Whether you love it or hate it, Facebook is here to stay, and it is the way small businesses can best interact with their customers. So if you are a small business or local business owner and managing your social media account has you feeling frustrated and like it’s not serving your best interest, make sure you are implementing these best practices to help you with your content marketing mission.

1. the almighty algorithm: Facebook wants you to enjoy your time on their platform and since everyone has an account, you could easily be overwhelmed with content that is being produced at a rapid pace if you weren’t constantly being assessed by Facebook’s robots to determine your current interests and enjoyments. Facebook’s algorithm isn’t a bad thing. It’s meant to show you more of what you truly like to see. Where it can run into problems is skewing your interpretation of the world around you by only showing you one side of the story, or by not showing you the story at all. The algorithm can be modified for users by clicking the “See First” button for your favorite pages, engaging with only the pages you truly like to see, or unfollowing those pages you no longer enjoy. For business admins, you can enhance the algorithm for your needs by being consistent with your posts, being timely with your audience engagements and comments, and using your ads and insights to best serve the information your audience wants to see.
2. batch producing content: this is another, longer lesson in content planning down the road, but I can’t stress enough that batch producing will lead to enhanced creativity and decreased frustrations for your social media manager…aka you. By producing and scheduling your content one day/week, you will find that you are less frustrated by the process of content marketing. Rather than posting haphazardly day by day, if you can map out your goals and posts, you’ll be able to schedule them at times when your audience is most likely to be online and therefore see your content. Also, by scheduling in advance, you’ll be able to create previews of your offers and major posts to build excitement amongst your followers and generate interest around your Page.
3. check your insights: use the information you find there to guide your future decisions. Check the average time watched for your videos, look at the analytics of your followers so you can craft material they are uniquely interested in, find your Page’s busiest days and times so you can post when your people will be online. Knowledge is power, my friends!
4. reflect, reflect, reflect: don’t sell yourself short and quit two weeks in. Content marketing is a marathon, not a sprint. If people aren’t engaging: try new things! Make sure you are engaging too by responding to comments, liking other business’ posts, tagging other people and businesses (in a non-spammy way) and in general, being social.

Want more???

Watch the MKM Live Tutorial for Facebook 101 here: www.facebook.com/mollyknuthmedia

And download the Show Notes below: