Facebook is home to nearly 2 billion monthly active users, so whether you’re setting up a brand new Facebook page for your business or if you just want to maximise the effect of your existing one, it makes sense to ensure that your page has the best possible chance of reaching your target audience.
Gone are the days where you could simply slap together a page using a blurry profile picture, an ordinary cover image and some basic information about what your business does. Now, social media is a part of our daily lives and users are savvy, they expect more these days and if your business page doesn’t provide them with what they want then they’ll simply move on to a page that does.
So here are 5 things that you can do to instantly improve your business’s Facebook Profile.
1) Complete the ‘Our Story’ section
This might be a little confusing but there are Facebook ‘stories’, which are short videos, visible for a short period only similar to the Instagram and Snapchat story feature, and then there is the ‘Our Story’ section, found within the ‘about’ area of a Facebook Page and allows you to write long-form content about the history or story of your business. The information in this article refers to the ‘Our Story’ section.
This section allows you to expand on the information contained within your ‘About Us’ section. There is a 2000 character limit here so make sure you use this entire space. Fill it with a detailed history and a brief description of the things that sets your business apart from your competitors.
It also features space for a larger cover photo to be uploaded. This photo can mimic your profile cover image or can be something completely different. Whatever you decide to use there ensure to keep the lower part of the image clear of text, as it will overlap with the title on the preview image.
Once completed, your story will live in the About area, but will also be highlighted on the right-hand column of your page.
2) Tidy up your tabs
Facebook business pages have recently been the subject of an update and as such many business profiles where changed to a different theme, this also meant the page tabs found on the left-hand side of the page were updated or changed and now need your attention.
Depending on what your business does, there are tabs which are specific for you and others which are less appropriate. Go into your Page Settings and have a look through the options for tabs and activate the ones which are suitable for your and deactivate the ones which aren’t.
Facebook has an option called ‘Default Tabs’ where they will pick and activate the tabs they feel will be most successful for your page. You can use this as a base to work from but by no means should you just leave their suggestions as your tabs. Go through the various tab options and look at which ones will help to make your page more engaging for your users and the ones which you know you can provide content for.
3) Pick the right Call to Action Button
The end of 2014 saw Facebook revamp the call to action button to include a vast array of options which were designed to help business pages drive business objectives. Fast forward to 2018 and we now have an even better call to action button which gives us no less than 12 actions to choose from!
The call to action button is “designed to bring a business’s most important objective to the forefront of its Facebook presence, call-to-action buttons link to any destination on or off Facebook that aligns with a business’s goals.”
Using the call to action button at the top of your Page helps people to take an action. Think about the types of actions your audience is likely to take and how that aligns with the action you want them to take, then you will be able to set the most appropriate call action button.
Remember also, the call to action button can be edited at any time.
4) Make better use of the About Section
Lots of businesses fail to fill in any useful information here, or, only fill in the bare essentials and that is a costly mistake. When people visit your Page they want to know more about your business.
The About section is so much more than the 155 character limit space you are given to provide a short snippet of what your business does. In the About section you can provide details such as your company milestones and awards, trading hours, contact details and team members. Your longer format description ‘Our Story’ is also contained within the About section.
Visitors to your page can no longer see a preview of your About section when they arrive at your page, instead they have to go and click on the About section. This doesn’t mean you should ignore this section though because it is one of the first places they will look when trying to gather more information about your page and business.
5) Post other types of content, not just text and images
Facebook give us quite a selection of ways that we can make posts. These include videos, slide shows, ask for calls or messages, take a poll even offer a discount and many more. Rather than simply posting images all the time why not consider using some of these other features and make your page a bit more interesting.
Of course, you will need to consider which of these options are most suitable to your business so look at how your competitors are using these various types of posts and which ones are working for them. Can you also use the same types of posts, making them relevant to your business and enjoy the same traction they got using that type of post?
