Bonus Facebook Page Management Techniques: The DOs and DON’Ts

Having already shared our list of the DOs and DON’Ts of Managing a Facebook Page for Beginners, we wanted to expand upon the best practices listed to help those who are hoping to get more out of their Page, and move on to more advanced management.

These additional steps should be taken once you’re comfortable with managing your Facebook page. In order to keep a page active and interesting over a long time period, it will take effort. Follow these additional steps to keep your brand in the mind of your fans, or to reach potential new fans.

1. Run Facebook ads targeted by region to increase likes and engagement. Initially, you may be intimidated by Facebook’s advertising options, and that’s fine. There are MANY options available at many different price levels, so some research should be done before conducting advertising.

DO: Create very SPECIFIC ads that are highly targeted to your desired audience. Think about your potential fans, and use Facebook’s ad tools to target only those with interests that are highly related to your brand page.

DON’T: Create one ad and let it run indefinitely. Facebook lets you create multiple ads to test which ones work and which ones don’t. Take advantage of this and run multiple ads simultaneously. This way you’ll be able to eliminate bad ads or re-target your audience demographic.

For more information on advertising on Facebook, visit the Facebook Advertising page. And for more information on the DO’s and DON’Ts of Facebook advertising, download the great resource from Facebook Marketing right here.

2. Run a contest, promotion, or special offer. Finally, to keep your page relevant, interesting, and growing into the future, consider running special promotions for loyal Facebook fans. Promotions can be used to gather lead data and other important statistics to continue to market to your fans effectively. Consider offering a prize that will catch your fans’ attention, or just offer a fun interactive app (such as the poll seen below with Fanpage Toolkit.)

DO: Use outside applications such as those offered by Fanpage Toolkit to enhance your Facebook page, adding advanced functionality. Consider the long-term impact of a promotion on your brand, and think ahead to how you can integrate the promotion again later on. By thinking in the long-term, you avoid the risk of creating a promotion that seems too cheesy or forced on your fans.

DON’T: Leave the promotion hang out to dry. Make sure the promotion is integrated with the rest of your page and brand voice. Don’t let the message sound desperate or totally unrelated to your brand – steer clear of GIMMICKS! But, consider creating ads (as mentioned above) supporting the promotion to make sure the maximum number of Facebook fans see it.

Free promotional tools such as Fanpage Toolkit’s Polls app add great value to a Facebook Page.

3. Target different regions and demographics with your posting. If you’ve managed to build a Fan Page that has a diverse audience, then this tip is for you! Posting content tailored to specific regions can be useful for creating more engaging posts. For example, fans from England might not be interested in the 4th of July promotion you’re offering, but your American fans sure might be! Using this technique, page managers can target specific geographic regions for the post, boosting the chances for engagement and interaction.

DO: Examine your Page Insights! Take a look at where the majority of your fans are located, then if you deem it worthwhile, create separate posts for each demographic. Post at the best time to reach an audience in another region as well, and you might see engagement increase.

DON’T: Ignore this feature if you have international fans! Like we all know, Facebook is everywhere, so make sure the appropriate fans see your posts. Don’t lose sight of your fan base demographics and you’ll earn more engagement.

Target specific fans in different regions with this tool.

4. Fill in Page Milestones and special events. Though this was a highly hyped feature of the new Timeline layout, many Facebook Pages do not take advantage of Milestone events. These events, when filled in, give a Page more character. They can be small events, or huge, historical points in a business’s history, but either way, they add another human element to a Facebook Page. Though it can be debated that users don’t spend enough time surfing business Pages to worry about creating these Milestones, why not have a more complete Page in case they do?

DO: Fill in your Page’s Founding Milestone with a picture and short description. Add anything that makes the brand more personable.

DON’T: Create an event for every small happening with your business. You’ve all seen Pages that “spam” your news feed with updates for upcoming events (usually it’s musicians or bands that do this…) so be careful when creating events or Milestones that you don’t inundate your fans with updates.

Add a Milestone or Event to your page for a more personal touch.

5. Schedule posts for later. When you feel like you’ve got a grasp of what your fans like and how they engage with your brand, this advanced technique might come in handy. For a page manager, it can be useful to schedule posts into the future, as a way to ensure a steady stream of content.

DO: Schedule posts that reflect your brand clearly. The best type of post for scheduling is one that can promote your brand or business with little else supporting it for context. Because you never know what will happen (news, events, disasters) in the future, a scheduled post should be mostly “neutral” and safe content that is universally relevant to your brand.

DON’T: Schedule a post that could be controversial when posted at a later date. Having no control over the future, scheduling a post is a bit risky, so keep an eye on your content schedule and how it relates to other current events. You wouldn’t want a post to go out just as an international disaster or worldwide event occurred, making your business appear insensitive or “out of touch” with the news.

Scheduling can be useful for a busy page manager!

6. Promote individual posts. This is a big one, and we saved it for last. We all know that it’s generally impossible for all of a Page’s fans to see every post update, right? A more advanced page manager will recognize this and set aside a small budget for promoting individual, special posts. Facebook’s tool allows a manager to specify a budget and then it displays the estimated reach that amount of money will “earn” the page. In most cases just $5.00 will be sufficient to increase the reach greatly. We’ve used this feature several times with big posts on Fanpage Toolkit, and every time we’ve seen success. Every promoted post has earned more Likes and Shares than any of our normal posts.

DO: Set aside a budget for promoting posts. Try $10 per week to promote one or two great posts to your fan base.

DON’T: Promote every post. Not only will it become costly quickly, but it may become unwise. After promoting one or two posts a week, your fans will probably have had “enough” of your page. By promoting everything, you run the risk of becoming “spammy” and irritating fans. Avoid stretching both your budget and the patience of your fans, and promote posts sparingly!

Promote only the most important posts to see increased engagement.

Have any more advanced techniques of your own? Are you using any other strategies to manage your business on Facebook? Let us know in the comments, or share with anyone who could benefit!

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Chris Richards

Chris Richards is the Digital Marketing Strategist for Fanpage Toolkit and writes many of the blog posts featured here. You can follow him on Twitter at @seerichards where he Tweets about tech, marketing, and anything else related to start-ups.

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