Facebook 2020 Guide: Marketing and Strategy for companies

Today I have collected 10 keys that will help you improve your Facebook strategy with your Fan Page. In this Facebook Guide, we summarize the most important steps to take advantage of this social network and not waste time as many companies do. We have to have clear objectives if we want our strategy to be profitable in 2020. I Aabhas Vijay from www.smtpservers.co tell you about the hidden FB strategies that no one is talking about in 2020. So let’s dive in.

Hello, today I want to share with you this Facebook Guide that we have prepared. We summarize 10 very important keys to succeed and make the activity of your Facebook Fan Page profitable. A series of points that will help you not only to increase your community but also to actively participate in the promotion of your brand and become your best ambassador.

Managing Facebook pages is an important part of our  Marketing Strategy, and these are some of the points we recommend in class as essential. Unfortunately, there are many companies doing it wrong and losing money on Facebook. That is why it will be especially important to have a clear growth and loyalty strategy.

10 Keys to a Facebook Strategy:

1. Share and create Content of Value

Simply reporting does not add value and does not generate participation in social networks. Many companies jump into creating pages and make the mistake of filling their wall with commercial content without offering anything new. For this reason, your communication on Facebook must have valuable content that is close to your fans, a content that in addition to being useful, invites them to share with their friends. A strategy designed and developed as recommendation marketing.

When publishing, think as an audience and share valuable content associated with your brand, but at the same time, be content that invites reflection, opinion and dialogue, and above all that invites you to share with your friends.

Value Content Types:

• Photographs (recent, past, old, emotional, etc.).
• Drawings, illustrations and graphics (that inform, shape concepts or generate empathy).
• Videos (tutorials, documentaries, testimonials, explanatory, fun, etc.)
• Information about the origin of the brand or product,
• Video or images about the «making off» of your brand or product.
• Screencast, podcast and interviews.
• Audio and music files.
• Challenges, surveys, riddles, hobbies.
• Tricks, formulas and recipes to get something.
• Guides, templates, practical and useful information, etc.

You can also share more extensive content in the form of a manual or a catalogue but associated with your blog or your website to redirect traffic to them. But in all cases, the way of communicating that content should invite the participation and opinion of your followers.

2. Get off your wall and participate in other Fan Pages and Groups

Facebook is the biggest Forum in the world, and guess what: they are not all on your Fan Page. If you want to grow and actively participate with users in your sector, you will need to get outside your Wall. Don’t focus your strategy only on Page and then don’t blame Facebook that it doesn’t work for you.

The interaction between Fan Pages is very interesting from a strategic point of view. Participate in other pages similar to or related to your sector and relate to them and their followers: give your opinion and add value. If possible, leave a few interesting comments. In one sentence: let yourself be seen.

By participating in other Fan Pages you will, in the first place, capture the attention of new users, make yourself known. And secondly, you will have the opportunity to interact and interact with other brands. As our 22 Referees told us in their advice for Community Managers, the network is for Competing but for Sharing. And the visibility of both parties on other pages is very beneficial.

Example:

This is a participation action carried out for a company with which we collaborated for some time. The action is carried out on our Facebook page and on more than 10 computer-related pages. We spoke privately with them and we proposed the game to them, to which almost all agreed in very good taste. On all the pages the users gave their opinions and we created conversation. We gained followers those days and brand awareness.

3. Get the most out of Segmentation

By applying segmentation, you can increase the effectiveness of your content because you can make the same publication and adapt it with small changes and direct it to different sections of your fans and make it appear that it is content designed specifically for them. Facebook offers you several segmentation criteria to choose between: age, emotional situation, language, interests, type of education and geographic location; with which you can adapt variations according to the public that you are interested in highlighting or informing.

Trick:

In order not to bore your entire audience, once the content with different segmentation was published, you can hide the previous publications (by clicking on the tab in the upper right of each publication), in such a way that on your wall you only see the publication that you want, while your audience sees segmented, personalized and tailored publications.

How is segmentation done in publications?

I’m going to explain it to you in a simple way: first, it is important to know that when we create a Fan Page, segmentation is not activated. To activate the segmentation, go to the “Edit page” section at the top of your administrator panel and click on “Edit settings” and once in that panel you have to select and activate “Publication privacy”.

To see if it is correctly activated, check if, when writing a new publication, a new symbol appears, between the clock-shaped button and the locate button, in the form of a peephole, which is that of the segmentation. By clicking on segmentation you can program your publications with different audience criteria and send each segment a different and adapted edition of the content you want to transmit. 

4. Check the time and publish on past dates

It’s a good resource to add additional content to your brand’s timeline when you need it. The publications are ordered chronologically according to the date and time you give them and they will increase the TimeLine of your brand with the difference of days, months or years past. This helps to reaffirm your brand on Facebook, giving the impression that it has had a presence on Facebook for several years, even if you have just opened your Fan Page.

How to post in the past?

Well, it’s very easy. Let me explain it quickly: To write in the past tense, the first step is to change the start date of the page. If you do not do it previously, you will not be able to use this option, and of course you will not be able to publish with dates earlier than the one you have now. To modify the date, go to the administration panel and enter  “Edit the page”,  click  “Update the page information”  and edit the “Start information” option  . We can choose the type of start and adapt it: opened, foundation, birth, launch, etc. And then you write and the exact date: year, month and day that you prefer as your departure date.

From then on you can publish in the past tense. If you go to your wall, you can click on the clock button and select the option to “assign a date before the publication” . There you can post with a past date.

Trick:

To prevent your fans from being notified of a post in the past, click the “Hide” option,  this is important! and the content will be automatically placed on the date you have chosen without appearing as a new publication. Keep in mind that this is the trick, increase your own story, without your fans receiving all the updates. 

To take advantage of this advantage of Facebook, you can include in your  Fan Page the valuable content that you have been collecting for years and that you couldn’t publish in the past. You can convert the information you have on paper, documents, manuals, publications or photographs into digital format and take advantage of them to increase your history and enhance your brand. It is a way to have a fantastic and renewed content marketing for your Fan Page.

5. Schedule your posts in the future

You can also schedule future posts with a maximum interval of up to 6 months and 15 minutes between each post. You can organize in advance and distribute the content at the time of the day that suits you best. Take into account the time difference between countries or continents, you will get them to see the content at the most appropriate time for your community.

The scheduling of publications is essential when it comes to offering content at the appropriate times for your followers, especially if your brand has an international presence, or if, for example, you must make a publication at a specific time and day in which you do not you can do it live. Keep in mind that by segmenting and applying the correct programming, your fans will receive the publication at the most appropriate time to encourage their participation.

It is important that you also know that when you want to view or correct a scheduled publication, you can do it from the Activity Log,  you can review, change the time or delete pending publications, but you cannot edit them. To access, click on “Edit page” and “Use activity log” and voila, there is the record of your activity in the past and scheduled publications in the future.

Advice:

For the best times to share with your audience, check the statistics . In the publications section, you will see a detailed graph for days and times in which your community is most active. Also remember that on Facebook it is better to post in the afternoon, but not exactly on Sunday. 

6. Encourage participation in your Fan Page

At this point, your main objective, from now on, will be to get new fans and users to participate with your brand. How is it done?  And what works best? The answer can be given by all of us, Facebook is a social network where, in addition to friends, we seek entertainment and where creative actions that give people a voice fit best.

Advice:

One way to generate engagement is by asking your fans questions. Always ask! You should not only share information. When making a post, you should give your users the option to complete or reply to your posts. Develop your creativity, ask them for their opinion and propose challenges to involve them, to invite them to participate and to listen to them.

Actions that make your brand recognize as a friendly, close territory are also very successful. Ask, play, encourage, participate, inform, speak, answer and start again. Create close, entertaining, even fun content. Measure its impact on statistics and rehearse, until creating a dynamic that makes your publications more effective.

Example:

A participation action created for our friends and followers of our Fan Page. In record time they had to recognize and comment on the different tools on the bottle labels. The winner obtained a symbolic prize.

 Content:

If you need inspiration and see how other brands present on Facebook do it, surely you will get an idea for your brand among the  101 Facebook Participation Actions  that we have for you and for all those who need to consult them. 

7. Link the on/off line of your Fan Page

In order for you to achieve a complete diffusion of your brand, it is necessary to link, whenever possible, the online and offline part of the company. It is true that each one can be used by itself, but the interrelation in many cases enhances the effectiveness of each one.

The most typical mistake for companies on Facebook is to carry two parallel worlds. The first people your Facebook actions have to go to are your real customers and your offline community that already knows you. They are your ambassadors and you have to involve them. How are strangers who don’t know you anything going to participate?

It is not just about creating a Facebook logo on your cards, in advertising or in the window of your store (if you have a physical location). The ideal is to show the user what they can find on your page as value-added content or as a place of participation.

Advice:

Create exclusive content for your Facebook fans. If a user finds in your Fan Page a content of new value and different from what you offer in your store, or in other social networks, they will enter, they will join your community. If the content you share is interesting, it will start to participate and share the information on your fan page through their participation and their comments.

8. Use images in your campaigns

Images are another important part of Facebook communication. Lean on the images because in addition to making your publications more striking, they have the advantage that they cross the borders of language.

Images can also help encourage participation, unify your corporate image, and can even help develop your own brand style.

Tips:

Do not forget to always place a reference about your brand (a logo, your web address, etc.) in your images, so that one shared outside your circle of followers and reaches the home wall of users who do not know you, can find your mark as the source of the content. Whenever possible, create your own graphic content for your brand.

Means:

In addition to  Photoshop and its different versions, there are alternative image editing programs such as Photofiltre or  Gimp . Also if you prefer you can choose free online tools to edit images such as Photovisi,  iPiccy,  Sumopaint , Pixlr, Picmonkey,  Picmagic . Also on the web, you can find hundreds of applications for computers and mobile devices that allow you to edit, improve or apply creative filters to your images. Most of these applications are easy to use and allow you to make collages, create effects or add text to your photos.

Example:

Participation action prepared for the second day of class with the new group of students of edition 7 of the Community Manager course. The publication invited all students to get to know each other better and to mention each other. The publication and fostered the rapprochement among the students who had just met.

9. Use Facebook ads to promote your page

Facebook has worked hard in developing its Facebook Marketing department so that all the brands present in this social network can promote and promote each of their publications, promotions or events in many ways.

Facebook could be the best platform to do segmented marketing campaigns . Facebook is a very complete database, due to the amount of precise data that users offer regarding origin, age, tastes, interests, studies, places visited, residence, etc. This well-used data is an incredible target audience specific search engine and, based on this, you will be able to create ad campaigns aimed at a very precise audience.

On Facebook, you can also advertise in many ways and boost your publications, as you are interested.

Ad types:

• Likes of a page.
• Interactions with page posts.
• Clicks for your page’s website.
• Conversions on your website.
• Installation of applications for your page.
• Interactions with your applications.
• Responses to events
• Discount Coupons and Offers.

All these variables can be done through Facebook Ads and adapt to the one that suits you best for your page at any time. Facebook also makes it easier for you to make announcements and campaigns with advanced development of statistics of all the publications in progress and those finished. It also offers different degrees of monitoring with budgets easy to adjust, reactivate or stop, as you want.

Advice:

Instead of creating a large campaign with a single budget, create multiple campaigns by dividing the budget. Create ads with different audience segmentations (ages, interests, gender, etc.) and evaluate according to the statistics which give you a better result. So you can generate more successful campaigns in relation to the audience you want to reach. 

10. Schedule and schedule your publications

Before publishing on your page you must take into account the best days and times to do so. As I have advised you in point 5, it is important that you check the statistics of your Fan Page. It is vital for every brand to know what are the days and times when their community is most active and most receptive.

To this end, it is recommended that you create a calendar in which you can develop a weekly and monthly action plan , based on frequent and organized publications that allow you to create a rhythm. These publications should be according to your followers, their tastes, the profile of the audience you are targeting. Scheduling and organizing your posts will help you accustom your fans to the presence of your brand on Facebook.

Sometimes it is important that you include prominent cultural dates related to your country or the city of your brand. This calendar will allow you to prepare in advance the specific actions for each date.

Advice:

Posting and sharing quality content at the right time can generate much more impact, more engagement and a sense of belonging in your community than any other content. And all this translates into a higher participation rate and greater visibility for your brand.

101 Creative Actions on Facebook

Through it we see several examples of creative actions that any brand can apply to encourage participation on Facebook. It serves as a cheat sheet for the students and for you to come up with ideas for your Fan Pages. All students apply these and other actions on the Fan Page that stimulate the course. I hope that you also have many ideas and that your community will like them. 

Conclusions of a Facebook Strategy

If the content you publish on your fan page is valuable, creative, different and invites participation, you are on the right track. If the content you publish is also timely, it is well targeted to your community and you have scheduled it to be published on the days and at the right time, you will have many things in favour. Remember to check your statistics and always listen and respond to your audience.

Author Bio

Aabhas Vijay is a digital marketer and blogger. You can reach out to him on his website on SMTP servers where he discusses the loopholes in email marketing and transactional emails how to overcome that.