With more than 1.86 billion monthly users, Facebook holds the title of being the world’s most widely used social media network. Business owners can leverage its popularity to attract new customers and grow their brand. However, you’ll want to avoid making the following mistakes.
Using a Profile
You should only use your Facebook profile for personal reasons. Using a profile to promote your business is against the network’s terms of service; therefore, it could result in your profile being terminated without notice. Furthermore, you can’t attract likes or followers on a profile — and this is a huge disadvantage when compared to pages, which do support likes.
You can create Facebook pages for free by following the steps listed here.
Infrequent Posting
Unless you post content on a regular basis, you’ll struggle to attract new followers and keep your existing followers. So, how often should you post content on your Facebook page? As explained on CoSchedule, different studies have found different results. Generally speaking, though, 1-2 posts per day is the sweet spot that works for most businesses.
Too Much Promotional Content
You can use your Facebook page to promote your business and its products or services, but you should also balance the content with other, non-promotional content. If your Facebook page is nothing but promotional advertisements, it may discourage some users from following you. A good rule of thumb is to publish one piece of promotional content for every 3 pieces of non-promotional content.
Overlooking Images
Studies have shown that images receive more likes, shares and comments than any other form of content on Facebook. Therefore, it’s a good idea to include images in your overall social media marketing plan. You don’t have to source all of the images yourself; rather, post your own unique images and share other users’ images, assuming they are relevant to your target audience.
Manually Posting
There’s certainly nothing wrong with manually logging into your Facebook page to manually add new posts, but this can become tedious and time-consuming. A more efficient solution is to automate your posts, using either the built-in scheduling post or a third-party service like HootSuite.
Relying Strictly on Organic Traffic
Facebook updated its system in 2014 so that fewer promotional posts are displayed in users’ news feed. For business owners, this means you’ll have a harder time gaining visibility — unless you participate in Facebook’s paid advertising service.
If you need help perfecting your business’s social media strategy, contact us today.
