Stuck on What to Post on Facebook? Top 5 Best Performing Ideas to Get More Bang for Your Buck

 

I talk a lot about LinkedIn and Twitter these days and have for awhile. One reason because they are two of my favorite platforms in regards to democracy, the easy ability to grow a following, and the reach they can provide you as a business owner.

I realize though that some businesses are firmly ensconced on Facebook because that is where they find their fans.

Or maybe because Facebook is familiar and comfortable to them, and that’s not a bad reason either.

So I wanted to pay attention to all my Facebook users out there today in this blog post.

Let me first ask you, “How many times a week are you posting on Facebook for your business?”

I bet this number is not enough. The school of thought for Facebook posting frequency is about 4-6 times a day. The more the better, because this helps to get around the Facebook algorithm that reduces page views to non-promoted posts.

So how do you come up with enough ideas to create that many posts?

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Good question. Today I’m going to help you!

1. One of my biggest pieces of advice that I give my clients and my friends when talking about what to post on social media is: always always always post about other local and online businesses. You can never post too much good stuff about the other businesses that you frequent or run across online.

Why? Well first off because this type of posting is easy to integrate into your daily routine. Jot down a few notes before you leave their biz, or directly post to social media from their website.

Some questions you can ask yourself to create an interesting post:
Do you like their business because of convenience?
Did a certain employee go out of their way for you?
Do they always have what you are looking for?
Is their brand appealing to you?
Does their business “why” stand out to you?
Second because typically these businesses will share the love back. Finding partnerships and making alliances in your business niche, and outside of it, are key to winning the “war” of visibility online.

Finally the big question for you to always include the answer to in your posts:

What would be the message you would want to relate to your clients or fans in regards to this business or experience?

2. Second, write a goal oriented post. You must have a goal for every post. Ask yourself, what is it that you want to achieve here? For Facebook this answer can matter even more because this platform is a bit more informal and you want to make sure you hit all spectrums of “types” of posts.

Sometimes you want to have fun, make people laugh and engage with you. Other times you want to educate about your product or service or ways you can increase the quality of life for your customers. And some posts are going to be about your business “why” with a call to action to buy.

3. Third, write a behind-the-scenes post. One of the best performing Facebook posts seems to be one that allows your followers a peak behind the scenes into your daily routine.

Maybe a post:

  • of you on vacation reminding followers of what they can achieve if they follow your advice.
  • of you and your team working hard to bring a project to life.
  • about how you get motivated and stay motivated in your day to day business.
  • of your home office and time management tricks (or epic time management flops!)

Once people start to comment be sure you are ready to respond and engage. I still believe people on Facebook are looking to see that you read their comment and acknowledge it. Whether with a simple like, or with a short comment back, or with a comment and a tag mention, any way you decide to go is fine just try not to leave them hanging.

4. Fourth, use Facebook for research. This valuable method is one I definitely like to use Facebook for. Simply asking a question can lead to many interesting results and valuable information that you can use later in blog posts, web copy, or even in product creation.

5. Finally, when in doubt use a fun prompt to get the juices flowing! I use this particular resource here and highly recommend it! I love the prompts and the ideas throughout this hefty resource, you can get a prompt and post idea for every day of the year! Often if you just tweak the perspective, you can use the same prompt in a different way as well too. There is so much value in here so give this product a try, you can sign up to get one full week FREE too before you buy.

For additional help, advice, and to belong to a group of people ready to cheer you on (and like your post) join me in my LinkedIn group! Don’t wait, join today, we would love to see what you have to share.

9 Easy Social Media Tricks to Implement Today

 

You know what I love?

I love when my time online translates to learning the little tricks that social media platforms have but don’t often advertise.

And I definitely love when I can share these new features with my clients and other busy business owners like you. These tricks make social media a little more FUN for everyone out there who has little time to really dive deep into online platforms.

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9 tricks of social media that you might not know about (but will be happy to start using)!

1. Save Facebook Links.
A friend of mine sends me direct messages on Facebook all the time with a link and: “I wanted to save this link but didn’t know how so I’m sending it to you so I can find it again!” Maybe it’s a recipe, or a video, or a great article you want to read, so I’m here to say: now you can! Just click that little drop down arrow to the right of each post, click on save link, and Voila! that link is saved in a saved list for you. You can find this list via your Home page in the left hand column under your news feed and favorites list.   (pssst M. you can stop messaging me those links now!) 🙂

2. Create a playlist on Facebook of your YouTube videos, Periscope Videos, Family Videos and more.
Head to your Facebook Main screen, click More (it’s on the right side of the tabs under your header) and then click on create playlist. Now people have instant access to your YouTube feed or Periscope Videos, it’s a great way to organize all of your content, drive traffic to other areas of the web that are all about you, as well as preserve those family memories you want to keep handy.

3. Use your Facebook Personal profile to lead people to your business – no matter how private you like to keep it.
I totally understand the want to keep your personal profile on Facebook locked down and very private. In this day and age though people interested in your business and what you have to offer will very likely search you out. So feel free to keep your personal profile locked down except for one tiny section: your work/position information to the left hand side on your timeline screen.

Edit this section in this way:

  • Click the pencil icon to edit Work and Education
  • Where it says Position I edited mine to say: Click here to visit my page
  • Make sure you change the privacy settings to Public. Even if the rest of your page is private leave this one section as Public so everyone viewing can click through to your business page.
  • Make sure to save the changes.

positionFacebook

 

4. Analyze a search term or hashtag on Twitter.
A fun site called Topsy.com helps you do this. Enter a search term in the search bar and you get to see numbers of tweets mentioning this term from 1 hour to 30 days out, the most recent or most popular, and topsy even gives you a “sentiment score”. I searched the ever popular “cute dogs” to see what information I could glean. And as you can tell, cute dogs is still a popular subject.

topsy

 

But of course regardless of what keyword you search much can be gained by knowing who is talking about these terms in your niche, why they are talking about them, what they are saying exactly and how often.

5. Organize your social media via Twitter Lists.
Create a private list for your clients, your current partnerships or future want-to-be business partnerships. I keep all my lists private because Twitter sends a notification when you are added to a list. From these lists on Twitter that you create you can easily share the word of your clients and others who are important in your business circles. I follow over 24,000 people, and to search through that to get to a Tweet I want to share from a client would take some time. Using my Twitter list I can quickly share, retweet, and favorite all sorts of great content that people in my niche are talking about. It’s good for me, and it’s good for them, a win-win!

To create a Twitter list just click on your profile Icon in the top right of your home page and then click list! From there you can create and add at will.

6. After you connect on LinkedIn create a custom TAG to organize your connections. With 500+ or even 50+ connections it’s easy to get the names, organizations, and reasons for connecting lost in the shuffle. LinkedIn allows you to create a little “cheat sheet” to help you with this. Once you connect with someone go to their profile page, click on the star icon just below the blue Connect button. From there you can add notes about who they are, how you met and when, what you want to follow up on with them, as well as create tags (sort of like how I create and use Twitter Lists) to place them in a group based on how and where you want to further this connection.

Tags you can use:

  • The name of the networking event you met at
  • The type of business niche they are in
  • Prospect client or prospect business partner
  • Anything that works for you!

7. Don’t just LIKE a Facebook Business Page, make sure you receive their notifications.
Liking a business page these days does not guarantee you will get their updates so you have to go one step further. Head over to a business page on Facebook that you enjoy following and hover over the Like Button, click on the down arrow and then click on Get Notifications. This step is important because now you can share their posts, be more active and visible on social media, and serve those businesses that you feel deserve to be known. So go ahead and think about what businesses you want to engage with, head on over to their Facebook page and get their notifications!

8. Customize your LinkedIn Public URL.
When you sign up for LinkedIn you are given a generic URL filled with letters and numbers. But you can change it to a custom link that looks very professional that you can use everywhere!

Go to your profile and click on the little pencil icon that is next to the URL under the blue View profile as button. From there you can change this URL to anything you want!

If your name is taken I recommend trying:

  • Your name with a middle initial
  • Your name with your location of business if locale is important to your niche
  • Your name with one of your top skills ie.) karenysocialmediaexpert

Do this now and then add the new link to at least one of your social media bios!

9. Finally do you ever want to add bold, italics, or underline emphasis to your posts?
As someone who is an enthusiastic speaker and because I write how I speak, the inability of most social media platforms to do this easily sometimes drives me crazy! (And causes the use of excessive exclamation marks.) You currently can only use a Unicode Text Converter to do this at this time – similar to how we add symbols to our LinkedIn profiles. But here is a little known fact of Google+ platform: Surround any text with asterisks to turn the text bold, with underscores to make it italicized, or with an underscore followed by an asterisk to make it both bold and italicized. Do this to add a little punch to your posts!

So there you have it – 9 social media tricks that many people might not know about.

Try one today and share with all of us in my LinkedIn Group (please join if you haven’t) which one you tried!

Social Media Quick Tip: Scheduling Facebook Posts

 

Today, we’re taking a look at your Facebook fan page. I want to show you something that a lot of people know about, but if it’s something that you haven’t been using or you weren’t aware that it was available to you, it’s definitely something you want to know about.

I’m going to show you how to schedule a post in Facebook. If you’re new to social media or you’re new to online business, you may know you can use tools like Hootsuite and Buffer and SocialOomph. There are a lot of tools you can use to schedule your posts, but in Facebook you can schedule it directly into Facebook and I’m going to show you how.

In the example in this video, I’ve taken an article that I wrote for The Daily Word, and I’m going to post it and instead of just hitting publish, I’m going to click on the little drop down arrow, where you see you can schedule, backdate, or save as a draft.

You can just pick a date and time and click schedule. What you’ll see then is it disappears, it’s no longer here, but you can see how many posts you have scheduled. You can go to this ‘see posts’ and now you’ll get a little sneak peek at some of my scheduled posts.

Subscribe to my YouTube channel to see more videos!

Weekly Social Media Quick Tip: Facebook Video Playlists

 

Today, we’re in Facebook. I want to show you how Facebook allows you to create video channels now with the videos that you upload. On Facebook, go to you to your video page. You can see that you can have a featured video, so I have a featured video here, but you can also have playlists. I have two playlists right now. I have this “Social Media Quick Tips”, and then I started Periscoping, so I’ve got that too. What it basically does is it takes all the videos that you’ve uploaded to your Facebook page and arranges them in a logical order, so you can share those playlists with your followers in a really organized way instead of them being all scattered all over your Facebook feed.

You just click the “Edit” button and add a playlist. And to add a playlist. You can type in a description, which I suggest you do. You hit “Next”, and then you can just go through your videos and click on the ones you want to be on that playlist. You hit “Next”, and then you can reorder them. That’s all you need to do to create a playlist, and then your uploaded videos are organized in a similar way to the videos that you’ve uploaded to YouTube. It’s a really, really cool thing.

Share your playlist with your followers and think about what other kinds of things you can create a playlist for. You saw that I’ve got a Periscope playlist. I create a Periscope video and save it to my phone. Then I upload it to my Facebook page, so I’m getting double bang out of that Periscope content. I’m getting the periscope followers, but I’m also using it to share that same content with my Facebook followers. And because I have it in this playlist, they can actually watch the logical progression of this as it grows.

Organize your videos on Facebook. It’s a really cool thing. Easy, quick, free.

Subscribe to my YouTube channel to see more videos!

8 Things To Do AFTER You Create Your Facebook Business Page

 

Though the rules seem to be ever-changing on Facebook, this social media platform still is a great way to showcase your business with images as well as text, engage with clients and customers as well as educate them, point people toward your website, gain interest in your events and products over and over again.

A question I often hear in my social media work is: “I decided to create a Facebook Business page but NOW what do I do?”

Well here are 8 steps to get you started, and get you going on putting your best foot forward in the social media Facebook game.

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Step One:
Create and post 5 posts before you invite anyone to follow your page.

Be thoughtful, make these posts image rich and engaging, and use this time to teach some of your most important facts and figures as well as teaching future followers about who you are and why you do what you do. My suggestion – make these posts evergreen posts – and every other week or so “pin” one of these posts to the top of your page to make it stand out and garner more attention. Cycle through these posts by pinning a different one each time over a couple of months while you create more evergreen posts in your queue.

 

Step Two:
Don’t just click “invite” and invite all your Facebook friends to like or follow.

Be thoughtful here as well. Though it may seem simple and no big deal, sending out a mass invite is just as bad as sending spam. It shows you are not taking the time to think about who might benefit from your products or services, or who might be interested in what you have to offer over time. Make a commitment to send an invite to only 5 Facebook friends a day, grow slowly so you have the right people who will be more interested in your products in the long run.

From there head on over to LinkedIn and start mentioning your page in groups and linking to it in LinkedIn updates and long form posts. Make it a point to add engaging information so people know you have good things to say. Then head to Twitter and start tweeting “are we connected on Facebook?” with a link to your page.

 

Step Three:
Promote your page wherever you can.

Just like I encourage people to add their LinkedIn Vanity URL to their email signature, do the same with your Facebook Page URL. Add it to your business cards and make darnn sure the link (via an icon or a plugin) is on your website as well. Put it in your email signature! In my social media experience with clients I have found that some people are just more comfortable with certain platforms as opposed to others and thus they would rather connect with you in their “comfort zone.” Facebook has been around awhile, has a low key and easy to navigate social media structure so many of your prospect clients may have less resistance and more interest connecting with you there, so make sure they know they can!

 

Step Four:
Post a few times a day if you can, and always post as your page not as “you” your profile.

According to research this tip is a great way to increase your page visibility and virility of posts, even with the algorithm changes Facebook has made that has decreased these numbers overall. Research also shows that evening time (after work) and weekends or off-peak days of the week are best times to focus your posting energies. Also, keep checking your post statistic information found under the Insights Tab. You can find out which types of posts are a favorite of your crowd, and even drill down into demographics to really start to get a good picture of your ideal client – the one who is already listening and engaging with you and your business. This is fantastic information to know and one more huge step in learning how best to speak to your audience to move them from the “fan” group to the “customer” group more quickly, which is exactly where you want them to be.

 

Step Five:
Watch your competition.

Facebook makes this really easy with their “pages to watch” tab. Add competitor Facebook pages here, or possibly even pages that inspire you and you wish to emulate. See an overview of their best posts, how far these posts reached, and take away some more ideas of what to say and how to say it to your fans.

 

Step Six:
Try out a Facebook ad.

Facebook ads are cheap and great for research. You can try different levels of campaigns but always always always write headlines/ad verbiage that is almost the same on each while changing only one or two significant words. From there you can dial in on what captures your audiences attention the best and stick with that in the future.

 

Step Seven:
Add your opt-in to capture emails.

Make your opt-in visible and easily clickable via an application that pulls in your opt-in information and automatically adds anyone who signs up to your email CRM such as Aweber or Mailchimp

 

Step Eight:
Hire a VA to help.

Now that you have established a great foundation and your fans are engaging with you, you might want to step it up a notch. But extra time is hard to come by, I know. So it’s time to get some help that will allow you to post a little more often, like and comment back to any fan comments, and monitor your ad’s so you can focus on building your biz. A part-time VA is a great way to make this happen. Plus it’s a solid way to “test” out an assistant that, if they prove themselves trustworthy, competent and smart, could grow with you and your business and take on more tasks to get more off your busy business owner’s plate.

 

Do you have a favorite Facebook page tip that you’d like to share? Or do you have a question on how to get started? Join me in my LinkedIn Group where we answer any and all of your social media questions!