How often do you get a hair cut? Or, if that doesn’t apply to you, how often do you change the oil in your car?

If you want to look sharp and well-groomed, you may get your hair cut every 5 or 6 weeks like I do (I have short, fine, straight hair that looks sloppy if I don’t get it cut every month). If you want your car to run smoothly you probably get the oil changed every 3,000 to 6,000 miles (depending on who you listen to).

via GIPHY

Well, it’s the same with your social profiles. I recommend you do a review or “social profile audit” every 3 months or so to make sure your business is represented exactly as it is right now. You could call it a social tune-up if you wish.

Today, you’re going to review, update, and optimize your Facebook Page profile. If you haven’t updated your Facebook Page in the last 3 months or so, it’s time to take a hard look at it and make sure all key information is up to date. You want to make sure your Page reflects your current business and direction for the coming year.

NOTE: If you don’t have a Facebook Page set up, you can do a similar review on your Facebook profile. If you have a business or you’re an author, I recommend you set up a Facebook page ASAP. Here’s a thorough guide from the folks at Buffer.

This audit is focused on information that doesn’t change very often. It’s not about the status updates you’re posting every day or the ads you’re running. It’s about the info people see and seek when they land on your page and want to find out more about you.

Let’s get started.

First, you need to know that Facebook recently changed how Pages are displayed to your followers. You now have the ability to arrange how the content is displayed on your page by changing templates under Settings > Edit Page. The templates you can choose from depends on the Business Category you’ve chosen for your business. For example, for my page, Adventures in Visibility, I’ve chosen Consulting Agency and the template for Professional Services.

Depending on what you choose, you may or may not see the same options for optimizing your page, as I’m talking about here.

Tell Your Story in the About Section

Click on About (#1 in the left sidebar under your profile image)

• Review each field on the Page Info (#2) [hover over the right side to each field to see the Edit link #3]
• Is every field completed with the relevant information? You have a lot of room to tell your story.
• Is the information up-to-date? Has anything changed in the last few months? 
• Do you have a call to action and link in the descriptions? You can include links to your lead magnets in the short and long descriptions and general information
• Do you have contact info?
• Is there a link to your website?

Optimize Your Visual Branding

There are two important images you want to give thought and care to:

• Your profile image. Is it a recent headshot or business logo? If the headshot is ancient (more than a couple of years old), I strongly urge you to get professional headshots done and update your profile image on all your networks.
• The cover image. If it’s been more than a few months, create a new cover image (I use the templates on Canva). Remember to add a call to action on the image and link it to the Call to Action button. Consider rotating cover images every couple of months or when you’re promoting a new program or lead magnet.

For examples of cover images with calls to action look at The Blog Squad, BizEase Support Solutions, and Wellness Warrior.

Remember, every Facebook page will be different. When you edit the About section, you may not see exactly what I’ve described. 

If you have questions about optimizing your Facebook page, please post them in the comments below. Be as SPECIFIC as possible and include a link to your Facebook page so I can take a look at it. If you prefer, we can also work on it one-on-one privately.

The post How to Optimize Your Facebook Page Profile So It Makes a Strong Impression appeared first on Adventures in Visibility.

As we all know Facebook loves to switch it up on the back end and keep us guessing, or that’s what it feels like. Really they’re trying to keep content that users know, like and trust front and center for them…improving the user experience is their goal.

What does this mean for business owners?

Of course we need to adjust our use of the platform to maintain the highest return for our marketing efforts.

Right now the posts that are flying around like hot cakes on Facebook are ‘link posts.’ These are any posts that you place a link into the post AND keep the preview. Let’s walk through this so your posts stay front and center in your audience’s Facebook news feed.

The Link Post

To get started type in what you have to say about your fabulous link, once your happy go ahead and paste in your link.

You’ll see the preview come up…don’t hit Post yet! This is where we can make all sorts of changes and really bring the post to life!

Customize Your Image

Take a look at the same image here, underneath the image you can see ‘Upload Image.’ You now have the power to change this. So when Facebook decides it is a great idea to pull in your Captcha image for the post you can fix that.

Here’s a few specifics for you, follow these measurements and get the most coverage. To get a full width image on both desktop computers and mobile phones your image needs to be 560 x 292 pixels. This will give you a nice big image on your post and you’ll stand out in the newsfeed!

Customize Your Title and Description

The next piece you can change, if you desire, is the title and description. One important thing to keep in mind is when users are on their mobile device they will only see the title. They will not see your description, so make sure you have awesome titles!

To change these elements all you have to do is click on them and the field will become editable. Your goal here is to peak viewer curiosity, which entices them to click your link!

[Note from Denise] Erin invited me to have a 20 minute Facebook Business Page makeover. We covered this tip during the Hangout and I showed how to do it on my page. The makeover is rich in tips on how to get more engagement on your page.]

There you have it, getting and staying in the Facebook newsfeed of your ideal clients with link posts. Get creative, have fun and stand out in new ways! 

Get Erin Tillotson’s free training, Facebook Rookie to Facebook Rockstar, and set your Facebook Business Page on FIRE!

The post How to Stay In the Facebook News Feed With One Simple Strategy appeared first on Adventures in Visibility.

Interesting to me was that Twitter and LinkedIn were tied. Google+ got only 2 votes which isn't too surprising since it's a very young network and no one voted for YouTube. That tells me most people use YouTube either 1) not at all or 2) as a secondary site for boosting visibiltiy and traffic. When I asked a similar question in 2010, Twitter came in second with LinkedIn well behind. So it appears LinkedIn is gaining ground as an important site for businesses to be using for their networking.

Of course there is nothing scientific about this poll. Asking one question doesn't provide a full picture of who and how businesses in my network are using these sites. The next questioni is: does your business cater primarily to other businesses (B to B) or to consumers (B to C)?

Another question might be: Are you getting results (traffic, leads, customers/clients, opportunities) from the time you spend on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn? How do you know?

Each network requires its own special form of attention to create visibility, attract new fans/followers/connections, and actually have meaningful engagement. 

In my experience, Facebook is the most challenging. With their crazy algorithyms, you have to work consistently and thoughtfully to build your fan base and get your content seen in their newsfeeds so you get the engagement that attract more fans and more engagment (I realize that's a long, run on sentence; it's how I sometimes feel about Facebook!). It's an endless cycle of experimentation. 

Last week I watched Amy Porterfield's excellent webinar on 7 Simple Strategies to Profit from Facebook Marketing. Even though I've been using Facebook since January 1, 2008, I learned quite a few cool tactics from Amy which I've been implementing for the last week. One tip – to ask simpler, short questions that require only one word answers – has increased "likes" and comments. Amy provided several examples which sparked some ideas so I'm going to post questions on a weekly basis. I'm also using more pictures with my status updates even though it takes a little more time to find an appropriate image. The result is a lot more visibility and therefore interaction, in the newsfeed.

If you haven't watched Amy's webinar, I highly recommend it (Pre-recorded and available daily through December 18). You'll get a lot of immediately actionable ideas. I also purchased her FBInfluence product and am impressed with the depth, detail and delivery and resources. It's way underpriced at $97.

Another recommendation for increasing interaction on your Facebook page, is to check out this article by Andrea Vahl on Social Media Examiner: Top 10 Facebook Apps for Fan Engagement and Building Community.  Andrea outlines a couple great apps for acknowledging your fans (Booshaka and Fan of the Week). 

By the way, Amy Porterfield and Andrea Vahl, along with Phylls Khare, are co-authors of the definitive book on Facebook for business: Facebook Marketing All-in-One for Dummies. You've got plenty of ways to learn about how to master Facebook for your business!

Back to my question above, if Facebook is your primary social network for business, are you getting the results you want and how do you measure/track that? 

The post Facebook Continues to Dominate as Social Network of Choice appeared first on Adventures in Visibility.

In an impromptu webinar on Facebook, Mari Smith shared a link to a white paper by Buddy Media about Facebook's EdgeRank algorithm and what you can do to consistently show up in your fans' news feed. I addressed a few ways in my post 6 Ways to Engage Your Facebook Fans. However the white paper goes deeper and explains EdgeRank which is a mystery to me.

The white paper (you have to opt in to get the download link) shares 10 tips with examples on how to optimize the content on your page giving you a better chance to stay in front of your fans.

With nearly 700,000,000 users on Facebook, it's a good bet your ideal client is hanging out there at some point during their week. If they are looking for and getting content they want on social networks, then you need to be strategic to get their attention so you're not wasting your time and effort.

The white paper will give you some ideas about what type of content you can create to get noticed. Then, you need a plan…

To create a plan, you need to be clear about the goals of your business and what outcomes you want from your business page.

Generate leads?

Build community?

Drive traffic to your blog or website?

Establish your business as a go-to resource in your industry?

Next, what type of content will help you achieve your goals? Certainly you'll want to mix it up using text, multi media like images and video, and directly engaging with those who actively comment and like your content.

Always, you need to be clear about what you want people to do: like, comment, go to your blog, download a report, etc. The key to staying visible in the news feed is to have engagement and action on your content. With some experimentation, you'll discover where you get the most action (remember people like to talk about themselves and their experiences so take that into account when crafting your plan!). For example, without fail, Brag About Your Blog Day always gets hundreds of comments and likes and shares. It's a win for my fans who get to promote their blog and I get to learn about what people are up to, what they're blogging about and yes, increase my visibility in the news feed.

My guess is though, that most small businesses do not have a Facebook visibility plan. Posting is haphazard at best and content is random (maybe that is the plan). While I support spontaneity and think it's important for getting time-sensitive info and current events in front of  your followers, it's also important to have a clear idea of what you want to achieve and know how you're going to get it.

Do you have a Facebook visibility plan? If you do have a plan, how's it working for you – are you achieving the goals you set for your business on Facebook?

If you don't have a visibility plan for your business, let's set up a complimentary strategy session and figure out the steps to get you more visibility for your business!

The post What’s Your Facebook Visibility Plan? appeared first on Adventures in Visibility.

5. Invite your fans to share links to their site/blog/fan page/twitter. My monthly Brag About Your Blog Day has become quite popular. Recently over 200 people bragged about and posted links to their blog. It was an awesome way to learn about what people are doing, what their interests are find potential JV partners and guest posting opportunities.

I just hosted another Brag About Your Blog Day and the results surpassed last month. Nearly 300 people posted links to their blog along with a short description about the topic of their blog.

This screenshot was captured about 24 hours after I initiated the event.

 As a result of this one day "event":

• Added over 130 new fans to my page
• Over 436 people clicked the link to my page in 24 hours
• Lots of people (I didn't count) tweeted about the event
• The post was shared on countless profiles
• I got a great testimonial from a former client
• Everyone was thrilled that they got to promote their site and said nice things about me which made me feel warm and fuzzy and happy! 🙂

You can do this too. It does not take a lot of effort and it's a lot of fun. I love seeing who shows up, what they have to say, and what they're writing about.

Here are the steps I took that you can easily model:

1. Come up with a clever hook. What can you invite people to share on your page? A picture? A link to their favorite xxxx? A link to their book? A tip on your topic? It's got to be about them for this to work really well, in my opinion.

2. How often will you host the event? I like making it a monthly (or weekly) event that people can look forward to. I started getting questions about when I was going to host the new Brag day. Since I'm actively engaged with the thread throughout the day, I prefer doing it monthly.

3. If you're creative or can spend a few bucks, get a graphic image designed to help draw   attention to your event. You'll be able to use it on blog posts, Facebook, twitter, your website.

4. Craft your copy and post it in the morning. I like to give BABD a full day of my attention (dipping in throughout the day). Be patience because due to Facebook's mysterious algorithms, you may not see activity right away. Click the like button and post your own comment to start the ball rolling.

5. Create a tracking link with budurl.com or bit.ly to use in your promotions so you can track your efforts. (click on the date/time of the post to get the unique URL for the post)

6. Let everyone outside of your Facebook network know what you're doing.

• Tweet about it (3-4 times thoughout the day)
• Post info to groups you belong to on LinkedIn and Facebook
• Got an email list? Send an announcement with a link to the direct wall post. This one tactic alone will net you new fans. In order to comment or like and contribute to the wall post, they have to like your page first.
• Post in discussion groups and forums you belong to
• Write a blog post

7. Participate. Once you start to get activity, pop onto your page throughout the day and "like" every single comment. Add a your own comments, respond to questions, thank people for playing. When you like and comment, a notification goes to everyone who has already commented. This brings them back to get updates AND increases your visibility in the Facebook News Feed (very important!).

8. Read every comment. I found a wonderful testimonial from a former client. That's gold so I did a screen capture with SnagIt in case I want to use it later. 

9. Follow up. Report on what happened. Feature some of the people you connected with. Write another blog post about your event.

Did I forget anything? What would you add for getting the word out?

A lot of people said they wanted to "steal" this idea. Hey, go for it! I don't consider it stealing. I'm sure I got the idea from someone else as well.

If you do host something like this on your Facebook Page, please let me know.

Need more ideas on how to boost your visibility on the web and attract more clients?
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This article was originally published on Biz Tips Blog.

The post 9 Steps to Create Visibility and Buzz on Your Facebook Page appeared first on Adventures in Visibility.