Facebook Content Tips

We get a lot of requests for "quick tips" for Facebook. This is such a general question that it is difficult to answer; it depends on the business and what the business is trying to achieve through use of Facebook. Though the best approach is to think through (1) the brand message, (2) the target audience, (3) the competitive landscape and (4) how success will be measured, and then craft a custom approach to strategic messaging and execution that is truly on-brand and differentiating, for those that need some very general "quick tips" for engaging content/posts on Facebook, here you go:

• Conduct quick testimonial interviews with your clients/customers with audio, video or written words and share these on Facebook. Be sure to embed the link to that person's profile with the @name so that their networks are also exposed to the story. Set a schedule for doing this (i.e., once a month) so that followers start to look for the content on a regular basis.
• Use a lot of photography, especially “behind-the-scenes”-type images and personal perspective photos; anything that followers couldn’t experience on their own. Photos tend to generate a lot of interest. Set goals for the number of photos you want to post on a weekly/monthly basis.
• Engage your fans/followers by regularly using the Facebook "ask a question" tool to poll them about your business, their preferences or a timely event.
• Create custom messages that mention key Facebook users/pages in the posts (be sure to embed the link to that page/person profile with the @name) that are relevant to them in an effort to start a conversation with them. These posts will automatically notify them of your post and they are therefore likely click through to investigate and ultimately respond to you, exposing you to their followers/networks as well.
• Profile of employees and customers. People love to learn about other people. And social channels are all about sharing personal information. The profiles can take a multimedia approach: video, audio, photography, text. Profiles should call out the local efforts and outreach of employees and customers. Using customers will also help drive the social channel follower/fan base as they will reach out to their friends and families to share the profile.
• Pay attention to what is getting shared, liked and commented on. Do more of those things.
• Respond to comments.
• Learn the ins-and-outs of the new Facebook Timeline for pages. Here are a few: select a great cover photo, "pin" a different post each week that you feel is the best story/post for that week and star great posts, hide those that are not garnering as much interaction.

Always ask yourself: would I be interested in this content and want it to show up in my Facebook news feed? If not, don't post it.