Facing the Inevitable

With Facebook closing in on a billion members, it’s no longer a question whether or not grocers should have their own Page on the network representing their business. The problem is, now everyone has one – including your competitors.

However, Facebook has recently enhanced the functionality of its Pages and offers tools you can use to make your Page truly stand above the rest.

Facebook’s marketing team has provided PG TECH with some tips on how to enhance your page to really drive customer engagement. Here they are:

• Upload an eye-catching cover photo: The new Cover Photo feature was designed to capture the culture and essence of a brand and can showcase its products – and it’s the first thing people will see when they visit your page. The cover photo on Lexus’ Page features its new futuristic 2+2 coupe LF-LC concept vehicle, has generated a ton of buzz and drove a 200 percent increase in unique page views on launch day, according to Facebook. You can change the Cover Photo as often as you like to keep the page fresh.
• Use a clearly branded profile picture: This is the smaller image inset in the Cover Photo, and is the best spot to use a picture that visibly identifies your business. Since the profile picture is the icon that represents your Page on other parts of Facebook as a thumbnail (such as in ads or news feed), use a simple but high quality image (such as a logo) that people associate with your brand.
• Add milestones to the Page Timeline: Businesses can now take advantage of larger photo, video and link stories to visually engage fans. To ensure fans see important posts, feature them on your timeline so fans can engage with the post after it has left your news feed. Milestones can also be used to define key moments in your company’s history. Red Bull created “Timeline Timewarp,” a scavenger hunt contest that led fans through its brand history, which resulted in increased interaction with the new milestones in its timeline.
• Pin a post a week: You can anchor the most important story to the top of your page for up to seven days to there is less of a chance your fans miss it. TurboTax is using pinned posts to make sure its fans see updated FAQs. As a result, Likes for the post were 257 percent higher than average and comments on the post were 100 percent higher than average.
• Arrange Views and Apps: Your photos and custom apps will appear at the top of your Page and can be reordered at any time. You can also create custom thumbnails to highlight content – whether it’s events or custom-built apps for specific products or promotions. Sprinkles Cupcakes is a good example of a business that displays custom photos and apps at the top of the Page.

To get the most from your Facebook page, be sure to manage it regularly. Facebook has simplified its Admin Panel with a high-level dashboard where you can edit content, track new activity and view Page Insights.

While these tips come from Facebook, it’s the Facebook members who are the ones who develop innovative ways to use the social network’s tools. We’d like to see what cool things you’ve done with your Page. Send me an overview of your Page innovation at [email protected]. If it’s truly unique, I’ll feature it in a future issue of PG TECH!