Your Ultimate Facebook Checklist

Facebook can come with a steep learning curve for the uninitiated, particularly when running a business page. For this exact reason, we have put together a checklist for you to refer to whenever you feel the need to. For the Facebook beginner to the seasoned Facebook marketing professional, everyone can benefit from a checklist to help them to keep on track. Using this in conjunction with a strong optimisation strategy and solid structure will mean that you are well equipped to engage with your target audience. There are even links between your online marketing efforts that you may not even be aware of, such as your SEO strategy and your Facebook page. But don’t worry, we’ll be filling you in on it all in our upcoming Optimise Webinar, ‘Facebook Fuel to Ignite Your Business’ which will launch on Wednesday 24^th June, 10:30 am AEST.

Any checklist needs to be updated on a regular basis to ensure that you are keeping up to date with new features and trends. This will allow you to set the pace so that your competitors are rushing to keep up with you, not the other way around!

The SponsoredLinX Facebook Checklist

Organic Content
Is the Cover photo / Page banner on your Page current? –       Think about seasonal updates, such as a Christmas banner during Christmas, or an updated image to reflect a new product or service you are pushing. You should also have an ‘evergreen’ image (an image you can always go back to and use) in-between.
Is the Profile image you are using current? –       Do you have a business mascot? Or a recognisable logo? This is the one image that consumers should be able to instantly recognise and link to your business.
Has the content you have posted over the past week been relevant to your audience? –       Your organic content needs to be engaging, and this means there must be a visual element to your post, whether it is video, and image or a GIF. But don’t post for the sake of posting. Make sure what you are putting up is relevant to your audience. –       Are you targeting your organic content to the right audience? Get familiar with your analytics to ensure that who you are targeting finds that content engaging and relevant.
Are you posting when your audience is most active on Facebook? –       Through Facebook analytics, you can see when your audience spends most of their time online on Facebook. It means you can schedule your organic content to publish when they are most likely to be online, so you increase your chances of engagement.
Are you moderating your page in a timely fashion? –       This means are you managing ALL of the content on your Page? From customer inquiries, to reviews, to user generated content, you need to be moderating it to make sure you are keeping your customers happy and that you continue to uphold the image of your brand and business.

Paid Advertising

Are your ads still relevant / current?

–       If you are using paid advertising – great! You are already on your way to engaging and attracting a much wider audience than those who only use organic content. But you must make sure that your ads are kept relevant. Your ads are a fantastic way to advertise your business, your services and products and you do not want to give the impression you are stagnant, so your ads shouldn’t be either.

Is your targeting relevant?

–       In other words, are you targeting the right people? Think about the customer personas which engage with your business and whether you are actively pursuing these personas with your targeted ads.

Is your ad frequency under 2.0?

–       Your ad frequency is calculated like so; Impressions (the number of times your ad was displayed) ÷ Reach (the number of people who saw your ad) = Frequency

If your ad frequency is under 2.0, then you need to make some changes to your ad.

Are your goals realistic for your budget?

–       This is when your Client Manager can help you out like you never thought possible. The key here is to have a clear goal in mind. Once you let your Client Manager know, they are going to be able to let you know what budget you’ll need to reach that goal.

Your Website & Facebook

Is your website up to date?

–       Facebook is an amazing tool due to the sheer size of the online platform, but at the end of the day, you still want to direct your traffic to your website if you can. There is no point in directing this traffic to your website though if it is not up to date and current. Remember, your website reflects on your business and people will make a judgement on your business based on the user-friendliness and responsiveness of your website.

Is the content on your website up to date and relevant?

–       Essentially, is what you are saying on Facebook teaming up with the content on your website? The message, the imagery, the branding; it should all link together seamlessly to ensure a great user experience.

Do you have clear and concise landing pages?

–       If you are advertising a specific product or service on Facebook, then it would make sense that the link you use in that ad link back to a landing page URL set-up for that product or service. If the link doesn’t take the user where they think they should be, they will leave just as quickly.

Through being active on Facebook, you will inherently know and understand what is trending and ‘hot-right-now’ on Facebook. Through managing your Business Page, you’ll see pages and individuals you follow, post content in a particular way, or in a particular style, and that will give you an idea on how you can use those trends and turn them into a something that works for you.

With the ability to customise your Facebook content to particular geographical areas, you can easily tie this in with your Local SEO efforts. (Want to learn more about Local SEO? Check out our blogs. We even have a video which delves into more detail). There are some important steps businesses need to take that can help your Facebook work for you in regards to SEO, such as making sure your posts reference keywords/phrases, include links back to your website and include as much information as possible in your ‘About me’ section. If you run a blog (which you should, by the way) use your Facebook Business page to promote and share your blog content!

You can also work towards optimising your Facebook Business Page for Facebook search. Facebook search factors in a number of different things. These are; Engagement, Relevance and Information.

Engagement is the most important. If you make fan base growth and engagement with your page a priority, you’re halfway there. You can do this through good organic reach with your posts, providing a variety of good content at the times your target audience are online, and encouraging your Page likers to share, check-in and rate your page.

Relevance is secondary and works with Engagement. If your posts aren’t relevant, people won’t care about what you’ve got to say, because it will have no point or Call-to-Action.

Information comes third and works with Relevance. If you have all the correct information in your ‘About me’ section and you’re providing Facebook and your audience with a transparent view of your business’s image/branding, you’ll get ahead in search.

A solid structure is all about consistency; when it comes to ‘voice’, branding, and visual content. With paid advertising, you need to ensure you have a singular voice in control of the ads. Make sure you use language and images that are best fit for your target demographic. Make sure your branding and imagery is consistent. Look at pages like McDonald’s and notice how all their images can easily be recognised. They could remove their logo from posts and you could still tell it was something from McDonald’s. Aim to achieve the same with your own visual content. Plus, make sure the Page banner and Profile picture give potential new likers a clear view of what you’re about. If you give them the wrong impression, they may never come back.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics issued a report on the 18^th of June stating that the number of businesses in Australia with a social media presence was at 30.8% between the years of 2013-2014. As an online marketing agency which specialises in helping small to medium business around Australia and New Zealand, we can honestly claim that if your business is not on social media, now is the time to act.

Businesses can simply no longer afford to not be on Facebook, due to the potential audience they could be missing out on. We understand time is a precious commodity, which is the exact reason why having a marketing professional manage your business’s social media is the key to your online success. With the abundance of options as to what you can do and achieve on Facebook for your business, it really is a full time job. People want to be able to connect with your business online. People are on Facebook every single day, several times a day, and the platform allows you to connect and engage with them in multiple ways.

Want to learn more about how Facebook can help your business grow? Want to learn how you can successfully leverage Facebook? Then all you need to do is register for our upcoming Optimise Webinar, ‘Facebook Fuel to Ignite Your Business’ which will launch on Wednesday 24th June, 10:30 am AEST. We’ll see you there.

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