New Facebook Publishing Tools Gives Brands More Control

On December 10^th, Facebook quietly announced new publishing tools aimed at better supporting the needs of media companies and content publishers.

1. Interest Targeting lets brands segment their organic content to only those fans that might care about the topic.
2. Post End Dates give brands the power to pull organically published content from the Newsfeed once it’s no longer relevant.
3. Smart Publishing offers media companies a way to share their most popular content without ever logging in again.

These Facebook publishing tools are designed to give online news outlets and publishers more insights and control over how their content is distributed across Facebook by both themselves and 3rd parties. However, these tools could also have similar benefits for large brands who choose to utilize them, at least until Facebook organic reach for brands is reduced to zero. (While they continue to make changes and announcements that suggest this is inevitable, please note they have not yet confirmed this will actually happen.)

Interest Targeting on Organic Facebook Posts

Once only available via paid targeting, brand pages can now target content that they publish organically to a subset of fans based on interests.

• This could be a good way to ensure you’re getting the most out of the little organic reach Facebook is giving brands and could result in higher engagement rates.
• This feature could also ensure that content designed around a Passion Point of a single audience does not alienate other groups on your page.
• However, it’s possible that choosing to target your post could result in less reach than non-targeted posts and potentially lower total engagements.
• Interest targeting is also limited to the profile information your fans have given Facebook on their personal profiles, many of whom probably haven’t updated their interests since Facebook’s last big prompt to do so when Profile Timelines launched in 2011.
• Interest targeting is not coming soon to a Social Media Management System (SMMS) near you. Right now, it’s limited to publishing on Facebook via desktop only.

Setting Post End Dates on Facebook

With this new feature, brands can put a time limit on how long content is served in the Newsfeed, putting an end to one of the worst side-effects of Story Bumping – confused fans seeing irrelevant, time-limited brand content.

• This feature is certainly a benefit to brands who share time-limited offers or want to engage in certain real-time conversations on Facebook.  (How many Black Friday deals were you still seeing in your Feed Saturday morning?)
• Could this be another step in Facebook’s plan to pull real-time marketing away from Twitter?  Maybe, but they have a long way to go before user behavior makes that shift with them.

How Brands Can('t) Use Smart Publishing (Sorry!)

This neat new feature is only available to select media partners at this time (like The New York Times).  Through Facebook’s Publisher Tools (also only available to select Publishers at this time), brands could eventually connect their websites to Facebook and then Facebook will automatically publish, from the brand’s page, their most shared pieces of content (based on what Facebook users are sharing organically from their personal profiles).

• On face value, this seems like a big brand benefit – streamlining the content production and publishing process; however, it does not go without risk as brands would be turning over control of their Newsfeed content to the algorithm that powers Smart Publishing.
• In all likelihood, it will be months (if ever) before brands get access to Smart Publishing. If that ever happens, brands will have to produce enough quality web content on a regular basis for it to have any impact and hope that Facebook hasn't dialed back organic reach completely by then.

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Using Your Facebook Page Cover Photo to Get Noticed

Social media is here to stay and if you don’t do everything possible (and then some), you will not get noticed by other people online. If you are not noticed, other people will not interact with you and you won’t have the opportunity to interact with them. No interaction equals no eventual selling. It is that simple! If you have effective Facebook Page Cover photos, you can get a great deal of mileage out of it.

The importance of your interactions with your online connections

In this day and age of social media and technology, it is critical that you understand the importance of the relationships that you share with people online. The reality is that when people interact with you, your opinion will be very important to them and their opinions will be very important to you. You will look to each other for recommendations of all kinds. This is all part of building a relationship together. Part of the foundation of your relationships is the presence of our social media profiles, which include your biography and your photo. Because of the fact that many people are visual, your photos will will have a very positive effect on those people if you choose a really appropriate Facebook cover photos. The difficult thing is creating Facebook page cover photos that really entices your online connections. What you are after is getting those people to “Like” your page. That will not happen without some degree of effort on your part. The question is, how do you get other people to “Like” your page?

• Become well acquainted with the Facebook guidelines (again): Before you do anything else, it is very important for you to understand what Facebook expects of you. Of course, it goes without saying that you need to pay close attention to the rules. Breaking Facebook’s rules is not an option. If you do that, you will run a big risk of being banned by Facebook.  When it comes to your Facebook cover photos, the guidelines will provide the exact specifications as well as giving you good ideas about actually setting up your Facebook cover page.
• Bridge your Facebook cover to your website: It is important for you to understand clearly that your Facebook cover is an important part of your brand and of your web presence. With that being said, that means that your “look” needs to be solidified in the minds of your online connections and when they see your Facebook cover, they will immediately associate it with your products and/or services. This concept is becoming more and more common and an increasing number of business owners are starting to recognize the importance of marrying your Facebook cover page and your website under your branding umbrella.
• The look and feel of your Facebook cover page: The look and feel of your Facebook cover should have a unique look and feel and it is uniquely yours. Along with that, the selection that you make of your photos must be the best that it can be. When it comes to the visual appeal of your Facebook cover page, you should be as creative as you like. Of course, that doesn’t mean that you should knock your online connections over the head with your look and feel. You will definitely know what works for you. You definitely will not want to deviate too much from your branding colors. After all, those have already been established and people are used to seeing them. Your photos should be a reflection of how wonderful your products are.
• Connect your Facebook cover photos with your profile photo: You should not think (in any way) that it is inappropriate for you to do this. You have the tools in front of you. You should definitely take advantage of the opportunity. The way in which your profile picture connects with your Facebook cover page photos is very important. It will establish a human/emotional connection with the other people.
• Make sure to include a call-to-action on your Facebook cover page:  In the past, you would not have been allowed to include a call-to-action but now, it is different. It is perfectly acceptable. It is the only way that your online connections will be able to start interacting with you. That is how you will start to build a relationship with the other person.

Conclusion

One of your objectives is to get people to “Like” your Facebook cover page. The next logical step will then be to get people to want to interact with you. Your Facebook cover page consists of a lot of different elements that work together to touch your online connections emotionally. If you succeed at that, you will be on your way to building long-lasting, meaningful relationships. In addition to your written content, there is no doubt that your photo images will get noticed in a big way. Your photos will make a lasting impression and you will see that the reaction of the other people will be very positive.

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