Creating a Social Media Plan {day seventeen}
Welcome to Day Seventeen of the Write 31 challenge! If this is your first time stopping by, head over to Day One to get started from the beginning, and now on to Day Seventeen…
Yesterday we talked about Facebook’s algorithm and I know many people are very frustrated by Facebook and the feeling that nobody even sees what you post. I truly believe you can get your content see and get traffic to your blog from Facebook if you are willing to commit to putting in some effort for a little while. So let’s talk about some tips for being successful on Facebook!
-Create Facebook Interest Lists. These Interest Lists operate very similarly to Twitter Lists and can help you manage the pages you follow. Genuinely interacting with other pages can bring new traffic to your page.
-Invite engagement! Post things that ask your followers to jump in and get involved. Post questions, ask them to share articles, ask your followers to vote, anything that gets them involved. Involvement = shares, comments and likes which equals a higher reach.
-Facebook prefers square and horizontal pictures (totally different from Pinterest!) and I wouldn’t put a picture with every single post.
-Use the built-in scheduler on Facebook. Even though you might use a third-party scheduler for Twitter and other social media platforms, when it comes to Facebook they want you to keep everything in house…so use their handy little scheduler to make that happen!
-Shorten your links (you can do a quick Google search for link shortening tools)…I’m not sure why Facebook prefers shorter links, but they do!
-Facebook gives preference to pages that post consistently. It’s fine if you only want to post once a day, but do it consistently.
-Track engagement to see what kind of posts your audience likes…do they engage more with pictures, links, statuses…keep an eye on what type of posts they like and make sure you share more of those!
-Facebook posts have a shelf life of about 2 hours so don’t post more often than that to avoid overdoing it!
Making a Plan
Download the Facebook Printable and then we’re going to use what we’ve talked about over the last two days to put together your Facebook plan.
Tasks to Complete Daily –My best suggestion for what to do daily is to find 20 minutes a day (I usually do 10 minutes in the am and 10 in the pm) to schedule your posts and interact on Facebook.
Best Times for MY Audience – Unlike all of the other social media platforms we’ve talked about there actually just might be a rhyme or reason to when you should be posting…and Facebook will help you out! If you head over to your page and click on Insights and then Posts you should land on the When Your Fans Are Online page. Study the Times chart because it will tell you exactly when your fans are online…if you see a spike at 2pm (one of my highest times) then post at 2pm! If you see a spike at 10am, then post at 10am! When I look at mine I can also see that I have more people online at 10am Saturday then almost any other time of the week, so I should be posting at that time! Study your insights and jot down some of the times that seem best to post on your FB page.
Growing my Facebook Following – Use this space to jot down any ideas you have for growing your Facebook following. You’ll find ideas from the previous post and any other posts or tips you’ve read about Facebook. In the next week or two, jot down more ideas and then at the end of the month we’ll settle on a few to try.
As I mentioned earlier, what you write down on this printable is simply your rough draft…we’ll be finalizing details towards the end of the month…so don’t stress too much about having it perfect right now!
If you have any questions about this, please feel free to leave them in the comments below or email me at girlonthemoveblog01 {at} gmail {dot} com
What questions do you have about Facebook? How have you used your Facebook account to drive traffic to your blog?
15 Comments
Janelle @ Run With No Regrets
I am going to be starting a Facebook page for my blog soon and it just seems so HARD to really master…but I think it’s a great tool! Thanks for the tips. Will have to figure out the link shortening!
jmdenouden@gmail.com
If you type “link shortener” into Google a few really easy options will pop up right away!
Patty
Visiting from SITS Sharefest. I appreciate the facebook tips. I didn’t know about all the useful hints. I find this platform my least favorite so I know I need to work on better interaction on my page. Thank you!
Nichole@ Budget Loving Military Wife
Also visiting from SITS Sharefest. Thank you so much for these tips! It has been quite frustrating that Facebook shares my posts with only 10-20% of followers! I will be implementing these tips! Thanks again!
jmdenouden@gmail.com
Don’t feel bad about the 10-20% engagement….even some of the really big bloggers only get that level of engagement :/
Patti
Great post. I’m still working on growing my facebook page like everything else. I found a couple new things here ie long urls are bad. Thank you! Found you at SITS Sharefest
cuteek
Great tips thanks. Last weekend I did my first Facebook ad, I was very happy with the results and it’s brilliant for getting your content to people who want to see it.
Yvonne I. Wilson
Visiting from SITS sharefest and happy to be here. These are some really great tips. I have a facebook page for my blog and was especially not aware of the 2 hour shelf life for posts. I will consider these tips to make improvement. Thanks for sharing.
jmdenouden@gmail.com
Glad it helps!
Nicola
Do you ever pay to promote your posts or attract new followers? Thanks for all the tips
jmdenouden@gmail.com
I don’t pay and there are so many reasons why, but the biggest reason is that I don’t think it brings in followers that will be engaged with my content. I would rather have slower growth but have followers that engage, click, share 🙂
V
Great post! I’ve been going back and forth for ages about whether or not I should delete my Facebook account. I get so frustrated with it all. You’ve actually managed to convince me that it might be worthwhile to rethink my strategy.
V
Life+1
Kirsten
All of these are great FB tips. Pinning these because every blogger should know these tips and use them to their advantage!
jmdenouden@gmail.com
Thanks for pinning!
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