Christopher Ratcliff’s article “How Small Businesses Can Make the Most of Facebook” is a great resource for small businesses looking to establish their presence on the social media giant, Facebook. He begins his article with statistics that show how large and influential the site has become before offering plenty of practical tips small business owners can use to get the most out of it.
Facebook’s statistics are impressive. According to Ratcliff’s article, more than 1.19 billion people from all over the globe use Facebook, making the site the most well-known and widely used of all the social media platforms. Every day, 728 million people log on to the site, 4.5 billion likes are generated and 4.75 billion pieces of content are shared. These statistics make it clear that businesses that use Facebook have the potential to reach an extremely large and diverse audience.
Ratcliff goes on to explain that simply creating a Facebook account and adding a little content is not enough to create real interaction on the site. When, as a general rule, only one percent of followers engage with the website with actions such as liking, commenting and sharing, businesses have to work hard to build up their online community. He then goes on to give several practical steps for how small businesses can do so.
General Advice
Ratcliff recommends that companies set their profile pictures to their brand logo. He also encourages companies to add prominent links that allow users to contact their company, visit their website and visit their other social media accounts.
What to Post
Facebook users will not interact with just any content; companies need to make sure they are sharing the right content if they want their followers to engage. Ratcliff advises companies to make sure their content is quality, valuable and relevant. He recommends that companies should share a variety of types of content, instead of just sharing promotional information, and that companies should share others’ content as well.
Ratcliff also encourages companies to ask interesting questions that encourage people to respond, to add photos that encourage people to share and to use competitions, promotions and sneak-peeks to foster fan excitement. He also makes that point that companies should vary their information across their social media platforms, or else followers will not have a reason to follow them on multiple sites.
When to Post
Quality content is only valuable if people see it. Therefore, Ratcliff continues on to share a few statistics about content timing. According to Ratcliff, Facebook has the most traffic between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m., and engagement is highest on Thursdays and Fridays. Weekends are generally the slowest time for company posting, a fact that companies may want to use to their advantage.
Traffic will vary, however, depending on the audience, so companies should get to know their particular audience in order to determine how to be the most successful with them. Monitoring Facebook Insights and interacting with followers on the company Facebook page are two great ways for companies to get to know their followers and determine what exactly will work best for them.
Related articles
- How small businesses can make the most of Facebook (econsultancy.com)
- Tips on how to deal with an upset customer in a hotel (hmghotelsblog.com)
- Content Amplification Essentials (business2community.com)
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