At the urging of your friends, you created a Facebook Page for your business, but around one year later, the party is over, your Facebook Page is hanging on by a thread, and you’re still stuck with a low number of likes and very little engagement from your Facebook Page fans.
If you’re like most businesses stuck in this situation, you’re quick to point fingers that Facebook simply doesn’t work. Actually, it does.
The problem isn’t Facebook – it’s your business that’s the problem.
Now before you get mad, I’m not saying that you have products that are necessarily bad. Chances are you have really great products that provide a solution to customers. What’s missing though is that you have bad Facebook Marketing for your business. That’s why your Facebook Page sucks.
Here’s what you most likely did for your Facebook Marketing.
- You looked at other major brands in your field to see what they were doing (good)
- You copied them (bad)
- You read articles that gave stock examples from major brands (good)
- You copied them again (bad)
1. No social media strategy
As I mentioned, you probably looked at other major brands to see what they were doing on Facebook and you copied them. While there’s nothing wrong with using other major brands as a guide for your business, you need to define your own social media strategy for your Facebook Page that is specific to your business.
Everyone wants to get more likes, increase sales and increase traffic to their website. Do all of these items fit into the social media strategy for your business though? Most often, businesses try to scale too quickly to keep up with their competitors when they don’t have the resources to devote. There’s nothing that says you have to keep up with your competitors. Remember, you need to develop a strategy that works for your business.
If you don’t have the resources, don’t join multiple social networks. A good place to start would be to send out a survey to your customers, asking them what networks they are on. This will give you valuable data as far as which direction your business should head.
2. No new content
If your goal is to create a Facebook Page and to post content occasionally and expect fans to interact and engage with your business, you’re in the wrong place. For some reason, there is a misnomer that when you create a Facebook Page, people will instantly see that you’ve created it and flock to it and begin liking it.
Facebook Pages don’t work that way. In fact, that’s as far from the truth as you can get. You have to work at them. This means you need to post new content and you need to do it at least 1-2 times per day. If you don’t post anything, your Facebook Page will continue to grow at a very slow rate. If you stop updating it, you’ll eventually fall out of the news feed, which will make your work more difficult, because then you’ll have to work to get back into someones news feed.
If you’re like most people who are strapped for time, I highly recommend checking out the free social media tool, PostRocket, which can help you schedule updates and tell you if you’re posting too much or not enough on your Facebook Page.
3. Boring content
If you build it, they will come with a catch – if you post quality content. One of the biggest mistakes I see on Facebook Pages is that businesses tend to post content that is boring or unrelated to their business. Steer clear of posting quotes or Internet memes on your Facebook Page. While quotes and those Internet memes may help get likes, ultimately, they’re not going to bring in the right fans who are interested in your products or your business and that’s ultimately what you want to get.
To accomplish this, tap into the core areas of your business.
If you’re a restaurant, I strongly recommend tapping into the following areas for content:
- Post photos of your most popular dishes and drinks and include a link to your menu
- Create a video series with your Executive Chef
- Create a video that shows fans how to create a signature dish at home
- Create a Facebook Landing Page with your menu
- Collect feedback from customers by adding the recommendations box to your Facebook Page
- Post a Facebook Offer
If you’re a retail establishment, I strongly recommend tapping into the following areas for content:
- Post photos of your most popular products and include a link to the product on your website
- Encourage customers to create a video review of your product for you
- Create a Facebook Landing Page to collect email newsletter sign-ups
- Collect feedback from customers by adding the recommendations box to your Facebook Page
- Create a Facebook Offer
While these are just a few examples on how you can create content that isn’t boring, the biggest piece of advice I can give you is to be creative and to ask your fans for feedback.
4. No photos
What tends to attract the most attention on Facebook are photos. As I mentioned earlier, you want to post content that isn’t boring. This includes posting just text as your update. Be sure that whenever you’re posting a status update that you include a photo. Also make sure you size your photos properly to take advantage of Facebook Timeline.
Make sure that you bookmark this Facebook Timeline Dimensions infographic and that you get to know these numbers really well because you want to stive to create content that isn’t just remarkable, but visually appealing for fans. The more visual your content is, the more likely fans will want to interact with it by sharing or liking it.
5. Too many updates
Your Facebook Page is not a dumping grounds. I repeat, post only quality content that is related to your business that will help you achieve your social media strategy (see item 1 above). What this means is that you don’t have to post every update that comes your way. You’ll ultimately end up making your fans mad, which could have a negative affect and cause them to unlike your Facebook Page in the process.
As I mentioned, 1-2 updates per day is typically good enough. People have lives. If you’re a restaurant, they aren’t interested in Internet memes. They just want to see if you have any new dishes or drinks or Facebook Offers.
If you’re someone who is concerned about posting too much, don’t forget to try the free social media tool, PostRocket that can help you schedule your updates and make sure you’re not posting too often.
By now, I hope that if you are guilty of any of these 5 reasons why your Facebook Page sucks, you’ll work on fixing them. Not only will it make for a happy business, but it will help get you on the right track towards using social media the right way.
Note: If your business is in need of help – whether it’s a landing page, cover photo or page review, we’re offering exclusive Facebook Landing Page deals to help you get your social media strategy in gear.