Facebook is an excellent tool for promoting your business. However, the world's top social network has recently been getting a lot less love from its users for limiting the reach of their content. Facebook may have purposefully curtailed its users' organic reach, but somewhat makes up for it with a handful of features, that when used together, significantly increases your business visibility. Surprisingly, many people overlook these features and consequently miss out on the benefits they offer.
In case you are among the users who don't get maximum visibility for their business on Facebook, here is a brief rundown of each one and how your business benefits from them.
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List your website and Facebook page in the About section of your Facebook profile. Just so there is no confusion, I am referring here to the About section of your profile, and not the one on your page. When you pull up your Facebook profile, you'll notice a prominent section on the right, just below your profile picture.
Your career and education, as well as some other personal information, are summarized here. If you haven't done so yet, bring your mouse to the first item in this box (it will most likely be your current and immediate past employment). A small pencil icon will appear on the right side of the listing.
Click on the icon and add your business website and Facebook page URLs as your current employer. Save all changes you make and you will now see these links in the About section of your profile. The links are prominently displayed and allow anyone who views your profile to quickly jump to your business website, blog or Facebook page. -
Let people follow you. This, too, is a feature of your Facebook profile. Facebook sets a 5,000-friend limit, but lets you have all the followers you want. So, go get yourself some followers! Click on the down arrow at the upper-right corner then click "Settings" in the resulting menu.
Then click "Followers" on the left side of the Settings page. This brings up the Follower Settings page. The very first item here is "Who Can Follow Me," which defaults to "Friends." Change this to "Everybody" so that even people who are not your friends can follow you. Talk about extending your reach! -
Share your page posts on your profile. And here is yet another tactic that makes use of your profile, and for the simple reason that Facebook personal profiles get much more visibility in people's newsfeed than pages. But even as you share your page updates on your profile, your page name continues to be very visible on the post and that's a good thing for your branding.
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Get a group going. Facebook groups feature their own set of user dynamics but in general you will benefit from starting a group for your business. One of the most attractive features of groups is that they allow you to cultivate and maximize relationships through group chat. Groups also offer you more control over content than your newsfeed and you can boost engagement by posting files, hosting events and conducting polls.
All of these features are common, standard but can be tedious to execute and monitor, so you may prefer to use more well-known techniques. Just remember they are there, hiding in plain sight and waiting to be used to extend your reach. You have the tools. Go for it!