Finally, Some Excellent Facebook Advice for Marketers!

If your company hasn’t yet established its presence on Facebook, take a look at these statistics from Deluxe Rev:

• Users average 15.5 hours on Facebook each month.
• On average, users visit Facebook 40 times per month.
• 50% of users log on to Facebook on any given day.

With Facebook popularity on the rise, it is time to get started! If you aren’t quite sure what to do first, you’ll find plenty of advice out there for the taking. We just found an excellent resource we recommend you download first, Deluxe Rev’s new ebook, “REV Up Your Facebook Marketing: A Guide for Small Businesses.”

Filled with statistics and how-to advice, this is THE Facebook marketing guide to get you going quickly. It includes practical tips like:

• Don’t worry about your Facebook page being perfect — it is more important to get started. Remember Facebook changes often and so will your page.

• If you have more than one administrator for your company’s Facebook page, create a list of guidelines for posting to ensure that your brand standards are being followed.

• Use “mentions” to help build your fan base. Post some recognition to other companies (think: congratulations and thank-you’s) that also share your target market. When you tag them correctly, these mentions will display in their fans’ news feeds, which will point new users to your company’s page.

Besides real-world tips, Deluxe Rev also has fascinating statistics to share (these are from a 2011 Buddy Media Study):

• The best length for a post is 80 characters or less.
• The best times to post are early in the morning or late at night.
• Thursday and Friday seem to be the best days of the week to post, although there are specific days that are better for specific industries (those are included in the ebook).
• Simple call-to-actions in your posts are most effective at encouraging participation (Like this…, Post this…, Comment here, and Tell Us).

However the biggest revelation is the importance of Facebook’s feature the News Feed. Social Media Strategist Ekaterina Walter of Intel says, “News Feed Optimization (NFO) is the new Search Engine Optimization (SEO).”

Those are powerful words, and they could not be truer. Facebook’s algorithm for determining what posts end up on News Feeds takes into account page popularity. Simply stated: If you have more fans interacting with you (Likes and Comments on posts) the higher your chances are to be included on your fans’ News Feeds. This is all the more powerful when coupled with this statistic: 70% of fans will not see Status Updates due to this algorithm. Yes, landing on the News Feed should be the number one goal of your Facebook strategy.

But to get on the News Feed, you first need a Facebook page. And to get started, we recommend Deluxe Rev’s “REV Up Your Facebook Marketing: A Guide for Small Businesses.” This ebook will give you the tips and techniques necessary to optimize your Facebook presence (and get on that News Feed), plus it includes some great case studies, too.