Welcome to episode 309 of Hit the Mic with The Stacey Harris.
All right guys, time to answer one of the most common questions I get. This comes up all the time at Hit the Mic Backstage. It comes up all the time at speaking events, when I work one on one with people. It’s hands down, top five most common question. That’s how to actually get seen on Facebook. How do you actually get eyes on your content, on your value? It can feel kind of like you’re screaming into the abyss, like you’re yelling into either a very crowded or a very empty room, depending on the day. I want to talk about actually getting connected. Actually getting eyes on your content. We’re going to talk about the three things you must know about getting seen on Facebook.
The first one is a “what not to do,” because what happens is people tell me, “You know, I’m not getting any traction with my page. I can’t get any sort of reach. No one’s seeing it, but when I’m posting to my profile, everybody sees it. I get so many comments. I get so much engagement, and so that’s where I post, or that’s where I go live.” Here’s the deal, and I’ve said this before, but there’s always somebody who’s listening that hasn’t heard it yet, and I really want to make sure that you guys don’t get dinged with this. Stop doing that. Here’s the deal. It is against the terms and conditions, that thing you agreed to without reading- we all do- on Facebook, to use your Facebook profile, so the place you have friends, not page likes but friends. That’s your profile. It’s against the terms and conditions to use that, and this is a quote, “primarily for commercial purposes.”
Here’s the thing, though, guys. Facebook gets to define what “primarily” and what “commercial” mean. It’s not up for debate. Although you think your once a week blog post is not promo, or the once a week when you go live is not primarily, Facebook might. Especially if you start getting people marking your stuff as spam, or with any sort of negative feedback. When you’re using your profile to connect with every single person who sends you a friend request, or you’re going out and trying to collect an amass of friends based on your groups and things like that, you’re more likely to get that negative feedback, which is more likely to bring you to the radar and attention of Facebook, and you doing these things.
I get e-mails all the time from people telling me, “I lost my account.” Or, in some cases, “I got a warning and now I can’t participate in groups or whatever.” If you want to keep your account safe, you have to follow the rules. To do that, you’ve got to use your page. The only time you are cool doing any sort of marketing or promoting using your profile is inside of groups, because you can’t use groups as a page, something that I kind of actually like, but that’s a whole other talk for a whole other episode. You’re cool there. You still want to be using it the right way. You still want to be sort of … You don’t want to be gaming the system with it. You don’t want to be mass posting a ton of just useless stuff. You want to be providing value, and we’ll talk more about that next, but if you’re doing any sort of status update to a page or a profile, if it has anything to do with your business from a marketing perspective, it needs to be on your page. It’s not open for discussion. It’s not up for debate. It’s the way it is, so just do it. All right?
Make sure that you are, again, using your page, not your profile, to market. It’s mandatory. Let’s move on to number two. Quality matters more than quantity. It can seem like Buzzfeed, and The Today Show, and Starbucks, and these massive brands are posting multiple times an hour, so why shouldn’t I? Isn’t that how I keep up? Here’s the deal. They have a lot more content to share. They have a much larger audience. You’re likely not getting everything from them in your news feed, but you don’t necessarily have that same amount of content, or that same size audience. Although you should be posting consistently, I like to see most businesses, and again, this is going to depend on your niche, and your page size, and things like that. I like to see two or three times a day on Facebook, as sort of my general rule of thumb. Again, that’s going to depend on your strategy, but sort of as a general rule while we’re talking about this, two to three times a day.
Those should be two to three quality posts a day. They should be things worth seeing, worth engaging with, worth spending some time consuming. If they’re not, then people aren’t going to engage with it, and it won’t matter how many times you post a day. It’s not going to get delivered to the news feed. Quality matters. The same is true with your group engagement. We talked a little bit about, I mentioned briefly about making sure that your posts in groups, which is the one place you get to market using your profile, we’re not spammy and we’re not gross. That’s really important. If you’re going to use this space, make sure you’re really using it. Make sure you are giving it the time and energy it deserves. You are, again, not gaming the system by spamming five groups and copy and pasting the same marketing message right across them, because guess what? We notice. We see it. Admins are starting to get notifications from Facebook saying, “Hey. This might be spam.” Group members are getting more and more comfortable reporting these things. Make sure you are focused on quality, focused on value.
Quality and value don’t mean you never make sales messages I am a big believer that a sales or a promo post can be just solid packed with value, solid packed with community building, consumable information. In fact, those are the promos that get clicked. Those are the promos that lead to sales. Those are the promos that work. Make sure, even when you are selling, you are focused on quality, you’re focused on value, you’re focused on community building. That’s really going to be the difference maker when it comes to a “Yes, I engage with this,” or a, “No, I don’t engage with that.” Quality matters everywhere. In your groups, on your page, all of it.
When we talk about quality, I don’t just mean your status updates. I don’t just mean the content that you’re sharing from your website. I also mean the curated content you’re sharing. Your profile setup. Your cover image. Make sure you’re using those descriptions. Your call to action button. Make sure it links someplace that works. Make sure that you are giving the attention to these tools that they deserve. If you want them to work, you have to take care of them. It’s really that simple. It’s that cut and dry.
Number three. Investing is not bad. There seems to be this thought that the only way that it makes sense to do Facebook ads is if you can kick somebody to a sales page, or kick somebody to a landing page that’s going to put them in a funnel for a sales page. That’s not true. Some of the most lucrative ads I have run have actually been before a big ad campaign, when I was just promoting content, because A, they made the ads that I posted after that as a part of the actual campaign land a little softer. People sort of were aware of who I was before I got there with a “Hey, come join me.” Also, they increased engagement on the page. They got some extra attention on targeted pieces of content. It did grow my e-mail list. In some places, it took people right to jumping into the membership site. Investing isn’t a bad thing. Just invest wisely.
Make sure you have a budget. Make sure you know who your audience is. Make sure you have a clear picture of what your goals are. I really suggest building in to your expenses, into your business books, a Facebook ads budget for each and every month, not just the months where you’re launching something new. Investing isn’t bad. Investing is how we grow. It’s in how we make more money. What is that cliché? It takes money to make money, or something? You’ve got to spend money to make money? Something like that. Show up. Invest, but do it wisely. Don’t just hit the boost button on every third post because you know, “Well, hey, I got a bigger reach so that worked.” No. Know where you want them to go. Know why you’re posting this.
If it’s a focus on, “You know, I just want to get straight up more engagement on the page so I’m going to boost this all text, engagement-driven post so that we can start getting some better engagement on the page. I’m going to do this twice a month. Yadda yadda yadda. It’s also going to be coupled with some dark posts for a cold audience to drive attention to the page, and also drive attention to this piece of content that’s really valuable. There’s an opt-in there that leads to a trip wire, so that will sort of lead them to a sales funnel.” Do you see how it wasn’t, “I’ll just hit the boost button and that will get more eyes on it”? It’s a part of an overall strategy. Take the time to build that. Take the time to invest in it. Spend the money. It’s a great way to get seen. This is a business tool.
I think that there is this illusion with social media that it’s a free marketing tool, and that it’s just fun, and if you just go on and you snap a few selfies, then you will have next day social media success. You know what, guys? I’m done. I’m calling bullshit on it. This is a marketing tool. It takes money, and it takes strategy, and it takes commitment, just like anything else in your business does. Yes, a lot of what you can do on social media, a lot of the ways you can market your business on social media are straight up free, but they work more effectively when you show up to the table with a little bit of scratch, with a little bit of investment, and a whole lot of plan. A whole lot of strategy. All right? All right.
I’m getting off my soap box, but that’s what I wanted to cover today. Again, number one, use your page, not your profile. Number two, quality matters literally everywhere. Number three, investing is not bad. It’s good. Do it. It’s awesome, but do it smart, not just for the sake of spending money, which I don’t think anybody really wants to do, but when you don’t have a plan, that’s kind of what happens.
All right. If you are ready to take the next step in your Facebook game, you want to see actual results, you want to build profitable groups, you want to run ad strategies that actually work, because there’s actually a strategy, you want to make sure your page is set up to maximum benefit, join us backstage. Hit the Mic Backstage is the place to learn all things social, but a lot of the most popular trainings are Facebook-driven. Not to mention, once a month I do profile reviews, which means you can get my eyes on your profile and I will do a video review and tell you what to fix, and tell you what you’re doing really well, because sometimes it’s easy to think we’re not doing anything really well. I do this too, guys. I know.
Join us, HittheMicBackstage.com. The community is growing and getting better every day, and I can not wait to welcome you. I will see you guys on Tuesday.
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