,\u00a0Contact Us, Call Now, Use App,\u00a0Play Game,\u00a0Shop Now,\u00a0Sign Up, Send Email, Send A Message, Learn More and\u00a0Watch Video.<\/p>\n

The button is designed to help businesses highlight their most important marketing goal, which can change\u00a0periodically depending on whether you’re looking to grow your list<\/a> or sell tickets to an event, and it can be linked to any URL, either\u00a0inside Facebook or\u00a0externally, such as your website or landing page<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"facebook<\/a><\/p>\n\n

Promoting your button<\/h3>\n

Some businesses use their cover photo<\/a>\u00a0to visually draw attention to their CTA button, like AWeber<\/a> have done to promote their Sign Up button. Along with designing a graphic that points directly to their CTA, they’ve also added a written incentive for people to click through by including\u00a0an offer: “Get Started Now for Just $1”.<\/p>\n

Designs like these\u00a0can be achieved using free\u00a0image editing software like\u00a0Canva<\/a>\u00a0or\u00a0PicMonkey<\/a>, and thanks to Facebook Insights\u00a0showing\u00a0statistics around CTA button click through rates, you can experiment with multiple images and offers to see which combination inspires the most clicks.<\/p>\n\n

\"facebook<\/a>
Source: AWeber.com<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n

Make your own<\/h3>\n

Create your own Facebook call-to-action button<\/a>\u00a0to drive visitors from your Facebook page to your website or landing page<\/a>\u00a0and enjoy this free feature helping Business Pages with\u00a0lead generation<\/a> and conversion; everything from booking a consultation, making a purchase from your online shop or sending visitors to your YouTube<\/a> account to watch your latest\u00a0video testimonial<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n

2. Page\u00a0Insights<\/a><\/span><\/h2>\n

Understanding the demographics of the people who visit and interact with your page can\u00a0help you make more informed decisions around the type of content you produce and\/or Facebook advertising you invest in.<\/p>\n

Use Page Insights<\/a> to find statistics about followers’ age, gender\u00a0and location, along with when they’re using Facebook to increase the chances of your content being seen, and which types of posts are most popular based on likes, comments and shares. If you see patterns emerge in post popularity (those with images, for example, are more popular than those without), you can create more of this type of post to increase engagement<\/a> and give your fans the\u00a0content they crave<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n

To access your Page Insights, select Insights<\/strong> from the top left navigation within your Page, then browse menu items on the left, where you can also find stats about your call-to-action button under the heading Actions on Page<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\"facebook<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n\n

3. Pages to Watch<\/a><\/span><\/h2>\n

When your Page reaches over 100 likes, Facebook allows you to create a list of other Business Pages for keeping an eye on your competition, as well as industry influencers and other successful peers in the wedding\u00a0arena.<\/p>\n

Facebook asks you to choose five businesses to watch, which it includes in\u00a0a comparison table,\u00a0ranking your business against the Pages you’ve\u00a0selected based on total Page likes, how much your Page likes have increased since the previous week (as a\u00a0percentage), the number of posts from each\u00a0Page ‘This Week’, and the total engagements for the current week (likes, comments and shares).<\/p>\n

\"facebook<\/a><\/p>\n\n

By clicking on a Page’s profile picture\u00a0in the first column you can see\u00a0every post published by the page ‘This Week’ ranked from most engaging to least engaging, so pay particular\u00a0attention to the ones at the top.<\/p>\n

By checking up on competitors’ top posts from the week you can learn what your potential customers are responding to on other Page\u00a0feeds and start generating similar posts about the\u00a0same topics to test if your audience will respond to this too. As tempting as it it to copy a company’s entire strategy, authenticity reigns supreme when it comes to marketing and what works for another business may not work for yours… So think of ways you can take other Page’s posts and ideas and make them your own!<\/p>\n

To start monitoring other Pages, go to the Insights<\/strong> tab, scroll to the bottom to\u00a0Pages to Watch <\/strong>then\u00a0select\u00a0Add Pages<\/strong>. The people managing the pages you add\u00a0will be notified, however it will not include your name or the name of your page.<\/p>\n

Buffer<\/a> suggests following 12-16 pages so you\u2019re not overwhelmed\u00a0by content, but you’ll get a good\u00a0variety of brands and inspiration to draw\u00a0from.<\/p>\n\n

4. Facebook Live<\/a><\/span><\/h2>\n

As The Huffington Post explains<\/a>, the\u00a0battle over live streaming is heating up. Twitter launched Periscope<\/a>\u00a0in 2015, now Facebook has its very own streaming feature, Facebook Live<\/a>, allowing up to 90 minutes of footage to be broadcast to the world via Facebook Pages and Profiles.<\/p>\n

If you’ve got an iPhone or Android, you can create your own live stream – just head to\u00a0the top of the News Feed on the Facebook app<\/a>\u00a0and click into the\u00a0“What’s on your mind?” box. From the grey options along the bottom,\u00a0select the Live Video<\/strong> icon from the menu. Give your video a description and get ready for the\u00a03 second countdown. You may be prompted\u00a0to adjust your Facebook App privacy settings first to allow access to your microphone and video, then you’re good to go!<\/p>\n

\"facebook<\/a><\/p>\n

After a broadcast has finished recording and uploading to the server, the video is\u00a0published to your\u00a0Page or Profile so followers\u00a0or friends who missed it live don’t miss out on it altogether. Facebook has however tweaked the algorithm to give News Feed priority to broadcasts when they are live streaming. You\u00a0can delete\u00a0the video post at any time, just as you can with a regular text\/image post, so don’t be afraid to\u00a0play around and test the process.<\/p>\n

For ideas and inspiration from\u00a0others using Facebook Live, check out these\u00a010 Facebook Live stars you need to follow now<\/a>.\u00a0To be notified of when the person or Page is about to go live again, tap the “Live Subscribe” button on the top of one of their live videos.<\/p>\n

For tips on making the most of your broadcasts, check out Facebook’s Best Practices<\/a> blog, which suggests announcing ahead of time to your followers when you’re going to go live, along with ensuring you have a strong internet connection before recording, and crafting compelling video descriptions to entice followers to tune in.<\/p>\n

\"facebook<\/a>
Source: Facebook Mentions<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n

5. Geo-demographic targeting for Page posts<\/a><\/span><\/h2>\n

Facebook’s geo-targeting allows audience optimisation for your Page posts. As Forbes<\/a> explains, “Efficient notification of supply (either because of a temporarily overstaffed store or a surplus of merchandise) to a potential buyer who may be able to quickly access that surplus presents a win\/win proposition”.<\/p>\n

So if you’ve just had a huge shipment of stock arrive and nowhere to store the old merchandise, or a\u00a0rostering whoopsie has\u00a0left you with too many therapists for the day’s bookings, you could publish\u00a0a geo-targeted post promoting discounted stock or beauty appointments\u00a0to shoppers interested in beauty within a 17km radius (the minimum distance allowable) encouraging people nearby\u00a0to drop in and take up your\u00a0offer.<\/p>\n

Social Media Examiner gives some tips for getting the most out of your geo-targeted posts, including posting photos\u00a0of local\u00a0icons interacting with you or your business, portraying your business as part of the community, and showcasing testimonials from people within your\u00a0geographic area talking about why they do business with you.<\/p>\n

If your Page has under 5,000 followers,\u00a0this feature may need to be\u00a0activated, so follow these steps to\u00a0turn it on:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Select\u00a0Settings<\/b> at the top right of your Page<\/li>\n
  2. From General<\/b>, click Audience Optimization for Posts<\/b><\/li>\n
  3. Check the box next to Allow preferred audience selection and the ability to restrict the audience for your posts<\/b> then hit Save Changes<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    You will then see the radius icon appear in your post panel:<\/p>\n

    \"facebook<\/a><\/p>\n\n

    By clicking the icon, you’ll be presented with a range of demographic targeting options including\u00a0interests, age, gender, location and language for zoning in on the customers you want to reach.\u00a0You can also exclude locations<\/a> from targeting.<\/p>\n

    \"Screen<\/a><\/p>\n\n

    Which Facebook feature does your business get the most value out of? Is there a particular set of Facebook Insights that you find influence your Facebook marketing strategy the most? Let us know in the comments!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":269215,"template":"","au_pro_edu_tags":[],"class_list":["post-276314","au-pro-education","type-au-pro-education","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","au_pro_edu_categories-share-worthy-articles"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.easyweddings.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/au-pro-education\/276314","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.easyweddings.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/au-pro-education"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.easyweddings.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/au-pro-education"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.easyweddings.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.easyweddings.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/269215"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.easyweddings.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=276314"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"au_pro_edu_tags","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.easyweddings.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/au_pro_edu_tags?post=276314"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}