No matter if you love or hate your Facebook business page, there are plenty of ways to make sure your page is more appealing to your target audience. These easy fixes will make your page more professional and make people who come to your page interested in finding out more about your company.
Combine these essentials with engaging posts, and you have the formula for a knockout Facebook presence.
• Respond to all comments, messages and posts within 24 hours.
If you do nothing else from this list, at least do this. Customers expect a quick response on Facebook, and all the experts recommend responding within 24 hours. If you set up a free Hootsuite account, you can quickly respond to messages from your various social media platforms by just checking it once a day.
This response time is even more important when it comes to public messages because you want your audience to see you as responsive, engaged and customer service oriented. Fail to respond, and you have a lot more people than just the neglected customer thinking you’re a jerk who doesn’t care about his customers.
• Claim your custom URL.
You want your customers and potential customers to find you on Facebook easily. You also want to be able to display your Facebook name on your website, in your store if you have one, and other places online.
So make sure you don’t still have the long, ugly Facebook URL that you get when you first create your page. Plus, it just looks tacky. Here’s an explanation on how to claim your customized URL: https://www.facebook.com/notes/equine-calculator/how-to-claim-your-vanit...
• Fill out your About page fully.
I am also a writer and contribute freelance articles for websites, magazines and newspapers. So, I often do research on companies and start with their Facebook page.
Sure, I can go to the website and root around for information, but I hope that the company I’m researching has a robust Facebook About section because this page gives me the content I need without having to go search for it.
Your customers want the same kind of ease when they want to access more information about your company.
If they are already on Facebook and come across your page, they don’t want to have to leave the site to go to your company website. They want to stay on Facebook so they can continue browsing. You lose an opportunity to connect if you don’t take the time to fill out your About page.
Failure to do so can make you look lazy or as if you don’t put a lot of time into your Facebook presence, which means people might not bother to like your page or return to your page. Plus, you’ll increase the chances that when people do a search related to your business, your page will pop up.
• Add milestones to your history.
Adding milestones is great because it counts as a post, and it gives you a chance to brag without actually bragging. Plus, each milestone is organized in a nice, clean timeline on your About page, so people can quickly scan the list and feel as if you are a trustworthy company based on your history and accomplishments.
• Add community guidelines.
You probably have encountered spam on your Facebook page or perhaps a couple of nasty messages. To cover yourself, add a quick Community Guidelines section at the bottom of your About section in the Description as I did on the Snyder’s of Hanover page that I previously managed: https://www.facebook.com/SnydersOfHanover/info.
This text sets expectations and covers you for any actions you might need to take.
Shawndra Russell is a writer and social media educator for businesses, professionals and college students. Her latest work is 51 Ways to Help Your Social Media Manager Crush It! Contact her at shawndrarussell.com.