Five tips for small businesses on posting to Facebook

We're all guilty of it...

Getting caught up in the hustle and bustle required to keep things ticking along on a day to day basis. 

Distracted from the ever growing to-do list and unexpected phone calls. 

So much so that our social media accounts like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram often get neglected; left to whither away in the shadows until we can dedicate the 'required' time and attention to post.

When you finally get around to posting, the build up of what has been overlooked can lead to a splatter gun of posts or just 'chucking something up' to keep things ticking along.

With this in mind, I thought I'd share some of the tips and considerations we employ when posting on social media and how to avoid the pitfall of 'posting for posting's sake'. 

We envisage this, along with a few other posts in the works, acts as a resource or checklist you can refer back to when the time does come to post.

1. Consider your target audience:

The key questions we often ask ourselves here is "what would our target audience like to see?" and "would I, personally, engage with this content?". 

Another way to approach this is think about yourself. You're invested in the purpose behind your page - for your business, sports club, charity or personal cause - so you're already convinced. But what would you want to see if you were following your own page without being involved?

A good example of this the handful of sports organisations pages we assist in managing. Here, it's important to show what makes the organisation or club unique, both visually and in terms of the 'theme' of the posts. This includes posting both updates and news from a wider perspective, but also providing insight from that grass-roots level as this is where a lot of the followers come from and have interests in.

2. Don't try to curate the perfect post:

This one we're incredibly guilty of, including writing this very post. Continually editing, tweaking and refining content, text or images until they're perfect - which they never will be in our own opinions.

But often, someone else won't notice that you haven't written about 'that' section, or that image doesn't have everything you want on it.

It's important to make sure the post is thoroughly proofed and relevant to your page, but if we always wait for the perfect content or opportunity, we may never post at all. People follow your page, particularly small businesses, because they want to support what you're doing or their values align with yours. They don't expect ground breaking developments or viral memes every post, so it's often better to get content out there than sit on it for weeks or months.

3. Keep posts within the 'theme' of your page:

While we're a fan of memes, it's not a great idea for a charity page to be posting 24/7 memes (despite some absolute classics).

It's important that when you are posting, that both the content - but also importantly the way that posts are written - match the overarching theme of your page.

For example, with the sports clubs, it's often important to have an upbeat, positive focus when announcing updates such as results, news and upcoming events. For not for profits, it's important to highlight the great work you're doing in the community, but balanced with an empathetic tone. Small businesses need to keep that professional approach, but not so generic that posts lack substance.

Keep in mind here again who your target audience.

4. It's okay to share from other pages, but put a spin on it:

We see this one a fair bit, sharing straight from another page with no insight or engagement.

Your followers have chosen to follow your page, they like you and what you're doing, and they want to support you.

With this in mind, when sharing posts - we recommend trying to add in why it might be relevant to your followers or why you've chosen to share it - from either a personal or professional perspective.

5. KISS (Keep it simple...)

There's often an abundance of information we want to get across, including all the details of a certain event or all the important facts regarding a latest study, for example.

All the current rage is about keeping things simple, and engaging from the get go. For mediums such as video, the first 5 seconds and keeping things from 30 to 90-seconds.THIS ALSO DOESN'T MEAN USING CAPITALS AT THE START OF EVERY POST TO GET ATTENTION!

We find that starting with a short and catchy headline, followed one to two paragraphs of important text is often really well received. As per our bonus tip below (the secret is out), if there is additional information to get across, think about how this can go somewhere such as a website or external document - and provide this link for followers who do want to learn or engage further.

6. BONUS TIP: Make use of your website

As above, and informing our next post in this series, a lot of us small businesses have a website and often struggle on generating content to keep it updated.

This post itself is a great example - I could have easily written all this in a Facebook post. But in the fast paced, ever-scrolling world we now live in, our team believe in providing the opportunity for people to discover more on their own.

Make use of avenues such as your website to provide further information. If nothing else, we see this as a great opportunity to further engage with potential clients, customers or partners.

Much like a good Netflix series, if a visitor clicks through to your website to read one post, then stumbles across another or perhaps your latest work, services or updates and decides to get in touch or follow through - this is great. Make use of those websites!

In summary:

1. Consider your target audience;
2. Don't try to curate the perfect post;
   
3. Keep posts within the 'theme' of your page;
   
4. It's okay to share from other pages, but put a spin on it;
5. Keep it simple; and
6. Make use of your website.

We hope you've found some, if not even one of these tips useful for a page you manage.

As mentioned, we often hear from the social media administrators involved in not-for-profits and small businesses that they're just never sure what to post about - so our next topic will likely be a inspiration list of things you can post keep your online and social media presence ticking along.

If you liked this sort of blog post, feel free to drop us a comment via our Facebook page or Twitter. Thanks for reading!