Social Media 101: A Quick Guide to Facebook

When marketing your company, it’s important to reach consumers using the most relevant and appropriate channels. As a business in the digital sector, this means you’ll want to leverage social media to communicate with potential and current customers. However, using the right platforms to send the right messages isn’t always as easy as it seems. It’s important to take a comprehensive look at the social media channels available to your business and develop a social media strategy that plays to each of their strengths.

One of the main social media channels you may want to use is Facebook. Almost everyone has a personal Facebook account, but using Facebook to share information about your business looks a little different. Although the general mechanics are the same, operating a business account on Facebook gives you access to certain features that help you send the right messages to the right people.

What is it?

With nearly 2 billion active users worldwide, Facebook is a true “social network”—a hub for storytelling and community building. Users on Facebook have the opportunity to connect with each other by sharing text, photos, videos, links and other files. Businesses can use these tools to connect with consumers who “like” their Facebook business page and encourage direct communication between the user and your company and between users themselves.

Using a “feed” setup, Facebook allows you to share a stream of content. On a user’s home page, posts are shared according to what the Facebook algorithm thinks is most relevant to them. On your business page, your posts will show up chronologically, from newest to oldest.

Facebook is the perfect place to show customers what you’re about and what you have to offer. Content on Facebook is largely informative or entertaining and is targeted to the average consumer—not necessarily other businesses.

Features

Facebook has a wide range of features available to business accounts, allowing you to do everything from share a captioned photo to answer a customer’s question in a private message. Here are some of the major features that companies should consider using on Facebook:

• Pages: Rather than a personal profile, companies create a business page that users can like and follow. A business page acts much like a profile. You can set a profile picture and share posts and other content, but your page also has special features that allow you to provide additional information about your business. Each page has an “About” tab where you can provide info about what your business does, products and services you offer and how to contact you. Your business page also has options to share events, offers, reviews and posts from users who like your page.
• Feed: The feed on your company’s business page is a chronological culmination of everything your page has posted or shared. Text posts, photos, videos, links and more show up on this feed, and users can scroll through your previous posts—all the way back to when the page was created! The things you post on this feed also have a chance to show up in the main Facebook feed of people who have liked and followed your business page. Users can like, comment on and share your posts, offering tons of opportunities for engagement.
• Messenger: Using Facebook’s built-in messaging application, customers can message your business to ask questions. A representative from your business can respond directly to the customer in real time and provide support in a live chat, rather than via email or telephone. This service can be extremely useful for your business if your customers tend to have simple questions or require tech support.
• Ads: Facebook has a robust advertising platform that allows businesses to share ads to users who may not be following their business pages. These ads can come in many forms, from text to photo to video, and they often look like an organic post in the user’s Facebook feed. Businesses can benefit tremendously from Facebook ads because the platform offers many targeting options based on user profile information, so you can home in on a specific audience.

Sending the right message

Facebook is largely known for feeling friendly and casual. It’s a place where businesses can be funny, conversational and informative. Of course, your business will want to remain professional, but you should use an approachable tone when sharing information on your page.

Facebook is often used for sharing company or industry news and related content. Your company can share links to external sources like media sites or your blog; photos and videos that showcase new service offerings and teach people about your brand; or text posts that inform people about changes or updates that might affect them.

Video is one of the most popular forms of media on Facebook, driving some of the highest engagement. Facebook is the perfect place to share video advertisements or other short, informative clips to catch users’ eyes.

Thanks to comments and direct replies, Facebook posts are also great ways to start conversations between your customers. Ask questions in your posts to start discussions. These types of posts get people talking, which boosts your engagement and provides some free insight into your customers’ wants and needs!

Overall, Facebook is a wonderful place to build a community of your customers and provide them with relevant news and engaging content. Try to change up the content you post to your business page to keep users coming back and leverage Facebook’s many tools to build connections between your customers and your brand.