Your Facebook Page is often the central hub for your entire social media marketing presence as a small business.
It’s a crucial method of discovery, with users both enthusiastically recommending businesses to their friends, engaging with your content (which their friends can see!), and people finding you through the search bar. Here, potential and existing clients alike can find out key information about your business, including a link to your site, hours of operation, and even a mission statement.
Your Facebook Page, therefore, can be incredibly useful in both reaching new audiences and establishing relationships with current followers. In order to take advantage of these benefits, however, people need to actually be able to find your page.
Knowing how to set up and promote your Facebook Page for your small business is essential, and knowing what NOT to do is just as crucial. In this post we’re going to go over the 7 most common mistakes that you want to avoid when promoting your Facebook business page, and we’ll look at a few things that you will want to do, too.
7 Mistakes to Avoid When Promoting Your Facebook Business Page
1. Using an inconsistent brand voice or displaying inconsistent brand values
Many small businesses neglect the importance of making sure that the appearance of their Facebook Page is in line with their business visions and goals. The Page is a part of their company, and therefore should display the same personality as the business itself.
It’s important to reflect your identity while interacting with your customers on Facebook. Any page can be a little casual but you should always strive to maintain a balance. You don’t want customers to feel you are not taking the business seriously.
The Facebook business page for Under the Canopy is a perfect example. The brand stresses sustainable, organic, eco-friendly living and an affordable price, and all of their posts reflect that. They have a strong ethical position, and they constantly center that in their posts.
2. Staying in your comfort zone
With so many small businesses competing for a space in the News Feed of Facebook users, you might feel like playing it safe is your best option. This, for most businesses, means sticking to one type of content and putting rest of the content strategy on autopilot.
But beyond the danger of making your Facebook page a ghost town, you will find it difficult to capture the attention of your audience if you don’t experiment with different kinds of posts. A successful content strategy should involve a mix of infographics, videos, photos, and other visuals.
Some types of content may go viral, which would greatly boost your organic reach, while others will enable you to ensure that you get consistent engagement, including shares, likes and comments.
Dollar Shave Club is a great example of a business that’s fine-tuned its social presence to be funnier and wittier, and it’s worked in their favor. Their brand voice is distinct, and they’re well-known for their incredible social media campaigns. Instead of a simple “It’s Cyber Monday!” post, for example, they do the following:
The business tries to keep things fresh by mixing it up. As a result they delight their audience and stand out from the crowd.
3. Writing off Facebook ads
When it comes to paying for promotion, many small business owners shy away. Most of them create a Facebook Page to reap benefits free of charge. However, their reach is limited by the number of customers who already searched for the company on Facebook.
You don’t want to limit yourself like this, especially when you can get results with as little as a few dollars per day. Brand awareness is easy to build with the right strategies.
You’ll extend your reach if you consider Facebook Ads. The company has built a powerful platform to assist businesses to extend their customer base and target prospects. You can define audiences based on interest, location, and even their purchasing behavior.
This ad from Prose is a great example. I don’t use Prose. I’m not familiar with the product. But it explains that this made-for-you hair product is so widely loved and that you can get shiny, beautiful hair at 15% off. This is going to attract a large number of customers and drive sales from people who may have never heard of the brand otherwise.
You can target your ads even more strategically by using AdEspresso. We can help you optimize your ad campaigns automatically, including by helping you identify winning creative, so that you get more out of every penny you put into your advertising budget.
4. Being afraid to spend money on tests
Speaking of Facebook Ads, an important part of any paid platform is testing.
The most important step in creating Facebook ads is the testing stage. But as a small business, you may think you don’t have the funds to spend on ad testing.
This is a huge mistake — testing ads actually saves you money by ensuring that you’re not blowing money on ads that don’t work.
Rather than running several different versions of an ad and hoping that one works, you’ll know through testing which version is best. Then you can focus your effort and resources on that successful version. When each ad is more effective, you’ll spend less per ad. It pays to be informed.
Create different versions of ads to test them. You’ll want to test the following factors, but you only want to test one variable at a time or you won’t know what’s driving performance in each campaign.
- Image – Choose images and videos that project different messages or appeal to human psychology in different ways. This includes testing different ad formats, including single image or carousel ads.
- Audience – Popular audiences may be more costly to target but will bring in more conversions, while less popular audiences are cheaper to target but each ad will cost more per impression. Testing will let you know which is the lesser of two evils.
- Relevance Score – These Facebook evaluations of ads are based on several factors including conversions and click-through rates. Ads with higher relevance scores typically cost less per click.
- Copy Text – Try different phrasing, varying the length of the copy, and adding a call to action to see what message really resonates.
Take heed and get to testing to make sure you’re getting the most bang for your buck on your ads.
5. Skimping on external tools
Small businesses mostly rely on ‘what is available on Facebook,’ which limits the features they can use to optimize their campaigns. There are several tools from third-party companies that integrate with Facebook to offer out-of-the-box features that make managing and promoting your page a breeze, or that can help you create higher-quality content that will better engage your target audience.
Consider which tools will work best for you:
- Hootsuite: Helps you to manage different social media pages alongside your Facebook business page and schedule posts when the social media department is on a retreat.
- AdEspresso: Allows you to run a large number of campaigns and automatically split test and optimize them for increased performance
- ShortStack: Allows you to convert standard social media contests into powerful lead generation and promotion opportunities with contest “landing pages”
- Snappa: Comes with a large library of free-for-commercial-use stock photos, along with drag-and-drop design tools to improve the quality of your on-platform graphics
6. Acting unapproachable
People like to interact with what others post on Facebook because they can show their approval, express their opinions, and reaffirm things about themselves.
Create opportunities for your Facebook followers to interact with your page by opening contests, calling for submissions, featuring photos of customers, and replying to Facebook users’ questions. Personal interactions with customers fosters trust in your brand and rewards Facebook users for paying attention to your page.
Fenty is a great example of an accessible, approachable, relatable brand. It sounds like one of their customers writes most of their posts, which feature great memes and the building up of other women with some makeup tips tossed in. The brand doesn’t seem to take itself too seriously, making it more relatable.
Another way to connect with your customers is by having a conversation. The psychological need for validation can be satisfied on Facebook simply by showing your customers that you will respond to their comments. The below example from Tieks is fantastic; a user comments with information about their daughter’s birthday, and the company made sure to respond to wish her a happy upcoming birthday, even mentioning the specific day. This a small moment that can lead to significant relationship- and rapport-building.
8. Lacking consistency in posting
No matter how much work you’ve put into creating the perfect page, if you don’t post frequently enough people will lose interest and move on. Avoid this by creating a posting schedule specific to your product and audience.
When creating a posting schedule, consider both frequency and time of day. The ideal posting frequency will vary from business to business, but we recommend posting 3-5 times per week for most businesses. Post too infrequently and you’ll lose Facebook users’ attention. Post too much and you’ll risk annoying them away.
It can be trickier to optimize the time of day for your posts, but there are tools that can take the pain out of the process. Hootsuite allows you to set up an entire content calendar all at once for your social media channels, setting posts for the exact moment that you want them to go live. This can help you avoid forgetting to post just when things get busy, which is particularly helpful during busy holiday seasons.
This foresight will ensure that your work gets seen and has every opportunity to make the impact you want without the burden of thinking about posting every day. You can set aside time each week to queue posts for the next several days — and if you want to add in something specific or topical for one day, it’s easy to add it into the queue wherever you want.
Your posts can stay on a schedule while being flexible to reflect your company’s day-to-day evolutions.
3 Must-Do Tips for Creating a Business Facebook Page
Looking for a few more proactive ways you can go about creating a business Facebook Page that can promote your brand well? These three essential tips will be crucial.
Fill out your profile completely
When you’re looking into how to create a Facebook Page for business, this is the most important thing that you can do: Fill out your profile in its entirety.
This sounds like a small or obvious note, but so many brands don’t take advantage of every field available to them.
Filling out your profile completely includes the following:
- Adding in all relevant contact and location information, including a website address
- Enabling features that allow users to leave reviews or send messages
- Adding a company description, a mission statement, and both a profile picture and a cover photo
Watch your analytics
You want to watch your Page’s analytics, especially once the Page is created and you’re working on how to promote your business on the platform.
Facebook has native analytics called “Insights” for all business Pages, which can be accessed from the Page itself for admins. You can see what actions like clicks and messages have been taken within a set period, along with how many times your Page was viewed, how many likes it received, your post engagements, your recommendations, and your post reach. You can also keep an eye on your responsiveness score (which should be as high as it possibly can be).
Third-party analytics tools like Hootsuite often offer more comprehensive data than the native insights, as well as and enhanced reports.
Consider what search terms people will use to find your page
An increasing number of users are taking advantage of Facebook’s native search engine. People like being able to see brands that their friends or peers have vouched for, and they’ll look for those highly-recommended brands.
In order to show up in search, you want to collect as many on-platform positive reviews as you possibly can. We talk about this here. You’ll also want to take search terms into consideration.
Think about what keywords users are going to be typing into that search bar, and include them in your brand description if at all possible. You can learn more about this here.
Final thoughts on Facebook business pages
Knowing how to promote your Facebook Page comes down to knowing how to set it up for success and knowing which strategies you should and shouldn’t use. Watch out for these 7 common mistakes that can sabotage your best efforts when it comes to promoting your Facebook Business Page, and be proactive about the steps you take to promote it more effectively. The effort is always worth it, especially as users consistently stay engaged with brands they love on the platform.
What do you think? Have you ever made any of these 7 common mistakes that can impact how you promote your small business’s Facebook Page? Which of our best practices do you use? Share your thoughts and questions in the comments below!
I would like to know what should be the frequency of posting to get better results? Is one post per week enough for small businesses social media pages?
Hey Ayman I think one per week is too low. It’s very important to stay consistent and post with a regular schedule. Start with one per week but aim to reach at least 3 times per week using a mix of your own content and curated content that can be useful for your audience
I’ve tried advertising. But i couldnt get the right deal. How do i get on track
Social media is very different platform to promote your small business. Sharing a content or URL in Facebook is not generate more likes comments try to add some creative things on your Facebook Page. Thanks for Sharing.
Thanks for that feedback! You’re way more savvy on these things than most people. I guess it’s hard to separate hype from fact. I just thought I was way under-utilizing Facebook, since I do NOT use it for business promotion.
What do you use to promote your business? Agora Pulse? Ad Espresso? A Blog? Article writing? Just curious.
Enjoy your evening.
Yes there was a time when promoting a small business on Facebook was relevant. That shipped has sailed. Other than the backlink its a exercise in futility. my post don’t even show up on the folks that like and have interest in the page. Even if I pay them it only shows up to a fraction of them. Facebook has failed miserably at creating an advertising venue for small businesses and all the hype out there about how important it is to seo is complete bs. Its a social communication venue and that’s all it is. It doesn’t even scape the open graph info for a post regarding my website on my personal page anymore. Its a useless information gathering site for the NSA and that’s where they get their income, not from advertisers. Its a racket and a scam.
Sorry Tim but I don’t agree with anything you wrote in your comment, I understand the frustration… some channels may not work for you but calling them a scam or other BS you wrote does not make any sense. Not working for you? Can happen. Move over and try something different. It does not mean that it’s not working for everyone else.
Do you want to reach 100% of your fans for free ? You’d reach 0 users. Simply because if Facebook would start showing all the stuff every page publish, all its users would leave within few months. People likes way too many pages but that does not means they want to see all their posts. And Facebook Algorithm is pretty smart in understanding what they really want to see.
Organic reach decreasing is not about advertising money. It’s about User Experience.
That said there are 2.5 million advertisers on Facebook. Either as you suggest, they’re all stupid or, more likely they get results and positive ROI from Facebook Advertising 🙂
So i am currently trying to promote the business in which i work for, however i don’t want to go over the top, i work for a Jewellery shop, and its okay posting various different pictures of various different items, however i want to connect with people on a personal basis rather than just promoting whats in the windows, if that makes sense.
Any help?, Thank you in advance 🙂
Ad campaigns on fb I found to be incredibly user friendly, straight forward, cheap, and highly effective! The number of estimated likes has been pretty much spot on with the last two campaigns I’ve done. And being able to pay what you want is great too.
Thanks for laying out these 8 mistakes and providing good examples! I enjoyed Everlane’s event coverage – what a great way to involve all the attendees once again. Posting engaging content and always interacting is really important on social media.
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Our experience using Facebook advertising is that engagement is very low. This seems to be a common complaint that may be driven by intent mismatch (although this is probably somewhat subjective.)
Fundamentally, most people who are on Facebook are looking for idle entertainment or interacting with family and friends. They aren’t in a shopping mode so product or services ads are likely to have lower engagement whereas interesting content should get higher engagement (but can be harder to monetize.)
We are trying a different approach with Kahuti, offering an experience somewhat like a hybrid of Nextdoor, Angie’s List, Groupon and a sort of digital farmer’s market but targeted to a hyper-local audience where everything members see is happening within 25 miles of their location.
Hi I have a small business that has to create a new customer every day. I don’t get repeated customers . Is there a strategy for this type of business
Regards Paul
hi everyone:-)
my name is sagar sunar.from Nepal..
I am 22 years old.I am operating family furniture by the age of 18.but the point is that am planning for other business too.its small cafe.This is my first time.None of my family have run such business before.so am trying.its preety considerable.So I Am hopping for best suggestion.hey.Mr.Massimo I hope you have better sugesstion that am looking for so make me happy.
I had recently under running my cafe…I am little bit frustrate.is their somebody who can help me…
Bring me into happiness:-) 🙂 🙂
This is very helpful. Thank you!
Hello, I am currently thinking of opening up my Facebook page for a small business but also am thinking of having a couple of images of both local and corporate companies on my feed and maybe even my cover image… anyone know the legality of that? I am not going to use them to show that I am an owner or anything like that but to show that items from those stores are available through my business.
Hello! I own a small kids clothing store in Greece at a small touristic area where all the stores sell touristic clothes and products whilst my products are from Greek companies and have much better quality and much lower prices than the local shops..I am trying to tell that to the world but maybe I shouldn’t??? I am trying to make this work so i can attract more people.. It is a new shop and I have made a facebook page and also an ad (local awareness one) running for the past 2-3 months..The thing is that the relevance score is 2,something and I don’t get link clicks although I keep trying to find the best ad form to manage more page visits and of course more customers..I was thinking of making a new ad (reach) disabling the previous one (local awareness)..Would that be wise or will I have no result? Thanks in advance!
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Great tips. I would definitely apply your marketing approach in our facebook page. Adespresso is so helpful. Thanks!
For making a brand it is right way to use social media but we don’t know proper way to promote a brand on social sites. thanks for sharing this useful article.
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Thank you for mistakes review. It is really important to do all right when promoting your business.
Thank you for writing on these small mistakes. I am glad I found this and learnt how to promote my business Facebook page correctly. Thanks again!
I you don’t have a budget it is best to start with Instagram and maybe Snapchat. Get some sales going and then do PPC via google or facebook. That would be the most effective way.
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Hey, Tate,
Excellent stuff!!
You have mentioned all these real points that people really avoid to do. Also, not writing a good piece of informative content, giving detailed contact information, not responding people answers are really bad things and those effects our business. Thanks a lot for this great piece of content and wish you a happy weekend.
Really insightful blog post, the first thing I would recommend to do is make sure the page is fully optimised and everything is filled out completely. The biggest mistake people make is focusing on Fan count. It’s not difficult to grow your fans, but it’s much more difficult to build an engaged community. Marketers often forget that you actually have to engage with your fans and respond fans – make sure you do reply people when they have questions
Great article. I made many of these mistakes. You taught me to invest in outside – of Facebook – tools to promote my page. Thanks for introducing me to Agropulse. I signed up and looking forward to using it in the new year 2018.
Posting irrelevanties. Things that are absolutely way out of your business kind is also another way to upset the already gotten audience.
Try posting eye-catching contents. Even though they’re bulky, let it be interesting and of your business schedules
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Point # 2: Showing inconsistency in company culture rings loud and true. This is important for more than one reason.. ranking factor for niche relevance, and helping the FB algorithm to decide who to serve you content to (in the paid ad approach), as well as just keeping your “subscribers” with fresh material that meets their expectations.
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Facebook does not give any ROI nowadays, therefore, companies in b2b find it difficult to invest in Facebook marketing!
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