How to optimize your Facebook business profile for value and lead generation

At the start of every new year we see a spike in social media activity and incoming questions about how to be more successful in social media. A lot of these inquiries come from business people making new year’s resolutions to do a better job of managing and engaging with their customers via social media. Knowing this season is just around the corner, we’re going to walk through a practical, up-to-date series on how to maximize your social media profiles to generate more leads and greater profit.

In the second installment of this social media optimization series, we’re going to talk a bit about maximizing your Facebook business page. These nuggets of wisdom are specifically focused on the business profile, but a significant portion of them can also apply to your personal page. We would suggest applying them where applicable.

1. Develop a content strategy and publish content
2. Choose a professional profile photo and cover photo that is on brand
3. Choose the right profile name
4. Create a strong vanity URL
5. Complete your profile with accurate and keyword rich information
6. Include your phone number and address on your Facebook page
7. Offer a call to action
8. Get reviews of your business or product
9. Add services to your profile

1. Develop a content strategy and publish content
Facebook business pages allow you to publish content to your own feed as a status update, or comment on the news feed of other users or businesses. Taking advantage of both of these options can be a very powerful resource for growing your Facebook audience.

On your own Facebook business page you can include status updates about your business, new products, product deliveries, company culture and anything else relevant to your brand. We would suggest staying away from using your Facebook business page for personal updates. Keep your content professional and interesting. Posts with questions, surveys, and contests tend to get more engagement than “look at me” posts that only talk about how great your business or product is.

Take advantage of your ability to comment on the profiles of your fans and other businesses with whom you have a relationship. Give a client kudos on their Facebook page or thank a customer for a thoughtful comment or interaction. Using this feature shows that your business is paying attention and cares about its customers and vendors.

2. Choose a professional profile photo and cover photo that is on brand
As with any social network, the selection of your profile photo is critical to the success of your page. Selecting something that is interesting, professional, and engaging is much more likely to get clicks and attention in search or when showing in the news feed of other Facebook users.

Also, always have a professional cover photo. Take care to make sure it is uploaded and properly fits the space on all devices. Cover photos display at varying crop sizes across devices, so test on your phone, tablet, and desktop to make sure that critical text or images are not being cut-off.

3. Choose the right profile name
Selecting the right profile name is incredibly important. The name of your profile will help determine if and when it shows up within search on Facebook and in search engines. The more words you have, the more diluted your title will be. Try to be as brief as possible while fully describing your business. If you have multiple locations in varying cities it is usually helpful to include the city name in this title. If you are known by a particular trade or brand name, use that name on Facebook, because that is what people will be searching for. We have seen many companies make the mistake of setting up their Facebook page as something like “Smith Inc.,” when they’re known to their customers by a product name such as “Some Product.” It’s no surprise that they struggle to be found.

4. Create a strong vanity URL
Creating a good brand URL will help both the appearance of your page in the browser and your ability to be found. Much like selecting the right profile name, you will want to create a strategic vanity URL. Your vanity URL should be used in all marketing so that users have a friendly and consistent address they can type in to find your page. Keep it brief. You may want to shorten what you used for your profile name and use that. If you can, include the keywords a user would search to find your business.

5. Complete your profile with accurate and keyword rich information
There is a great deal of information you can provide when filling out your Facebook business page, and many of the elements contribute the findability of your page. Make sure that you have a profile photo, cover photo, about me, short description, address, website, phone number, hours of operation, and really anything else you can fill out.

When selecting a category make sure that you choose the appropriate category for your business. These categories impact how your information is displayed. If you’re a local business you will likely want to list as one so that your fans can review your business. If you have multiple locations you will likely want to register as a company page.

When completing your profile information pay special attention to the “About Us” and short description sections. These sections provide visible information to users, so they need to be well written and detailed. These areas also provide information to search engines (including Facebook’s internal search), so including important keywords users might use to find you is extremely helpful.

6. Include your phone number, address, and website on your Facebook page
Your address, phone number, and website address are used by many different search engines and tools to recognize your business information.

Adding this information will improve indexing within Facebook, while helping other services and spiders understand that this Facebook page belongs to your business. In addition, it will help users contact you once they’ve discovered your page.

7. Offer a call to action
Facebook offers a call to action option that allows users on your page to take the next step in engaging you. We suggest creating a call to action on any Facebook page. This will insert a simple button that a user can use to easily interact with your page. There are various types of calls to action available including sign-up, book now, contact us, use app, play game, shop now, and watch video. When someone clicks a call to action button, they can be directed to the appropriate page or service to take action.

8. Get reviews of your business or product
If your Facebook business page is in a category that supports reviews, we suggest contacting past customers, friends, and colleagues to leave reviews for your business. Focus on finding good, relevant reviews that describe the value you provide to your customers.

9. Add services to your profile
Not all Facebook page types are offered a services tab, but if you are a category of business that receives this option, make sure you take advantage of it. Include each of the services you offer with a detailed description. You are offered a limited character set, so include user-friendly and keyword rich descriptions. This will help users and search engines better understand who your business is and what it provides.

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This list certainly doesn’t cover everything that you can do to your Facebook page, but implementing the strategies listed above will go a long way towards improving the quality of your Facebook business profile and its chances of showing up in search engines.

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