If your brand is like most, it has probably spent time on Facebook – building fans, sponsoring posts, and trying ads – all in an attempt to drive website traffic from the massive Facebook community. As a business owner or brand manager, you may be beyond frustrated with the changes Facebook has made that affect the way you interact with and reach your fans.  Sure it’s more challenging now, but it’s still possible to stay relevant on Facebook and worth your while. If you build your tribe and stay relevant, informative and engaging, you can still reach a loyal group that like – and engage with – your content. Don’t give up, just get better. A good Facebook page is still within your reach. Here’s how.

6 Steps to a Good Facebook Page

1. Many brands post irregularly as time and resources allow. But with Facebook, consistency is a crucial first step for a damn good Facebook page. With Facebook’s edgerank algorithm, you have to engage in order to be seen. You can use Facebook’s insights to see the times of day when your fans are most engaged and the content they most engage with. There are tools like as Likealyzer that provide feedback based on your page’s trends.
2. If you haven’t figured out your brand’s online strategy and how it communicates on Facebook, it’s not time to build your damn good Facebook page just yet. You want to first spend some time creating your brand strategy and voice – how will you post and how will it sound – including what type of content you’ll provide. In order to do this, you’ll want to know your target, or whom you’re trying to reach. On special occasions or for events, it’s fine to get off-brand, but most times you want to keep with your brand strategy. This helps people know what you’re about and what type of content you provide.
3. Make sure to keep things interesting by mixing up content with links, photos, posts (linking back to your site) and links containing helpful and relevant content your fans are interested in.
   Your Facebook page should have a mix of good content and good design. A few of the different types of posts your Facebook page will allow are: text only, photo posts (including text), video posts and embedded links.
4. Of course we want to talk about us, and our brands – who doesn’t – but we’re in a ‘me world’ where people want the content they want, and when they want it. Stay helpful by providing interesting content about what’s going on in the world of your fans, while also staying true to your brand’s strategy.
   There are helpful tools that have apps, such as Post Planner, that will help you find popular photos you can use as inspiration for your content. You can also use this tool to schedule your content – this will help with point 1., and keep you focused on regular content. Make sure you keep in mind Facebook’s guidelines for image sizes so that your content displays well on multiple devices. Images that are 940px by 788px do well on Facebook. Embedded links convert smaller images on mobile devices, so it’s a good idea to add your own 940 by 788 image when you use the Embedded links option. Make sure that when using engaging images and content you may find along the way that you add call to actions, your logo and a way to find you in case your content goes viral. If you add a new cover photo, you can use a bit.ly link that links to your website within the image description. This way when people click on your image and want to know more, they have a way to do so.
5. Remember, most of us are on Facebook to connect with family and friends and see pictures of things we’re interested in. This means for the most part, your branding activities will be disrupting to some degree with your audience. This presents the biggest challenge for business Facebook pages. Many can’t seem to figure out how to not always provide ‘us’ content and provide ‘them’ content. Your page better be fun, edgy, informative, helpful – everything your fans want it to be – or you’ll go nowhere with it.
6. Try and change your Facebook cover image to coincide with any substantial posts, events – or when the look and feel of your website deems it necessary. Using the same image for too long is boring and doesn’t provide reason to visit your page later.

I hope these six steps will help you create a damn good Facebook page for your brand or business.

Have we left anything out? We’re all ears. As always, have fun out there! – Christina