Welcome to episode 314 of Hit the Mic with The Stacey Harris.
I’m really excited today because I’m going to empower you to really look at your Facebook page objectively. I’m going to walk you through the three things that I really want you to be doing whenever you assess what’s happening with your profile on Facebook and by profile I should say page because remember we’re using our Facebook pages for marketing and not our Facebook profile. Basically I’m going to teach you to DIY a Facebook page review. I love, love, love talking about reviews. We actually do them once a month inside of Hit the Mic Backstage.
Every month we do profile reviews so members leave me a link and we review absolutely any profile. Basically, what I’m going to do is I’m going to walk you through the steps I take and the three major things I look for. There’s definitely other things I look for but these are the three biggest missteps I see people making and so I want you to DIY yourself an objective look at your page. Okay? I want you to look at this and look at this from the perspective of somebody else’s view, how it would look to a potential customer, how it would look to a potential client, a new lead, somebody who doesn’t know who you are, doesn’t know what you do and has just found your page or maybe they just got to your page from your website but they are not super clear on who you are. Ready to jump in? DIY Facebook page review.
All right, up first we’re going to start right at the top of the page with your graphics. With the new Facebook page layout rolled out over the course of the summer, I say over the course of the summer because seriously they trickled out to people but pretty sure everybody has it now. With the new review, you see we have a larger unobstructed cover image. We’ve got our profile photo which is also a little bit larger to the left and then we have a massive call to action button. I want you to look at these three pieces first and foremost because here’s the real talk, that’s the first thing anybody sees.
It’s a huge, huge opportunity for you to connect with your audience, for you to connect with the people who are landing on this page. Make sure that that image is an image that tells me who you are as in an image of you if you’re a personal brand. If you’re not, a very clear logo or a team photo something like that. The thing to consider though is the bulk of the time that I see this image is going to be after I hit the like button and when you share status update or when I see an ad from your page. Make sure that as good as this image looks in this, air quote, “full size,” make sure it also looks good in the smaller size which you can get really clearly in looking at that status box just under the like button where you would post the status.
That gives you a better idea of what it’s going to look like in the feed. It looks good both ways. It’s eye catching both ways but make sure again it’s you, okay? Especially for those personal brands. Most of you listening to the show are freelancers and coaches and any infopreneur space or providing services and when I buy something from you or I hire you for something, it really is about you so don’t hide. Use that photo space to connect, okay? Also with that photo, make sure that when I click on that photo, the description isn’t blank. Point me somewhere. Learn more about theStaceyHarris.com/about, that’s what mine says because I want to use every opportunity to drive them away from Facebook and to my website because Facebook is distracting.
My website is fairly focused on what I want you to do. Make sure that you’re taking every inch of real estate that you get to point them some place, to get them to do something. The same is true with that cover photo. Again, we have a large, unobstructed cover photo. I’ll actually put the sizes in the show notes of the episode down the resources section so you can actually create these. Canva is a great way to do it. If you have Photoshop and the expertise to use Photoshop, use Photoshop. I often create quick ones in Canva.
In fact I just recently created one for the new free podcasting training that I’m offering. That’s the cover photo now and guess what? I made that cover photo in Canva. If you look at the show notes page for this episode and you look down at the opt in at the bottom Facebook ads, I created that in Canva. Don’t think you have to hire a designer. If you do not have the wherewithal to do that or the connections to do that, don’t let that be a barrier to prevent you from creating something or really using that space to drive something somewhere to drive traffic to taking a specific action. Use that space. You can absolutely create something simple in Canva. You can actually create something really gorgeous in Canva or yes, hire a designer it that’s what you want to do. Use the space. Okay? Use it.
Then, make sure that that cover image ties in with that call to action button so for example, as I mentioned, the free podcast training is what’s in the cover image on my page right now. When you hit that sign up button it takes you right to the actual lead page that you sign up for that training in. See how clever that is? It really is about making it a no brainer for people but also the description for that cover image also includes a link to that same lead page. If someone clicks on the cover image, I’m still able to point them to where I want them to go. I’m still able to get them to take the action that I want them to take. It’s not about over-complicating this.
It’s not about making this more difficult than it needs to be. It’s about keeping it really simple and really clear. Here’s a free podcast training. Sign up. It’s that simple. You can do this with an opt in before I had the podcast training up there I had just a straight up promo for Backstage. It said, Hit the Mic Backstage and then there’s a little [blog 00:07:05] about what it is and the cost and then there was that sign up button. Again, super, super simple but tie it together. This is such a common misstep so really use these three pieces in conjunction. Really use these three pieces to be a really strong initial touch point for you and the person looking at your page whether a lead or a potential client …
A lot of you are speakers. A lot of you are building JV partners, an affiliate income. When people look at whether they want to hire you to speak, when people look at whether they want to partner with you, when people look about whether they want to have you on their podcast or have you write a guest post for them, these are the things that we’re looking at so make sure you have your house in order and that initial touch point is so important because not a lot of people are going to scroll real far. Some people may literally only engage with that image that’s in your profile, that image that’s in your cover and maybe your like information or that first post or two that you have on your page.
Maybe sure you’re using this real estate. Okay? Number two. Don’t forget your about information. Again, especially when people are looking at hiring you or they are looking at hiring you to speak or they are looking to purchase something from you, they are digging into who you are. Maybe you’ve wet their beak and they are excited and they want to know all the things, they might actually venture into your about area. Make sure that it’s updated. We actually did a profile review several months ago now in Hit the Mic Backstage and I was talking about the about area for somebody and I went and showed them my about area as an example because they hadn’t filled theirs out at all.
I realized and I probably shouldn’t tell the story but I’m going to. Mine was horribly outdated, horribly outdated. I referenced programs that didn’t exist anymore. I didn’t have any mention of Backstage which is a huge part of my business. I had to go through and update it. Make sure you do that especially when you’re DIYing your Facebook page review. This is a good time to clean the house so make sure the phone numbers are updated, the address is updated if you have a physical space or a mailing address. Make sure that your descriptions are current, your links are current. Make sure all of that stuff is there and easy to consume for your clients or potential clients and all of that.
Edit that page info, check out that about area make sure it’s up to date. Yes, this is a mistake I’m totally teaching you guys out of experience. I was so embarrassed in doing this for review but you know, I’m all about transparency guys. That’s what happened. Also, make sure that you have regular times to go check in with this stuff. Make sure that you go in and update this information whenever there’s a change. Recently we moved from Arizona to California and so I need to update the address because our mailing address is different now because we have a California mailing address now. My phone number stayed the same but my address has changed so I need to update that there. Make sure that you do that stuff.
All right, we started with our cover images and profile images then we talked about our about area. The third thing I want you to evaluate is your actual content. The best way to do this is not to scroll through your post and look at that reach number. That is not the best way. What I want you to do is I want you to actually go into your insights. I want you to actually go in and look at your reach and your page views and your likes and how people are engaging with your videos and your post and the action people are taking on your page. The people who like your page, are they your target demographic? Because if they are not, then you’ve got a whole bigger problem you need to deal with.
It’s not going to matter how good a page is, how engaging your post are if you’re talking to the wrong audience, jump into your insights and actually look at these things because no profile review is complete without looking at the analytics. This is something that we don’t get to do when we do our profile reviews in Backstage and that’s why we have a how to use your insights training inside of Backstage because you have to look at these numbers. You have to see how your content is actually doing and that reach number or how many likes it got is not always an indicator of how your content is actually doing. Make sure, make sure without any doubts you’re looking at these insights regularly and really digging deep into them whenever you’re doing a profile review, whenever you’re breaking down your page and its ROI and how it’s performing and how it’s delivering as far as part of your marketing strategy.
Okay? The things I really want you to pay attention to is I really want you to pay attention to the people and making sure that you’re talking to the right people. Don’t only look at who your fans are made up of but also look at that people reached and people engaged because often just because your fans are totally on track you’ll find that the people reached are slightly off track. The best example of this that I’ve got is I had a client who booked a one on one call with me and she didn’t really understand her insights. We dug into her insights together and what was really interesting is in looking through her insights she was telling me this is who our target market is and I don’t feel like this section of them are really on Facebook.
I think they are out of the age range. When we looked at it in fact, not only were they a huge section of the people who like the page, they were the most engaged of the audience and the most commonly reached but they had kept writing content that was to a demographic that was a little bit younger because they were so convinced that they weren’t able to reach this older age group on Facebook. When in reality, that’s exactly who their Facebook audience was. Knowing who this is, knowing who’s engaging with your page, who’s actually seeing the content from your page, who actually likes your page, it’s going to be hugely informative in how you write your copy, the kinds of call to action you create and how you use it.
Because oftentimes you’ll find that you’ll reach two sections of your audience but you don’t reach them in the same places. You reach them in different networks or you reach them with different copy. Pay attention to that. The other thing I want you to look at is I actually want you to look at your content so actually look at your post not only will it tell you when your fans are online and the post types that are doing well but you will actually see all your post published down below and you can look at the type of post it was. If you did any targeting with it, the reach of it, the engagement. What I think is interesting here is play with some of that targeting, customize your audience especially if you’re one of those groups that’s again talking to two different maybe age groups with the same page.
Maybe look at, “Hey, this isn’t going to speak to that group so let’s target to this smaller demographic and then we’ll have another post that we target to this other smaller demographic instead of one post that tries to speak to all the people.” Then you can go look at these numbers and you can see what performed well, what connected with people. You can see what types of content or posting from the perspective of a link or video or a photo. You can see the topics that are really connecting so use this information to really, really look at, “Hey, this is what’s actually happening.” Not just the reach, not just, “Oh, this is how many people Facebook tells me this post actually gotten in front of.”
No, look at how they are engaging with it. Look at all of the information. You can actually click on the post and you’ll get even more information like the likes, the likes that happen on the post versus shares, comments, comments on the post versus comments on shares, shares on the post versus shares from other shares.
You can also look at clicks. You can actually see if people are clicking the links because often they won’t comment or like a post but they will click on the link and in a lot of cases that’s the goal. You may think, “This didn’t performed really well. It got a big reach but no one is engaging with it but everyone clicked the link,” not everyone necessarily but a lot of people clicked the link so it did performed well. Okay? This is why digging into the insights is so important because that’s not information you’re going to get from just looking at the front of your profile and saying, “Oh it reached 2,000 people, fantastic.” Okay? All right. That’s it, that’s really what I wanted to pay attention to. The front end, make sure that top of your real estate those graphics are on point.
Make sure you keep your about area updated and make sure you are regularly digging into your insights. If you have more questions or you want my eyes on your profile, be sure to join us Backstage. This is the exact kind of stuff that I built that community to do. We do have an entire training on how to use Facebook insights which is hugely popular and not used by enough of you so come check it out. All right, hitthemicbackstage.com to see how you can join us inside of the community and check out the brand new … It’s not so brand new anymore I guess but I’m still really excited about it, the really cool private community right inside of our site.
Okay. I’ll see you on Friday.
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