This is not an article on how to create a Facebook Page but rather we will dive a little deeper into how to effectively manage the Page in order to optimize and achieve the result (sales or brand awareness) that we are aiming for. Facebook doesn’t have to be an enigma wrapped in a riddle. Let’s begin.
1. Customization
As we all know, Facebook decided to shift over to Timeline template since March 2012 and every social media specialists were forced to quickly pick up the differences between the original Page template to Timeline’s. Fortunate enough, the notice came a month earlier and I assume all marketers were busy creating the right Cover Photo, getting used to the dimensions of uploaded pictures, size of the tab pages, etc. All of those were necessary in order to customize the brand’s/company’s Facebook Page and make it stand out from the rest as much as possible. At Fash-a-Porter, we realized that the Cover Photo & information about a Page plays really important role for first impression.
If you go to your newsfeed now, scroll through the hundreds of updates and once you stumble upon a random brand’s shoutout, move your cursor to the name of the Page and you’ll realize that the following will pop-up.
Mini Page banner from Mashable containing Cover Photo and Page Information.
Like meeting a new friend, first impression counts while on social media, all you have is 2 seconds. If you manage to gain a “Like” via the Mini Page banner, you’ve won half the race. The Cover Photo must be attention grabbing and eye-catching enough to make Facebook users want to click into your Page to have a closer look.
Ensure that you know all the dimensions of each picture posting and to help you out, you may refer to this link.
2. Split Testing
Now, many social media marketers do not know what their demographics want and the users flicker-minded behavior doesn’t help either. What you can do to slowly figure it out is to perform split testing on your Page.
What I realized after months of managing Facebook Page for one of the largest online retail store in APAC, if your target audience are Malaysians – ensure the product pictures you upload are nice looking and guaranteed higher conversion rate. While in Singapore, don’t try too hard – post an ugly pair of shoes and they will be swarming to find out what it is. Not exactly certain what behavior this is but you will need to utilize some time to fish out the information you need.
Split testings are usually performed for advertisements mainly with a variable of demographic targeting. For example, use a picture of a dress and use it to target women of the following age groups: 15 – 70, 15 – 24, 24 – 35, 36 – 55, 56 – 70. If you get the highest visits from the ad belonging to 24 – 35 age group, you know for sure that this bunch of working adults prefer to shop for dresses. However, doing the same for your Facebook Page would work too but you will have no control over the demographic. Shoutout about multiple topics, post up different style of images and create mini contests – see which works well and you’ll be able to know exactly how your captured pool of fans behave.
3. Monitor
Closely monitor your brand Page with the help of the insights. Lately, Facebook introduced a “Reach” information underneath each & every postings that is very convenient for Page managers.
Monitoring each of your Facebook postings
This information will guide you in churning out more similar postings to reach a wide scope of audience – which directly influencing the amount of visits you get to your website (provided that a link is inserted into the post) and may even convert visitors to customers.
Do not repeat postings that does not work. If your fans do not fancy Questions/Poll, save the space & time to promote products or do a giveaway contest. Get yourself into the insights, export and analyze the given data. You will need to figure out when is the best time to post a shout out, what sort of products work best for the captured demographic (price point is crucial), the language to be used (just because you’re a brand in Thailand, doesn’t necessarily mean they prefer you to post up in Thai), etc.
4. Structuring
Do not for a second think that it is easy to manage a Facebook Page. Postings are not just merely ad-hoc shout-outs, but must be carefully crafted and structured. Postings can be divided into two types: Reach-driven or Sales-driven. At times, it can be both.
Reach-driven post are none other than postings that will help to garner more brand/Page awareness. Sales-driven post are postings that is supposed to bring in potential customers to the e-commerce website with mainly product images.
A clear example of how a reach+sales-driven post works is a mini contest shout-out. Say if you’re giving away a plush toy to your fans, when you announce the result of the contest, promote the aforementioned product or publicize on your 70% clearance sales. This will help to generate traffic and transactions.
In addition, try to design a daily posting structure of not more than 6 postings a day. Some could be Reach-driven, while others can be Sales-driven. One thing to take note of, consumers are not stupid and can easily identify if you’re trying to push to them a product. Be wise and look into your data.
Next, I will be posting on the only thing standing between a new customer and a return customer.
Next post…
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