Content Marketing is here to save your Facebook page
Facebook is controlling promotional content that brands post excessively, since a year now. Facebook is trying to keep a watch and restrict the posts that push FB users to enter contests. They will be included under the umbrella of practices worth penalizing.
Facebook pages that blatantly ask for likes and comments or have spammy strategies to market their brand won’t be considered worth excusing. Using FB for business is getting tougher day by day. The only hope for your doomed FB page is to create impeccable, top quality content for marketing. Your content should be such that it should attract users due to its quality.
How do you rock your FB page with attractive content and content marketing strategies? This is how you can do it:
Custom Images – Do the Magic of Grabbing Attention
With tons of data on Facebook, more engagement is expected and observed. According to research images get 120% more engagement than text posts. Our brains love images as they get stimulated with images. In a sea of text what catches grab your attention are pictures as they stand out.
Presentation is important especially when you are marketing a product/ service. Imagine if someone presents you something in an ordinary plastic bag and instead someone wraps it around a gifting paper with a ribbon. Of course the present wrapped in a gifting paper is special to you.
In the same manner your FB message looks great when you create customized images complementing with your content. Images are a great way to catch attention as the users love them, they are eye catching. If you have an apt content or headline to match the image, the message you want to share is quickly perceived and accepted. The action needed occurs immediately. If you check Barnes & Noble you will understand books that have attractive covers sell quickly, while others end up on stock clearance rack.
Creating attractive images matching your content is easy. There are tools online that make it easy to craft these images.
There are 2 free tools that you can use to create content specific images:
Canva
Has many backgrounds, 120+ different fonts and stickers to collect and curate high quality images. It is the easiest way to create images. You have to just click and drag the elements you wish to use. These free tools come as a bonus, but there are plenty paid tools too. You can use Canva layout designs according to the social media platform you want to share these images on.
Get Stencil (Formerly Share As Image)
This provides less customized options as compared to Canva. But, it is pretty faster than Canva. It has feature heavy interface. The method is easy; you find a photo you want to use, open the Get Stencil app in the browser you use, and just click on it. You can create several text boxes, text size, colour and fonts. The paid version has many advantages as it allows free stock photos, pre-designed templates and you can add your logo too. Its pretty easy to create these images for your content. Give these options a try and see more users getting engaged on FB page.
Pay to Promote Your Posts
Honestly, when you upgrade and start to promote your Facebook page through sponsored posts or paid posts, your posts get much better visibility and reach. No matter how much you hate to hear this, it is a fact. Choose a post you wish to promote, set up a budget, target your chosen audience and then you have taken off. This means the post reaches precisely targeted audience. This keeps the cost down by targeting select audience and engagement is high too. When users engage with this post, this posts is read and seen by their friends creating an impact and organic visibility.
Preview Image
You can create custom social media image that would help for better engagement with the audience, matches your content and is seen along with the image. Always set and choose preview images so that you know how an image is going to look like when people share the content or your post on Facebook. If you are running a WordPress blog you get an opportunity to set image which can appear along with post which is shared by users.
Leverage From a Recent News or Trending Topic
Facebook is focusing on the timeliness of the content shared. When you share a news at the right time, it can certainly boost the reach of the post. So share content that is news worthy and one which is likely to be in news; yes, a hot topic. For example, someone has received an award or about a function like Grammy awards, Oscar awards. It can be some controversy that has been getting attention everywhere. You can always keep an eye on trending topics on Facebook and align your content accordingly.
Short is Simple
If you are linking anything on FB, you don’t have to post the entire post. Shorter posts are preferable to longer ones. When you keep your FB posts up to 250 characters you get around 60% more engagement. Just stick to the main gist of the content, what is your content about and why it is important.
Using The Cover Photos
If you have some awesome content, why hesitate to promote it. Create a Facebook cover photo to showcase new content that you love. This is a banner space that you should never miss using.
No Sales Pitch, PLEASE!
Facebook dislikes overtly promotional posts. Brands with fan pages should not post promotional content, always. If you wish to promote a service or product you better opt for paid posts. People who have been using Facebook for promotions have been debating, ‘Is Facebook marketing dead or burried?’ Some of them believe that Facebook has separated promotional content from quality content that users are keen to read and follow. They believe there is quite a good change that we observe on Facebook. Many business people are struggling to adapt to this change. It is a challenge. But, some are pushing to take to creative storytelling and experimentation. Smaller companies find it quite a big challenge to adjust as compared to bigger businesses, as they have all the resources to create content unlike smaller businesses.
But, undoubtedly great content is being created and shared on Facebook.
Exclusive Content Brings a Special Feeling for Your Fans
Post content and images that are made exclusively for Facebook fans and not shared anywhere else. Everyone wants to feel important. Facebook fans should feel that they are part of a special group, they are getting a best deal and thus they can take advantage of your offer.
You have written an article on ‘How to leverage from excellent content’ add two more lines and share it on Facebook. Something that you don’t share anywhere else and it is exclusively for your Facebook fan page followers.
Retrospect and Repeat
Observe what works out, repeat it. Once you know the formula that works for you, things get easier.
Facebook is doing its bit to improve user experience. Users are also done with reading promotional stuff. They want to see something interesting as they land on Facebook. It is telling businesses that users want to feel educated, delighted and interested.
This might look like dark days for brands but, it is the age of quality content and make the most of this era which is camouflaged under this darkness; a bright age of quality content.
Tags: content marketing facebook fan page how to social media
