If you are running your own business and your target market is on Facebook (and that’s pretty much everyone) then at some point you might want to learn how to tame the Facebook beast.

And it can be a beast, so I thought the topic of this blog could be about Facebook, warts and all and have a really, good long look at this platform that is ubiquitous in all of our lives.

Facebook the beast

Facebook has an enormous reach – lots of people have Facebook accounts.  About 4 years ago when I first started teaching people how to use social media, I learnt a fact that if Facebook were a country it would be the 3rd largest country in the world!  I’m sure 4 years later that it’s even bigger.

This means that you as a business owner have the ability to build relationships with your ideal customers. They are there. 60% of the population in the UK has a Facebook account.  That’s a lot.  The most popular age group is 25-34 year olds, but we all know grannies and teenagers on there, so we can pretty confidently say that our customers are there.

And just as a side note to that, there is always a lot of talk about whether young adults are on Facebook – have they deserted to another platform, will we be able to reach them on there?  Well I was running an event with first year degree students about building their own business and all of them mentioned Facebook as a way to communicate with their own age group.  They are there.

So now we know our audience is there, what do we do with them?

Reaching out on Facebook

Facebook can be a beast to manage.  I see posts by people (on Facebook) all the time about how their reach is down, how people don’t see their posts and how Facebook is an utter pain in the arse.

I’m really sorry people, but you’re just not posting things that people want to read!

Facebook has a friends and family rule that in effect protects Facebook users from content that they just don’t want to see. 

And it works like this.  In the old days if I went and liked Hoover as a brand, Facebook would think ‘ah, debbie, she liked hoover, we’ll show her everything hoover posts’. 

But, intrinsically Hoover aren’t very good at Facebook and keep posting up boring posts, and when I come to Facebook to look at what my friends and family are doing – by golly all I can see is damn Hoover posts, hoover this, hoover that. So I start to dislike the experience of Facebook and think about disappearing to another social media platform, like twitter.

Not good for Facebook!

So Facebook made a rule.  You as the business have to be engaging, inspiring and interesting enough to make me like, comment or share your post.  When I do that Facebook can see that I really do like your page and it will start showing me more of your content.

The friends and family rule protects Facebook users, so they see content that they want to see.

Improve your reach and engagement

The bottom line here is that you as the business need to create content that people want to see, at a time they want to see it.

If people don’t engage with your content, Facebook will just stop showing it to people who have liked your page.

So likes really aren’t as important as reach and engagement – because you really want people to see the wonderful posts that you are putting effort into creating.

What can I do?

The first thing is learn.  Learn from what you have done before.  Learn what worked and what didn’t.  Facebook gives us lots of insight into what posts worked.

Have a nosey around your insights – look at past posts.  You may have posted something that you thought was wonderful, but no-one else did.  It was either at a bad time, or your audience just doesn’t like it.

You need to create content that your audience is interested in.

Remember it’s not about you – it’s all about your ideal client!

Next check out your insights to see the days and times that your audience is going to be online and trial a few different posting times.  Take note and see what times and days got the best interaction.  You can schedule posts in advance, so that you don’t need to be at the computer at these times.

Inspire, Educate, Entertain

Facebook is a personal platform, as much as you can move away from dry content and liven it up with stories and personality and you’ll be on the right track.

There’s no one fits all Facebook strategy – it’s all about learning what’s right for your audience.

And so while it might take time and be frustrating, once you’ve learnt where the sweet spot is you will reap the rewards – people are on there and they want to have some fun with you, that’s why they liked your business in the first place – you just need to work out what the fun is!

And if you’re getting terrible results on your Facebook page – the bottom line is you’re just not posting the right content at the right time, so you need to work out what that is.

You can get fantastic organic reach on your page, it happens to me all the time!

And so, of course, because that’s what we’re here for, I’m going to sell to you now. And not in a creepy way, but in a helpful loving way!

I work with fabulous business owners just like you make sense of how the hell you can market your business online, create fabulous content and get customers. If you’d like to invest in yourself and your business and come work with me, then I’d love to hear from you!