Social Media Noob to Pro - Part 3 In this series, we uncover the secrets that agencies use to build brands, and multiply sales using Facebook and other social channels.
In Part 3 we look at: How to save $1000’s & create a winning Facebook strategy from your sofa
Steps:
Step 1: Establishing Goals
Step 2: Audit Your Facebook Page
Step 3: Understanding Your Audience
Step 4: Developing a Brand Voice for Facebook
Step 5: Running a Competitive Analysis
Step 6: Figure Out Your Content Mix
Establishing goals Before you start doing, let's first figure out why you are doing it. It’s much easier to plan, execute, and succeed when you at least know which direction to head in.
Below are some of the most common goals we hear from businesses wanting to set up a Facebook presence:
Drive referral traffic.
Strengthen brand awareness.
Build a relationship with your audience.
Provide customer service.
Generate leads and conversions.
Page audit
Do you already have a Facebook business page (even if you haven’t done much with it so far)?
If yes, have a proper look and review how your page is performing. This is generally the first step in figuring out where improvements can be made. Here are some simple things to check. These may seem simple, but lots of little details can collectively add up to a big difference for your brand perception, and so many pages are missing simple details like the ones below.
Is your profile pic a clear logo of your business?
How does your cover image look?
Is Your About Tab Complete?
Which content performs best?
*This is the "About" section of your page... Make sure it's fully populated!
Understand your audience
It helps to know who you’re talking to before starting a conversation. Knowing who your audience is on Facebook can be a bit tough if you have a brand new page, but if it has been live for a while, you can use Facebook's built-in analytics to make it a bit easier.
At the top of your page, you have an "Insights" tab, where you can learn more about the people interacting with your page.
Develop Your Brand’s Facebook Voice
You now know who you’re talking to. It’s time to figure out how you’ll talk to them. This is known as creating your brand voice or personality.
Examples
Serious
Are you operating in an industry where it's inappropriate to take a light-hearted or casual approach? In these cases, memes, slang, and other things you might typically see on Facebook probably won’t be your ideal tone. Luckily, we can still be formal, professional, and interesting at the same time.
Casual
A casual tone can work for you by giving your brand a feeling of personality, friendliness, and approachability. This can work in many industries - even serious ones.
Humorous
A little bit of humour can go a long way. You don’t need to be a pro comedian... People enjoy the authenticity. And as long as it's related to your industry, a few funnies can go a long way.
Perform a Competitive Analysis
Who are you up against on Facebook? It’s worth taking the time to do a bit of an analysis on your competitors. This way, you can get a head-start by looking at what’s working in your space, and understanding how you can differentiate your business from the others in the industry.
You can do this in your Facebook Insights tab. In the Overview section, scroll right down to the bottom to "Pages to Watch."
You can also search manually for competitor pages. Do some quick searches on Facebook, then look at those pages in the same way you did when auditing your own Facebook page performance. Think about;
What are they doing that others aren’t?
What’s unique about this account?
What can you do to distinguish yourself from your competition?
What’s different about your brand or message?
By the time you’re done, you should have some ideas to set your company apart.
Figure Out Your Content Mix
There are a heap of different post types you can create on Facebook.
Text Posts: Plain text and nothing more.
Link Posts: A link from a website shared to Facebook (How to make your link posts look good)
Image Posts: Single images or galleries with copy and captions.
Video Posts: (Uploading directly to Facebook gives better reach)
Facebook Live Posts: Real-time video broadcasts.
Facebook Stories: Instagram Stories-style content (How to create your first Instagram Story)
So, which types of posts should you be creating?
This is a simple question with a complex answer. Start by asking yourself the following:
Which types of content do we have the capability to create?
Which types of content have done well for us in the past?
Which types of content appear to do well for our competitors?
The answers to these questions will start to point you in the right direction. In most cases, expect to create a mix of image, video, and link posts (and potentially Facebook Live if streaming video content makes sense for your brand).