In this report, you’re going to find out:

• Why it’s beneficial for your business to have a presence on Facebook
• Recent changes to Facebook pages
• How to best get your message out to customers

Why Facebook?

I’m not going to bore you with statistics on how HUGE Facebook is, how FAST Facebook is growing or HOW MANY businesses already use Facebook.

As a retail business owner, you probably already know that Facebook is BIG, and you may be wondering if you need to jump on board.

Well yes, indeed, you do need to jump on board. Here are 7 reasons why your business needs a Facebook page:

1. A Facebook Page Can Be More Effective Than A Website.

Most Facebook users use Facebook AT LEAST once per day. This means that most of YOUR “fans” (customers) will be using Facebook at least once per day.

And more than likely, your customers don’t visit your website daily.

When you have a working Facebook page for your business, your fans/customers will automatically see anything you post to your page every time they jump on Facebook.

New products, specials, new services, new menu, new range, events, photos, new staff, new entertainment etc…Anything that you want your customers to know!

With a Facebook Page, you will maintain an interactive online presence and keep your business in the forefront of your customers’ minds.

2. Your Customers Want To Connect With You Through Facebook. Yes They Do!

If your customers love your brand/service/business/product, then they will want to be associated with you and they will want to tell the world.

Not everyone is into wearing a t-shirt advertising their favorite brand/service/product/business but most people WILL “Like” your brand/product/service/business on Facebook.

A quick click of a “Like” button will get them connected with you on Facebook and soon you will be sharing everything great about your business, and seeing all the fabulous feedback your customers have for you.

3. Google Loves Facebook

Many businesses want their website to be on the front page of Google for particular keyword searches and consequently spend copious amounts of money on targeted Search Engine Optimization (SEO) campaigns or Ad Words advertising.

BUT, because a Facebook Page is a public page on Facebook (unlike a personal profile which is private), and pages are updated with fresh, new content/posts (another winner in Google’s eyes), Google will rank your Facebook page very highly for free! Facebook can then drive serious traffic to your website/blog etc.

It’s a win-win!

4. Word of Mouth and Viral Marketing at Its Best…

When you post interesting updates (news, events, photos, products etc.) on your Facebook page, this will show in your fans’ newsfeed’s, and your fans will have the opportunity to “Like” a post by clicking a “Like” button.

When they do, this will appear in their friend’s news feeds, and their friends will see the link to your post.

If you have 100 fans, and they each have 100 Facebook friends, this will mean that 10,000 people will potentially see the link to your post that your fans liked.

Think about this for a moment…10,000 opportunities for new customers/fans per post? Amazing, right?

5. Facebook Places, Check-ins And Deals for Your Establishment

This is a very exciting topic. Here are just the main points and hopefully you will get the idea and then you can look into it further…

If you have a physical business (a business where your customers literally walk through your doors) then Facebook allows your customers to “Check-in” to your business on their mobile phone through “Places”.

When they do, their Facebook friends will see that they have visited your business in the newsfeed.

Again, this creates more free viral marketing for you. More than likely, your customers have already “Checked-in” to your business on Facebook.

These are customers who want their friends to know where they are. They want to tell the world about how cool they are because they are at your establishment.

They can take pictures under the Check-in.

They can “tag” their friends under the Check-In (more free viral marketing), and they can write about how wonderful your establishment is under the Check-In.

I cringe when I check-in to an establishment on my phone, see that hundreds of people have also checked-in, yet the business is not running a working Facebook page attached to the Check-in.

These are people who WANT TO connect with you!

Now on top of Check-In, Facebook has recently launched “Deals”.

It’s not available to all businesses yet (they are in the testing stage), but soon “Deals” will be available to all local businesses who have a working Facebook Page.

You can create special deals such as…

• An Individual Deal: “Get 20% off your Coffee: Check-In to claim”
• A Loyalty Deal: “Check-In on 5 different days and receive a free Muffin on your 5th Check-In “
• Friend Deal: “1 Free movie ticket. Check-In and tag 5 friends to claim”
• Charity Deal: “We will donate 10 cents per Check-In to ‘XYZ Charity’. Check-In and help save XYZ!”

Facebook mobile users will also be able to search on their phones for local businesses who are offering deals. This will be BIG.

6. Survey Your Customers and Create More Loyalty

Through a tool called “Questions”, you can ask your customers anything! Show your customers you value their opinion. They will love you for it.

“What are your top 3 favorite dishes?”… “We are thinking of painting our feature wall. Green or Blue?”… “What do you think of our latest product?”…

“Is Saturday or Sunday a better day for Event ZYX?”…”What do you think of our new staff uniforms?”

7. Promote Your Events and Invite Your Fans

Facebook has an amazing event invitation tool where you can create an event for anything in your business.

You create an event, invite your fans, and receive RSVP’s to gauge attendance numbers.

Once your event has been created, you will be able to update and message your fans, post photos and videos on the event wall, and respond to any posts your fans write.

Events on Facebook are an extremely effective way to a) let your customers know about them and b) invite them to your events.

Timeline Pages

On March 30, 2012, all Facebook pages were converted to the new Timeline format.

This was a significant change and whether you love them or hate them, they’re here to stay.

Cover image replaces default landing tab

One of the biggest feature changes that many businesses are upset about is the removal of a default landing tab.

That is, where you can create a custom landing page for non-fans using an iFrame app, and add rich media, an opt-in box and/or a compelling reason to join your fan page.

In addition, many businesses made use of the “like-gating” or “fan-gating” feature on these default custom landing tabs where you could entice your fans to click the Like button and then reward them with a special benefit such as a coupon code, or unique content just for fans.

The good news is you can still have custom tabs, plus the like-gating element still functions. You just can’t set a default landing tab.

However, each of your apps still has its own unique URL.

That means you can drive traffic to any “landing” page you wish – from within Facebook via ads, your profile and other places as appropriate; and from outside Facebook on your website/blog, other social profiles, tweets, email campaigns, email signature files, and so forth.

With the new Timeline design, you’ll notice the generously large cover image at the top of your page.

You may find that you care less and less about a default landing tab with this piece of prime real estate that is always visible to fans and non-fans as they land on your page.

The dimensions are 851 pixels wide by 315 pixels high. It’s a wonderful place to showcase photographs and graphics pertaining to your brand/business.

Personally, I’m very excited about the cover image!

The possibilities are endless… even with the tight rules around what content cannot be placed on cover images (see key point #4 below).

Milestones

You can go back in time to add business milestones on your Timeline.

When you do, these will post at the right date, and go out into the news feed of your fans and create more visibility and engagement.

The full extent of the actual timeline element of the Timeline design is geared toward what Facebook calls “Legacy Brands” – those brands with historical data spanning decades that they’d like to feature.

Interest Lists

Encourage your fans and visitors to add you to an Interest List; let them know which topic is best, e.g. my Page would be best added to a list called Facebook Tips, or Facebook Marketing, or Social Media Marketing. (Interest Lists are brand new as of March 8th).

Wall Filters

Page walls now have four filters: Highlights, Posts by Page, Posts by Others, and Friend Activity. There is no way to set the wall to be posts by everyone.

The default is always Highlights. In your page settings (Admin Panel > Manage > Edit Page > Manage Permissions), you can choose to not let anyone write on your wall, or to not display Posts by others.

However, it is recommended that you leave the settings on to allow everyone to write on your wall, everyone can add photos and videos, and show the box for Recent Posts by Others.

Pin Posts

Any post made by the Page can be pinned the top of the wall for up to 7 days.

I suggest rotating which posts are pinned and not letting any post sit there for longer than 1-2 days.

You never know how many repeat visitors are coming to your Page and you want to keep it fresh for them.

Highlight Posts

Page admins can choose to display any post made by the Page or by others as ‘double wide’ – meaning the post spreads across both columns of the Timeline.

Hover over a post and click the star icon to highlight.

Messages

Fans and visitors can now private Message fan admins – you can turn this feature off in your settings but it might be a good idea to leave it on to encourage connection from prospects!

You cannot initiate messages as your page; you can only communicate via Messages when someone contacts you first.

The one drawback of yet another method of communication is that you may need to add more community managers to deal with the increase in emails.

You’d be surprised at how many people start to contact you via your page!

Images

The one good thing about the new Timeline format is that Facebook now gives you a large amount of real estate on your Facebook page through the use of images.

Here are the four major images that you can utilize with your page to use for your marketing advantage.

Cover Image

The dimensions for the large cover image are 851 x 315 pixels. If you upload an image that’s smaller than these dimensions, it will get stretched to this larger size.

The image you upload must be at least 399 pixels wide. Facebook encourages you to change your cover image as often as you wish.

Newsflash: each time you change your cover image; this posts on to your wall and goes out into the news feed of your fans.

You may find the activity itself doesn’t get great Edgerank (visibility score in the news feed).

So, what you can do is hide the activity on your wall, then share the new cover image with a call to action in the textual area, e.g. We’re celebrating 10,000 fans today and just changed our cover image in honor of all of You!

Click like if you like! (To be clear, that message does *not* go ON your cover image itself. You’re posting your cover image on your wall with the message as a description.)

Profile Picture

Your profile picture is always a square and is displayed at 125 x 125 pixels or 150 x 150 pixels, depending on the size of someone’s screen.

The photo you upload must be at least 180 x 180 pixels. Facebook discourage page owners from changing their profile picture that often.

This is the primary, instantly-recognizable image that tracks you throughout Facebook wherever your posts go and wherever you comment as your Page.

Custom thumbnail

You can add a custom thumbnail image to all your apps. The dimensions are 111 x 74 pixels.

These are great areas to get creative and add seamless branding, calls to action, and specials.

To add/change a custom thumbnail, first expand all apps by clicking the small down arrow to the right of the four app display.

Then hover over any app > click the edit pencil > click Edit Settings > click Change next to Custom Tab Image (opens in a new window) > click Change > upload an image.

Voila. The image loads and saves right away. (I have noticed bugs with this feature and have often seen other pages’ thumbnails appear… you may need to upload a couple of times to get your image to stick!).

Image Rules

Do not put contact info, calls to action, or arrows pointing to the Like or Share button on your cover image. Contact info should go in your about section.

The no calls to action rule is likely because Facebook has been very generous with this large piece of real estate … however, the company does not want us to run hog wild with all manner of promotions and campaigns… for free!

Those come at a price and are called Facebook ads! And the new Premium Ads and Reach Generator.

And, the most exciting one: Offers (It’s actually free to set up, though currently only available to large brands).

EdgeRank

If you’ve ever wondered why some friends’ posts or pages posts show up more frequently in your Facebook news feed than others, you have EdgeRank to thank for that.

EdgeRank is the algorithm Facebook uses to determine what content is displayed in a user’s news feed and is broken down into three scoring factors.

Affinity

Affinity relates to the actions that a user makes on a post.

The more actions you make to a friend’s account, like sending messages or visiting profiles, the higher the affinity score will be.

On the other hand, you do not gain any affinity score from them when you visit or send them a message unless they also view your profile and/or do other activities within your account.

What do affinity scores do? Users with high affinity points have greater chances to appear in your News Feed than those who have lower scores.

Weight

Posts, shares, likes, comments, etc. all have a different weight assigned to them. The more interaction that a user does with a post, the higher the weight score.

For example, leaving a comment has a higher weight than simply liking a post because the user had to take the time to write a comment instead of just clicking the “Like” button.

Time

The time scoring factor relates to how recent the last time of interaction was with a particular friend or page.

The more recent the interaction, the higher the time score will be.

In order to be displayed in more people’s news feed, your EdgeRank score needs to be high by maximizing all of the scoring factors.

Posting Tips

Engagement is the key to boosting your EdgeRank Score.

Here are 7 tips you can use to get your fans to engage with your page and posts more often, which will in turn increase your edge rank score.

1. Ask questions that start with “Do You Agree or Disagree w/ XYZ….”
2. Grab your fan’s attention by starting your update with, “Breaking News!……”
3. Give a call to action by asking for the “like” or the “share” and if you want to really make this work add an eye popping picture that taps into your fan’s emotions.
4. Set a daily schedule so your fans will know what to expect each day for example: tool of the day, blog post of the week, fan of the week, marketing tool talk, picture of the day, inspiration of the day, deal of the day, etc….
5. Fill in the blank questions always work great.
6. Ask a trivia question.
7. Enlist your fans to solve problems. People love to shine and if they can answer a problem they will certainly be more inclined to share their response.

Posting Times

During testing by a lot of marketers/marketing firms out there, they’ve been able to lock down what the best times to post updates on our wall are.

Although this varies a bit, here are the findings:

Local market: Post around 7AM (first glance at Facebook), 11:30AM (right before lunch), 2PM (right after lunch), as well as right around 7PM (home, relaxing, chilling out).

It’s important to understand what your audience is probably doing anytime you post something or make an offer.

National campaigns: Best posting times are around 7AM EST, 11AM EST, and 7PM EST.

Thank you for taking the time to learn some new ideas on how to best utilize Facebook for your business.