One of the first things I did when I started my own business, after building a website, was to set up a business Facebook page. However, like many people, I then didn’t do much with it as I was busy concentrating on getting my business up and running….not realising that I was actually missing a trick! With an estimated 42 million active accounts on Facebook, there is plenty of competition, so how can you make your Facebook page stand out and get you more ‘likes’?

Info pages

Make sure that all the information is filled in – ensure you have added a contact email address and telephone number….and a website address if you have one.

It’s important that the profile picture is of you, not your dog or cat! People can feel more engaged if they know what you look like and it makes you appear more approachable. Also have a cover image – this could be a brand photo or maybe some of your products.

Finally, complete the description…tell people what you do, make it chatty and inviting but to the point …don’t waffle.

Link to your Facebook page

Linking to your Facebook page gets your business in front of potential customers. If you have a website or blog, put a link to your Facebook page, with a ‘like’ button.

Join Facebook groups that are relevant to what you do and add a link to your Facebook page there.

Put your Facebook address on your business card or on flyers and on any promotional literature that you send out.

Put a link from all other Social Media sites you are on, such as LinkedIn, Pinterest etc.

If you put an ad in a local paper or magazine, ensure you put your Facebook address there too.

Invite people to like you

Invite your friends and family that are on Facebook to like your business page and ask them to tell their friends about you and what you do.

Look at your email contact list… you probably have lots of contacts that you wouldn’t think to invite – all you need to do is compose an email and send to all your contacts. Make sure that you send the emails as BCC so you don’t breach any data protection rules.  You just need to send a short note with a link to your Facebook page. If you can’t think of wording, click on my FREE PDF, which gives you some suggested wording.

Post regularly

Some say you should post once a day and others say three times a week is enough. Whatever you decide to do, be consistent…this is easy to say and I know I’ve fallen by the wayside a few times, so don’t beat yourself up if you don’t manage it, however the more times you post, the more engagement you will get. Images seem to help with engagement, so always use a quality image – if you can, use your own from photos etc. If you use images from the internet, make sure you don’t breach copyright.

Use different kinds of posts: information about your products; new product launches; photos or video of someone using your product or service; inspirational or funny quotes; photos of your work station or how you make what you do; hints and tips; ask a question or post a photo and ask people to post a caption.

I hope that this brief article will help you with your Facebook engagement – if you have any other ideas, please let me know.

Call to Action

Ensure that you include a link to your Facebook page in all publications you write and on all your marketing materials, including newsletters, flyers, brochures etc. If you don’t ask people to go on your page and like you, they won’t necessarily think about doing it themselves.

If you write a blog, put a Call to Action on the bottom of the page.

Tags in photos

Do you run events? Whether you do them regularly or as a one-off, make sure you take plenty of photos of the people attending and enjoying themselves. After the event, post the photos on your FB page and tag as many people as you know in the photos. Then post, inviting others to tag themselves in your photos …and to post photos of the event that they’ve taken themselves. This will not only upload to your page, but will also upload to their wall and their friends will see it.

Newsletter promotion  

If you send out a regular newsletter about your business, talk about the fact that you have a business FB page and include a link so recipients of your newsletter can go and like your page.

These are just a few simple, totally do-able ideas that you can start to implement right now. Most importantly, you need to have fabulous posts, awesome photos and make your readers feel that you are speaking to them personally. They will then recommend your page to others.

Good luck Facebookers and let me know if you have a brilliant idea to get more ‘likes’  that I’ve missed!

Images courtesy of Stuart Miles, stockimages, Stuart Miles, surasakiStock  and Master Isolated Images at FreeDigitalPhotos.net