There are many ways to market your business on Facebook.

There are also a multitude of  ways to kill your efforts, leaving your page dead on arrival.

If you’ve struggled to build momentum and increase Facebook engagement, there’s hope.

With a few minor tweaks, you can overcome any fatal mistakes.

Not only can you overcome them, but you can turn your page into an irresistible destination.

In the 7 steps below, I’m going to show you how to do it and stop that next mistake from happening.

7 Fatal Facebook Marketing Mistakes You Can Quickly Overcome

  1. Mistake: Mimic the Competition

Herman Melville once said, “It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation.”

It’s no different with Facebook marketing. Savvy marketers know that if you want to die a quick death – try to be anything but yourself.

While it might be true that there are no new ideas, there is your unique perspective. There’s the insight, experience and wisdom that’s woven into everything you do.

And consider this, adding context to your content creates differentiation. On the flip side, mimicking your competition makes you look unoriginal. It lacks the distinctive flair needed to stand out online.

Not to mention the severe impact swiping your competitors’ ideas will have on your brand. Don’t be that copycat.

To avoid this, take the time to make everything you do undeniably you. From content to visuals, everything you post should scream your brand.

Speaking at Social Media Examiner’s #SMSS15 last week, I shared this easy tip.

When creating visuals, use a consistent color palette—it’s the glue that ties your brand together and the identifier that makes your content stand out.

Remember: to maintain your originality, you need to ensure that your message, voice, and tone is consistent. Become a destination by creating posts worth reading and content worth spreading.

  2. Mistake: Neglect Facebook Fans

Smart marketers know that happy customers are likely to come back. Not only that, they might even recommend your Facebook page, expanding your fan base organically.

One of the most effective ways to keep your customers happy is through active listening and a quick response time.

And it should go without saying that honesty is the best policy when responding.

As you know, people are always paying attention. They want to know that what you say and what you do is one in the same.

Just as great customer service sets your company apart, so does transparency. It can also be the key to continued growth through word of mouth marketing. It’s no shock that happy customers tell others about their experience.

KLM Airlines gets this. They not only give their fans something positive to talk about (and entertaining to look at), but they build trust and rapport by staying highly interactive.

They’re building brand loyalty one comment at a time, allowing fans to become advocates, actively recommending the airline to other prospective customers.

  3. Mistake: Use a Facebook Profile as a Page

Are you using Facebook to market your business through a personal profile, not a business page? Tsk, tsk.

Many businesses make this grave mistake when they start marketing on Facebook. If this is you, stop right now and convert your personal profile into a page.

For one, you’re in violation of Facebook terms, which clearly states that you are not allowed to use a personal profile as a business.

Secondly, using a Facebook profile instead of a page is going to deprive you of many privileges reserved for Facebook pages.

For example:

• There are unlimited connections when you use a page as opposed to a profile. With a profile, you’re limited to a maximum of 5000 connections.
• There are many marketing features including ads, analytics, and applications that are exclusively reserved for Facebook pages.
• The Call to Action feature is a huge marketing opportunity you’re missing out on.

Take a look at a few ways you could be using it.

Peg Fitzpatrick

Mari Smith

Melonie Dodaro

  4. Mistake: Randomly Post to Facebook

Two keys to any great Facebook strategy are content and consistency.

It’s not enough to simply create a Facebook page. You need to show up and share valuable information on a daily basis.

A solid Facebook posting strategy is one where you set realistic goals and then execute upon the tactics put in place. So, what does this look like?

Review company goals and determine what you’re trying to accomplish and how Facebook marketing will move you towards those goals.

Once you know what you want to achieve, now begin to segment out your daily, weekly, and monthly posting strategy.

A good strategy not only eliminates a last minute rush, but also allows you to act on purpose.

Here’s an Example of a Facebook Daily Posting Strategy:

  5. Mistake: Chase Vanity Numbers

Are you wishing for social media success, or are you planning for it?

Put a plan in place that allows you to track, measure and assess your results. And do it often.

That’s where True Social Metrics comes in.

At Post Planner, we’ve determined what we’ll actively measure based on our OKR’s (Objectives and Key Results). Here’s an example of what this looks like.

• Posts (curated from within Post Planner) – including viral photos, status ideas, blog content.
• Conversation rate – Tracking the conversations per post. e.g. replies on Twitter, comments on Pinterest, FB, IG photo, pin or post.
• Amplification rate – How our content is being amplified across all of our networks. e.g. re-pins, retweets, or re-shares of a particular post.
• Applause rate – The applause rate is based on the number of “likes” (retweets, pins, etc) each post gets.
• Economic value – This is based on the goal values set up in Google Analytics. I’ll admit, we don’t have all of this complete yet, but this calculation will be the sum of short- and long-term revenue and cost savings.

True Metrics allows us to pull all of this data into one location and then drop it into a spreadsheet for further analysis.

And just take a look at what you can pull out of this tool. Holy data, I don’t know about you, but I’m in heaven!

  6. Mistake: Share Anything and Everything

Want to become a valuable resource to your Facebook community?

Share relevant, thoughtful, interesting and educational content – and share it often.

In other words, become a giver. This is the best way to establish thought leadership and position you as an expert within that field.

The challenge for many businesses is knowing how and what to post. On top of that, it’s understanding how to create a conversation worth getting involved in.

Here’s a Few Tips to Get You Started

• Keep your posts focused. Stick to one topic per post. Be brief and informative.
• Your fans are moving at the speed of light. Make your posts simple to scan, read and understand.
• Find the perfect mix of photos, links, and text based posts. Rotate through each to see what’s working and what’s not.
• Stay away from technical terms or industry jargon that your typical reader (someone not working within your business) wouldn’t understand.
• Don’t use acronyms or other terms that make your fans question what they mean. If a reader can’t quickly discern what you’re message is, they’ll move on with the possibility of never returning.
• Read through your post. Does it feel clunky or uncomfortable? If it doesn’t flow for you, it won’t for your fans either.
• Edit ruthlessly!

And most of all, work to find your voice. That’s the tone of your page and the persona your fans will begin to interact with.

A perfect example of this is boutique-style accessories company Stella & Dot. Their lighthearted marketing approach is a perfect match to their brand persona.

Ready to work from home? Want to hang out with your pet all day? Then become a Stella & Dot associate!

  7. Mistake: Not Making Valuable Connections

As you begin to build momentum for your page, look to companies creating relevant content.

Facebook marketing takes a lot of things to succeed and one of those is networking.

Use Facebook search to find pages similar to yours.

While many changes have taken place since Facebook Graph was originally launched (and sure, officially it’s dead), but the benefits remain.

• Use Facebook Search Strings to tap into pages your fans are already connected to and engaging with.
  • Pages liked by people who like [your page]
  • Pages like by people who live in [your city] and like [your page]
• You can also use free tools like Likealyzer to find pages in your niche or industry.

Now get interactive with those pages. Comment on their content, share it if it makes sense, and become an active part of their community.

Not only do you build relationships that have the ability to extend your brand beyond your own efforts, but you raise awareness within a similar community.

Final thoughts

By now you get that Facebook marketing isn’t what it used to be.

From algorithm updates to increased ad costs, marketing your business on Facebook has changed.

But that doesn’t mean it has to be hard.

Once you learn the ins and outs, you can avoid (and prevent) and fatal marketing mistakes.

Which step will you take today?

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5 Ways to Leverage Visuals that Rule the Facebook Newsfeed [Infographic]

Frustrated by your attempts to get your content seen on the Facebook Newsfeed?  

Not sure what actually works right now on Facebook?

In this post I share what is working NOW (backed by new data) in terms of links, images and video on Facebook.

And I share 5 Ways to leverage what’s actually working now… to rule the Facebook Newsfeed!   

If there is one constant you can rely on it’s that Facebook changes. So how can you keep up with what’s working right now?

That’s where the guys from quintly come in.  These guys know what works right now on Facebook – their company specialise in social media analytics.

So when I saw the current research from their team, I wanted to share it with you – the data collated when quintly analysed 100,000 Facebook profiles and more than 80 million posts between June 2014 to June 2015.

When you understand which post types are the most engaging – it helps us to share content more effectively…

Here are the key takeaways from their findings:

1. Links were the most frequently posted post-type, followed closely (super closely) by photos and images.
2. Links get less engagement than other types of posts like video and images.
3. Videos and image posts drive the highest engagement (with video the highest for engagement)
4. Photo post interactions are increasing.
5. Frequently of video posts is increasing dramatically, more than doubling since January.

Maybe these stats are not new to you, maybe they just clarify what you are already seeing, but the important thing is not the stats themselves, but what we DO with this information.

How can we leverage the power of engagement on Facebook?

The team at quintly suggest this:  In a nutshell it can be said that photos are getting increasingly important in social media marketing. As discussed on many blogs, the majority of people are visual learners, thus visuals are faster processed in the brain. With that in mind, businesses should choose pictures for their posts wisely, add a link to the image post and consider not posting links alone. 

Now you know I am a visual gal, so I asked the team at quintly if they would be interested in making an infographic to showcase their findings – and they did just that – including both their findings and some tips we added for leveraging the power of image and video to rule the Facebook Newsfeed.  Check it out below…

Oh and be sure to read on below the infographic for more great tips for creating and sharing images and video!  

So now you have the stats, here comes the challenge!

For many businesses short on time, resources and without a graphic design team, the challenge lies in how they can create more visual content – both images and video – that will catch the attention of their fans and encourage engagement.

And remember – Facebook is giving natively uploaded video a lot of organic reach in the newsfeed.

So, let’s jump in and look at 7 ways you can jump in and post more video and images – to take advantage of their engagement power on Facebook.

7 Ways to Leverage the Power of Videos and Images on the Facebook Newsfeed

#1  Repurpose your YouTube Videos

If you have shared a YouTube video to Facebook lately you’ll know that they don’t get given much airplay on the newsfeed anymore. In fact they barely get any organic reach at all.

Natively uploaded video on the other hand is the complete opposite. And if you consider the research quoted above, there’s never been a better time to leverage it.

So if you have a YouTube channel there’s no better way to tap into a huge content bank of video – consider taking your old YouTube video and uploading it to Facebook.

Tip: Break it down – Upload the whole video if it is relevant, but also consider breaking it down into short video pieces – remember that short video does very well on many social platforms.

#2  Share short videos straight to Facebook

Not confident with video? Never created any before? The good news is that creating video for Facebook can be as easy as using your iphone to capture some footage and uploading it directly.

And remember that fans are not on Facebook to buy your stuff – they are there to hang out with their family and friends and to be entertained.  They don’t want to see fancy polished product promotion videos – they want to see the human face behind your business.

Give them some tips, peel back the curtain, show what you are working on, where you work (take us on a virtual tour), or answer some “frequently asked questions” – there are so many ways that you can create some short video for your community.

Here are 5 tools you can use with your smart phone to create awesome videos– quickly and easily:

1. iMovie on your iPhone – if you’ve used iMovie on your desktop then try using the mobile app – it’s simple and easy to use for editing simple movies and has some cool effects.
2. Videohance – an awesome app for quick editing and adding amazing effects right on your phone!
3. Videolicious – got some video footage, images and music? This app knows how to combine them together to make them look great.
4. Legend App – short animated videos or animated text over video. You can join two videos together to make a longer one!
5. Snagit or Jing – is there something you can capture on screen? Use these simple screen capture tools to take a video and upload it to Facebook.

Yes you can add fancy intros and outros…Yes you can invest in production and “up your game” later… but if you are just starting out, these tools will help you to create video instantly.

Tip:  Leverage the strengths of your team – perhaps there is someone on your team that loves taking video with their iphone – ask them if they are interested in capturing some footage.

#3  Use Post Planner’s Viral Photo Tool

Just like this post is based around data, planning to share the right kind of images can be based around data too.

But how can you find out what types of images are working on the Facebook Newsfeed?

The answer lies in Post Planner’s Viral Photo Tool.  How does it work?  Put simply, this tool finds images that are already performing well on Facebook.

For example, on Post Planner I can save Facebook Pages that I want to follow in folders or categories.  I can then look up one of my favourite pages, Boom Social with Kim Garst, and I can quickly see which images have been liked and shared the most.   

With Post Planner’s viral tool I can see which of Kim Garst’s Images got shared the most.

I can use this as indication to share that same photo OR use it as inspiration to create more original content just like it and share it from my own page.

Either way, this tool gives you a lot of information to help you to leverage the power of images on the Facebook Newsfeed.

The bonus of using Post Planner, is that you can schedule and share those same images right from within the same tool!

#4  Batch Your Images

You wouldn’t bake a single cupcake would you?  You’d batch them right?  Then why post one image up here and one image there?instead, plan ahead to create a visual content strategy that works on Facebook.

Do a little research and see what types of images work on business pages you like in your industry.. as well as on your own business page.  It could be quotes, tips, how-to images, behind the scenes photos or jokes.

Then take those content ideas and create a series of images with that theme or under another over-arching theme or category (like Pinterest, or Fishing or whatever your page is about).

Then batch create your images in a series of 10 or 20. Two great tools for doing this are Canva or Relay.

#5  Get Consistent with sharing images

Once you have created your images, schedule them out using the Facebook Scheduling tool or a tool like Post Planner.  You will love the fact that this then “frees” you up to do what’s important – to engage with your fans when they engage with your content!

And don’t forget content curation – it’s just as important as creation. Facebook likes Facebook and sharing the images of others can be powerful too in terms of reach and shares.

Regardless of how you do it, be consistent.  The reality is that if you post consistent visual content – either your own or curated from others – then other pages will notice and will eventually start to share.

I have talked about the idea of a “Hit List” before – if you post great visual content – those other pages will add you to a hit list and start checking out your page regularly to share, or adding you to a list to share from.

Over to You

What can you do NOW in your business to start leveraging the power of images and video on the Facebook Feed. Which tip will you try?  

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