Connecting with People on Facebook

I attended a fascinating webinar presented by Jannelle Watson with Facebook.

The following are my notes from her session.

She separated her discussion into four different areas; the basics, the tools, content strategy and resources.

The Basics

• You need to be on a Facebook page not a profile
• 218 M active every month
• 166 M return every day
• 156 M use Facebook on mobile every day
• 90% of discovery happens on mobile.  Optimize for mobile.
• Use simple vertical images and graphics, and remember, less is more! 
• Ensure page security.  Set strong passwords, two-factor authentication.

 The Tools

• Comment moderation.  Comment policy, profanity filter and page moderation.
• Facebook Live - most engagement.  10x the comments while Live.
• Live Premieres - schedule and debut on-demand videos as Live moments.
• Facebook Groups - you can tie it to your page.  A great resource to continue conversations with select attendees.
• Events - tool used to promote your events.
• Messenger - send important messages to your subscribers or use to set auto responses.
• Messenger Rooms
• Stories - show your personality.  You’re at the top tray when your people sign into Facebook.  You can use it to interact with your members.  Remember, your story goes away after 24 hours.
• Facebook and IG ads - paid advertisements vs organic reach. 

Content Strategy

What Works?  Make sure it’s authentic, interactive, timely and consistent and varied.

• Authentic - make it feel personal and a connection to the community;
• Interactive - answer questions from your members, go Live, like and reply to comments and tag other pages;
• Timely - discuss hot topics, breaking new (i.e. press releases or program deadlines) and write quality long-form content.  This can be cut and segmented and promoted on Twitter; and
• Consistent and varied - develop a content calendar (for a previous blog post on that subject go HERE), post regularly, aim for daily posts and use a variety of post types, photos, videos, stories, links and Facebook live.

Resources

• Google Facebook Resources
• Fundraising tool for 501 c3’s only
• Facebook speakers are free
• Facebook Live Producer
• Facebook.com/gpa - has everything she talked about
• Facebook Help

Great tips to take advantage of this social media platform.

Auditing Your Social Media Strategy

What social media outlets are you using to connect with your members?

Do you have an official review process in place to make sure you’re spending your resources wisely, based on where your members are spending their time online?

Don’t guess, do your homework and get the analytics to make the right choices.

I recently came across a great article that talks about this subject matter and basically states if you’re not using Pinterest, your members might be missing out on a great opportunity to grow their business.

As mentioned in the article, most folks are spending their resources on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

For an article on the Top 7 Pinterest Categories go HERE. 

For an additional blog post by Hubspot on the Ultimate Marketing Guide to Pinterest go HERE.

I think it’s important to keep our eye on the trends, study what works best, and implement that strategy, based on a yearly review.

As I’ve said before, I’m a fan of less is more!  At the end of the day, go where your members are spending their time online.

For a great resource on conducting a social media audit for your organization by Hootsuite go HERE.