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10 Facebook Marketing Features You Might Have Missed

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Image via CrunchBase

Because Facebookis the largest of all the social networks, many types of businesses can benefit from building an audience with a business page. If Facebook is a part of your marketing plan, following are some tactics to boost results.

1. Pin to Top – You can ensure that a post gets premium exposure at the top of your Facebook page with this handy feature. To implement, hover over the upper right corner of a post and click on the pencil icon that reads “Edit or Remove,” then choose “Pin to Top.”

2. Highlight Post – You can draw extra attention to a post on your page with the highlight feature, which expands the post across two columns on the page. Simply click on the star icon in the upper right corner of the post.

3. Custom Cover Photo – I’ve noticed many Facebook users ignoring this great feature, which allows you to display an image behind your profile photo. Think of this like advertising space or a chance to express the personality for your brand. Facebook has a long list of rules to abide by so be sure to familiarize yourself with the following:

  • Images cannot include contact information or website address,
  • No price or purchase information such as “50% off” or “sales ends Friday,”
  • No call to action such as “order yours today,”
  • And no requests for page Likes or related activity.

Despite this tedious list of guidelines, there is still plenty you can do to create a creative and eye catching cover featuring images of products, customers, logos, etc. Dimensions for the cover photo are 851 pixels wide and 315 pixels tall.

4. About Section – Below the photo on your business page is a small box of text where you can share details about your business. More importantly, this box can include a clickable link for your website. While your website link may appear on the bio area of your Facebook page, you can assure more clicks by adding it to this prime real estate on the main page. To update yours, simply click on the box below your photo where this text appears, and then click on “Edit.”

5. Profile Content – After updating the About section as explained in bullet number four, next you should review your profile content and make sure it is filled out as completely as possible. Remember that your prospective customers will be checking out all aspects of your page so you want to make it as appealing as possible. At a minimum, make sure it includes a nice description of your business, contact information including mailing address, phone number, and email address, and links to your website and social media profiles (you can list multiple links in the Website field).

6. Like Pages – If you login to Facebook with your personal profile account and click “Like” on a business page, your personal profile is displayed as the user on that page. But you get exposure for your business page by using Facebook as the page administrator and then clicking “Like” on other pages. From your business page, click on “Edit Page,” then scroll down to select “Use Page As <page name>.” You can return later and follow the same steps to revert back to your personal page admin.

7. Engage – When someone makes a comment on a post on your page, don’t miss the opportunity to respond. Leave a public reply to acknowledge the comment, which builds loyalty with the person who left the comment and shows page visitors that you are engaged. If it doesn’t make sense to leave a comment because there’s not much to say in return, at the very least click on “Like” next to the comment so the visitor has been acknowledged.

8. Photos and Video – The posts that get the most activity on Facebook are photos and videos. Make it part of your marketing plan to mix up your content and occasionally share these as well. You can post interesting images you find from other Facebook users, develop your own videos, photos or infographics, or subscribe to a photo sharing service such as Clipart.com. Note that when you share blog posts from your website, they will have far more visual appeal (and thus receive more engagement) on Facebook if they include photos.

If you host or attend business-related events, be sure to share the photos on Facebook and tag the people in the photos whenever possible. By tagging others, the photo will then appear on their respective Facebook pages, extending your brand to their friends and family. Along the same theme, consider taking photos of your clients with your company logo either in the background or added onto the photo prior to posting. For example, a hairstylist could take pictures of each client’s completed haircut and then post it to Facebook.

9. Mailing List Signup – If you manage an electronic newsletter with Constant Contact, be sure to take advantage of their free application that adds a mailing list sign-up tab to your business page. Here’s how:

  • Login to Constant Contact.
  • Click on Contacts.
  • Click on Grow My Contact List.
  • Click on Install Facebook Application. This will take you to Facebook to sign in, and then it will automatically add the application to your page.
  • Next, click on the Constant Contact icon on your Facebook page and configure the application. You can write an introductory paragraph and then it will be all set. Want to preview this feature? It’s installed on my Facebook page here.

10. Facebook Ads – If you want to increase the number of “Likes” on your page, Facebook ads can be an effective way to boost exposure for your page. You will pay per click, and though clicks can average around $.70 to $.90 each, your ad will receive a large number of impressions (views) with Facebook users, which can build brand recognition. You can also set your ads to display to specific geographic areas or by keywords and interests. I recommend setting a small budget to test out ads to increase page visibility and overall fan base. From your page, click on “Build Audience,” then “Create Ad,” and follow the instructions.

Stephanie Chandler is a publisher, professional speaker, and author of Own Your Niche: Hype-Free Internet Marketing Tactics to Establish Authority in Your Field and Promote Your Service-Based Business. She writes a small business blog, a publishing and social media blog, and she is addicted to Twitter.