Partner Article

Building a Facebook Brand Page

It seems the first move business owners make after registering a business is to secure a Facebook brand page url and begin posting, but without a strategy and some basics it’s easy to waste time and be left with two fans and no interaction. Here are my top tips to breathe new life into your Facebook brand page.

1. Don’t just sell

Facebook users did not gravitate towards your page to hear endless sales messages. (A page on the social network should be entertaining and relevant but still sit within a sphere in which you can ‘own’.)

The print industry is our bread and butter, we live and breathe it, but we could not expect that of our customers who might only need ink once a year, but finding common ground isn’t straightforward. Why would our fans share what they did at the weekend, or their thoughts on X Factor? They may do so with a brand that has a natural interest in that space such as a women’s magazine, but if we tried to engage on these terms we’d end up with very little interaction whatsoever.

To begin with we regularly linked to our company blog; content that helped our average customer get more from their printer. More recently we have upped our Facebook activity and decided on a topic we could talk about with authority; print-outs. This turned out to be a masterstroke because it solved the problem of finding content. Beautiful images, wordsearches, puzzles, arts and crafts guides: all content that already exists in plentiful supply!

2. Properly insight-ful statistics

Having found a voice it’s then crucial that you analyse what works and what doesn’t. Regular checks of your Facebook insights will help you to continually gauge the most popular content and to build your strategy around it.

Do not rely on just the publicly available figures such as fan numbers and People Talking About This (PTAT) they are just a measure of who you are reaching. Instead, export a month’s worth of post and page level data from the admin area on your page and scrutinise the stats. The data will tell you which of your posts generated unlikes, mutes, spam clicks, and hides, all of which affect your Edgerank and therefore your reach. Take these figures in the wider context though. 10 unlikes might not be so bad if you’re reaching hundreds of people.

3. Show me the money

So if you’re following the above two tips, you’ve now got a strategy that ticks the right boxes and you should look to widening your reach with a small investment into your page. Yes Facebook is a free tool, but with a little bit of money you can reach those friends of fans easily and sharply increase your reach. Take a look at the ‘Friends of Fans’ stat of your Facebook admin area; with very little effort you can reach and engage with them too.

I’m not suggesting a lot of money either, a little can go a long way and it’s more important to deduce which avenue generates the best return from the available options; promoting posts, sponsoring stories or alternatively investing in a giveaway or competition that fans of your page might be interested in (no old branded mugs from 1999). If you opt for the latter be sure to use a mechanic that doesn’t contravene Facebook’s terms and conditions.

Facebook users are, on the whole, understanding that the platform is a marketing tool and in return for games, offers and prizes they will be marketed to. Incentivise them correctly and you have willing ambassadors more than happy to promote your brand to each and every one of their connections.

If you decide not to run a competition then experiment with the advertising credit you can get for free when you sign up for the first time. My advice is to lean on the great reporting suite built-into the platform that reports on your advertising campaigns. Tweak, check and tweak again to drive the actions you want (page likes / click-throughs to the website).

At cartridgesave.co.uk we never rest on our laurels and we trial and test everything. Try a small amount in each of these areas to begin with and push forward with the most effective.

These three tips helped us to gain real traction with our page, we work hard to offer our fans something worthy and we do not take them for granted or as an easy route to sales. In return we’ve got thousands of fans collaborating with us to promote our business.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Sean Blanks .