3 Common Mistakes Made on Small Business Facebook Pages

In an ideal world, a successful Facebook Business Page should amplify your brand, generate leads, and foster engagement with your audience. Most small business owners create a Facebook Business Page with the best of intentions. Unfortunately, they’ve created or curated their Page with little knowledge of basic marketing or how the platform works. Because of this, they are likely frustrated or confused that they’re getting “nothing” from their Page, and that it’s been a useless tool for their business. Over the years, we’ve noticed that there are several common mistakes on Facebook Pages. 

Without getting too far into the Facebook algorithm weeds, there are a few tweaks that you can make to your Page to optimize the most basic features of the Facebook platform.

Check your Facebook Business Page for the following common mistakes:

1. You built your page as a personal profile; not a Business Page.  How can you tell?  If visitors are asked to “Add Friend”, it’s a personal profile. On a Business Page, new visitors are asked to “Like” the Page.  Why does this matter?  Here’s the biggest reason for marketers and business owners: personal profiles cannot buy advertising on Facebook; only Business Pages can sponsor or boost posts and run ad campaigns. Why is this important? Facebook’s constantly-changing timeline algorithms are increasingly filtering Business Page content out of personal news feeds. These days, you can expect that nearly 95% (yes, 95%) of your Page followers will NOT see your organic content. Which means, if you really want more of your followers to see your content, you need to spend some money on Facebook ads; or “pay to play” to increase your reach and visibility on the platform. Also, Business Pages can mine their Insights tab for valuable data on their content performance and Page audience. These analytics are not available for personal profiles.
2. Your profile picture does not reflect your brand, is poor quality, and/or poorly-sized.  This thumbnail picture identifies your company’s posts all throughout Facebook. So, make sure it reflects your BRAND. Your company logo centered in a high-resolution file sized to 170 pixels x 170 pixels is a good place to start.  Your cover photo should be sized to 820 pixels wide x 312 pixels tall.  Do not use personal snapshots of people, pets, or other images that are irrelevant or unrelated to your brand or product.  Do not use these photos on your timeline, unless the image promotes your brand/product or encourages specific customer engagement.  Example of a great timeline picture: a fan-submitted picture of their cute dog catching your company’s branded Frisbee product. Also important: make sure your profile picture and cover photo are brand-consistent with the look & feel of your website. As a result, these two pictures can help reinforce your brand’s credibility when they match across platforms. Don’t overlook them!
3. Timeline posts are inconsistent and not engaging.  Social media requires daily care and feeding.  The famous movie quote, “If you build it, they will come” does not apply here.  You need to give your customers something to bring them back to your page on a regular basis.  The less you post, the less your followers will see of you on Facebook, AND the less they will engage your content.  The current algorithm serves up content only from Pages, Groups, and people that you have interacted with in the past. If your followers haven’t engaged with your past or current posts, your future posts will not show in their News Feed. (See Common Mistake #1 above.) One no-cost solution: post content that is of value to your ideal customer. Strive to post on-brand valuable content at least 3-4 times per week.  No more fluff posts of kittens saying “Hang In There”; unless you’re a pet shop running a promotion on cat furniture and scratching posts.  Tag other Business Pages and people when relevant. And when you do post, be sure to include a call to action (like: “come in for today’s special”), a question (example: “has this happened to you?”), or a reminder to Save this post for later reference. Those are 3 simple ways to boost engagement on your page. When your posts are more engaging, your content will be more visible on Facebook as a direct result.

If you’ve made the decision to include Facebook in your digital marketing, you need to make sure you’re optimizing your page’s elements and content for maximum impact.  Social media marketing can go a long way in building your brand and customer base. Therefore, use it wisely and make the best use of even the most basic Page elements.

Are you guilty of making any of these mistakes on your Facebook Page?

If this post was useful to you and you’d still like some help, then schedule a Discovery Call or Contact Us to begin the conversation and discuss your business’ needs. Then, ask us about scheduling an audit of your current social media presence!