Facebook is an entity with many followers, lovers, addicts and deniers.
The irony of it all is that they're all ON Facebook.
We all know someone who claims to dislike Facebook or "I barely use Facebook" and you see them posting, 'like-ing' and using Facebook more than most! But that is the nature of the beast, the social king, the book of faces.
I recently went to a talk by Nick Bowditch, the Small Business Manager for Facebook Australia.
I really wanted to share some of the little gems he shared with us on that morning about building brand awareness and best utilising Facebook to grow your business following.
Images are everything (The irony here is that you can't see images within this article!) You can't deny that a picture truly does paint a thousand words.
Facebook values your images highly hence their Timeline cover facelift and their move to purchase Instagram.
They know that images get many more likes than simple text status updates and are very strict on what you can promote in advertising and promotions.
Remember, the image can not be taken up by any more than 20% text.
If so, you can post it on your timeline, but it won't be promoted to friends of friends.
Facebook &/or Pinterest Facebook don't intend to 'compete' with Pinterest but at the same time, they don't plan to go out of their way to combine forces with them either.
For example, there is no easy way to incorporate your Facebook and Pinterest business pages except for using third party plugins like woobox.
com.
They are both extremely useful tools in their own right.
Women are your target Regardless of your business, it is likely that your target is going to be women.
Why? Well, women and gossiping are synonymous and that is what Facebook is all about - despite the fact that it was developed by a man.
Timing is paramount Paint a picture of your perfect client or customer.
E.
g.
Mother of three above 5 years, working part time, loves outdoor activities and cooking.
If you do all your posting after 11pm, it is highly unlikely that your target market is going to see your post.
Post at the same time your target is online.
Get into the shoes of your target and be them for a day.
The rich get richer Another point he shared with us was that the more shares/likes you receive, the more your posts will be displayed in your subscribers news feeds.
If you begin to receive less likes/shares, your messages will be displayed less.
This is where I panicked and put my hand up.
"What happens if you don't post at all?" Nick assured me and the rest of the room that your display level will never dwindle to nothing unless everyone blocks you of course! They will always give you the benefit of the doubt so continually review and assess your posts so that you are delivering only goodness in your newsfeed to your followers.

"Mark (Zuckerburg's) goal is for your Facebook Newsfeed to be the only news you'll ever need read"

So, they only want to show you stuff you're likely to 'like'.
Be obvious Images with a call-to-action get 80% more clicks! So if you actually ask your followers to 'like' or 'share', they will.
Promote The paid promotions you are able to do with Facebook was their solution to the mobile market.
More and more users are mobile and Facebook had not thought of a way to incorporate advertising on mobile devices.
Paid promotions became their solution.
Perfect I say.
How it works is that you take a post which has already received many likes/shares - preferably one with a higher conversion that your other posts.
Take this and promote it using the 'Boost Post' button.
You can state your price $5 and above and you can target according the gender, location and age of your intended audience.
Your post will then be promoted to all of your 'friends-friends' or 'subscribers-friends' who like your post.
A brilliant concept.
Once you begin to truly connect with your audience and engage, you will begin to grow a network of followers...
not just subscribers.
To your continued success...